CHICAGO (RNS) — Harvest Bible Chapel, an embattled Chicago-area megachurch, announced this past weekend that the executive committee of its elders will resign. The resignations, which will take place over several months, came days after church elders fired James MacDonald, Harvest’s founding pastor. In a statement, the elders said they’d failed in their duty to properly oversee MacDonald, who was terminated for what they called “a sinful pattern of inappropriate language, anger and domineering behavior.” “We acknowledge failures in direction, discipline and response time. We, as the larger elder board, have made mistakes, and we own these,” they said in the statement, which was read during church services and posted later on the church’s website. The elder resignations are one of several changes that will take place in the weeks to come at Harvest Bible Chapel. Calling it “one of the most difficult weeks in the history of our church,” executive committee member Bill … [Read more...]
Harvest announces executive committee will resign, more changes after MacDonald fired
The newsletter for a church in Ohio …
The newsletter for a church in Ohio announced: “The youth group will present Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in the church fellowship hall at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.” … [Read more...]
Outreach Foundation
The Outreach Foundation in Franklin, Tennessee, has put together a Leadership Training Center in Tete Province in Mozambique. This is serving to train leaders in the Northwest Province where four pastors work with over 70 churches. … [Read more...]
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
“If there is a theme in what lies ahead for the church as we enter a new year, it is that the white Western Christian bubble that has powerfully shaped Christianity for the past four centuries is now beginning to burst. Future expressions of Christian faith will be shaped by its interactions with non-Western and nonwhite cultures.” – Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, author of “Future Faith: Ten Challenges Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century” and former general secretary of the Reformed Church in America … [Read more...]
SDOP disburses over $150k for 10 self-help projects
LOUISVILLE (PNS) — The Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP) has approved grants totaling $155,000 to fund 10 self-help projects in the United States and abroad. The national committee met recently to approve funding made possible through the One Great Hour of Sharing. SDOP enables members and non-members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to form partnerships with oppressed and disadvantaged people and help them achieve self-sufficiency. Self-Development of People committee members at La Mesa Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, N.M. (Contributed photo) The projects and grant amounts include: Dexter Linwood-Cordon in Detroit, $15,000 to transform eight blocks of vacant land in an underserved urban community into an urban garden and community green space. The project will assist the low-income group and its community residents by offering an aesthetic environment that brings members and residents together. Additionally, the newly created storm … [Read more...]
Shalom Farms & UPSem: Cultivating food for life
Since the late spring of 2017, five acres of Union Presbyterian Seminary’s (UPSem) land has been under the care and cultivation of Shalom Farms, a nonprofit dedicated to helping address issues of food justice in Richmond, Virginia. The seminary leases this land to Shalom Farms rent-free in a partnership that enables each organization to pursue its own mission in new and generative ways. The roots of this collaboration stretch back to early 2015 when UPSem’s president, Brian Blount, and Shalom Farms’ executive director, Dominic Barrett, began having informal conversations about the possibility of Shalom Farms using some of the seminary’s land to grow food. As a seminary alumnus and Shalom Farms volunteer, I helped spur these conversations. “We had long wanted to have a significant agricultural presence and operation somewhere in the heart of the city, but only if we could find land and an arrangement that met several key factors,” recalled Barrett. “We wanted a large plot, good soil, … [Read more...]
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