Does it do any good to pray at long distance?”

Recently I received an e-mail asking for prayer for a friend I had not seen in a long time. Jerry had routine hip replacement surgery and seemed to be doing fine. Two days later he had a massive stroke and was taken to a hospital intensive care unit in critical condition. After I tracked down his wife and son (they had moved since we had talked last), we had a prayer together over our cell phones. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

Afterwards, I remembered questions that my parishioners sometimes ask, "Does it do any good to pray for friends or members by long distance? Why do we pray for people overseas whom we do not know? How can such remote prayers be effective?"

When it comes to church membership numbers, the devil’s in the details

c. 2007 Religion News Service

The Southern Baptist Convention, with some 16.2 million members on the books, claims to be the nation's largest Protestant denomination. But the Rev. Thomas Ascol believes the active membership is really a fraction of that.

Ascol, pastor of the 230-member Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral,

Fla., points to a church report showing that only 6 million Southern Baptists attend church on an average Sunday. "The reality is, the FBI couldn't find half of those (members) if they had to," said Ascol, who asserts his own congregation attendance swells to at least 350 every Sunday.

Ascol plans to bring a resolution to the denomination's annual meeting June 12-13 in San Antonio, calling for "integrity in the way we regard our membership rolls in our churches and also in the way we report statistics."

Ordination standards required for minister candidates, too, says GA-PJC

The Permanent Judicial Commission (GA-PJC) of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has handed down a landmark ruling in the process of determining a case to be moot. In George R. Stewart vs. Mission Presbytery, the GA-PJC ruled in favor of the presbytery in its request to drop the case since the substance of the complaint was no longer an issue. Nevertheless, Stewart's essential complaint was upheld by the GA-PJC.

Blair’s legacy a matter of praise and regret, says church leader

EDINBURGH (ENI) -- The leader of the biggest Protestant church in Scotland has paid tribute to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process but criticized him for supporting United States foreign policy.

"Tony Blair's achievement in leading the United Kingdom for ten years is remarkable," said the moderator of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, the Rev. Alan McDonald, after Blair's May 10 announcement that he would step down as prime minister in June.

Accounting errors resulted in $1.4 million overstating of Hearts & Hands revenues

Because of accounting errors, the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign https://www.pcusa.org/joiningheartsandhands/ has overstated the amount of pledges it has received..

No More Deaths border workers receive human rights award

LOUISVILLE -- Two volunteers from a faith-based humanitarian group, who were cleared of human-smuggling charges last year, have won a human rights award for their work assisting distressed migrants along the Arizona-Mexico border.  

Shanti A. Sellz and Daniel M. Strauss, along with desert-aid group No More Deaths, received the Oscar Romero Award for Human Rights at a ceremony in Houston on April 22.

Presbyterian leaders in Arizona were instrumental in helping to establish the three-year-old Tucson-based No More Deaths, which is led and supported by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members and congregations. The group provides food, water, and basic medical care to illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into the United States through Arizona's treacherous desert borderlands.  

Churches launch “New Sanctuary Movement” for immigrants

CHICAGO (RNS) -- A coalition of faith-based groups on May 9 launched a "New Sanctuary Movement" to provide shelter for illegal immigrants and boost support for immigration reform.

By connecting immigrants who are facing deportation orders with host sanctuaries, the movement aims to provide a broad range of support for these families. Unlike their counterparts in the original 1980s Sanctuary Movement, many of today's immigrants have a physical shelter but still need financial, legal, and spiritual support.

US Muslims feel assimilated, part of society, Pew survey finds

New York, 24 May (ENI)--Muslims in the United States appear to have been largely assimilated into the broader US society, finds a new survey which also reports that nearly eight in 10 Muslim Americans overwhelmingly condemn the practice of suicide bombings. 

Still, the survey released this week by the Pew Research Center found that about a quarter of young Muslim Americans feel there are times when such bombings can be justified. 

Nonetheless, the picture painted of the survey - said to be the first comprehensive, national survey of Muslim Americans - finds that they are relatively happy in the United States and feel more a part of US society than Muslims who have emigrated to Europe feel about living in their countries. 

Zambian Catholic bishops warn president on constitution impasse

Lusaka, 25 May (ENI)--Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa is refusing to heed calls by the country's Roman Catholic bishops to break an impasse over changes to the country's constitution, which they see as vital to avoid a future confrontation in the southern African country. 

After the bishops in mid-May made their appeals, Mwanaswa urged Zambians to ignore calls for demonstrations over the constitution-making process describing them as 'a sheer waste of time and resources'. 

'The people of Zambia have spoken; they want a new constitution before the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections,' said a statement signed by Archbishop Telesphore George Mpundu of Lusaka, the president of the Zambia Episcopal Conference. 

French Reformed and Lutherans move closer to unity

Paris, 22 May (ENI)--Two French Protestant churches have agreed to start discussions with the aim of creating a united denomination by 2013 bringing together Reformed and Lutheran Christians.

'The French religious landscape has become very complex', said the Rev. Marcel Manoël, president of the national council of the Reformed Church of France (ERF). 'That complexity makes communication difficult.'

A joint 17-20 May meeting of the ERF synod and that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (EELF) in Montbéliard in eastern France voted almost unanimously to start a three-year process of discussions at the local level about the idea of unification, before proceeding to the next step.

Gay US bishop ‘not invited’ to world Anglican gathering

London, 23 May (ENI)--Openly-gay US Bishop Gene Robinson, whose 2003 consecration sparked controversy in the worldwide Anglican Communion, has not been issued with a formal invitation to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican bishops.

A spokesperson for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the Anglican Communion, confirmed to Ecumenical News International that Robinson was one of several bishops omitted so far from 800 invitations sent out electronically to attend the once-every-ten-year gathering.

In a letter to Anglican bishops released on 22 May, Williams said: 'I have reserved the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointments, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious divisions or scandals within the Communion.'

Seminarians and debt: Educational, future ministry choices affected

A student who stacks up thousands of dollars of student loans getting an MBA or going to law school may have a pretty good fourth-quarter plan: graduate and get a job that pays big bucks.

But a minister?

Studies show that students graduating from seminary are lugging away increasingly heavy piles of debt, and that in some cases concern over the money owed affects the type of position that person can consider taking after graduation. Someone who feels the pressure to pay off the debt may be reluctant to take a call at a small rural church that can't pay much, as the pastor of a new church development, or doing missionary work for a nominal salary.

"Certainly if there's a significant amount of debt coming out of seminary, that enters your call process with churches," said Ann Clay Adams, the admissions director at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga.

A new minister wonders: "Am I going to be able to pay my bills" on the salary that church can afford, Adams said. "The less debt that a student can graduate with, the more open they can be to all the calls that are out there," including those in small towns or rural congregations.

Moderator’s Philippines visit yields accounts of murder, mayhem

MANILA -- As the General Assembly Moderator Joan S. Gray looked on, Erlinda Manano -- speaking in slow, broken English, tears trickling down her left cheek -- recalled the day her eldest son, a 21-year-old Filipino activist and church worker, was brutally murdered.

An unidentified man gunned down Isaias Drummond Manano Jr., on April 28, 2004, "in cold blood," Erlinda Manano told Gray. She is making her first international trip since being elected last June, visiting church partners and congregations in the Philippine capital as part of a 17-day, three-nation tour of Asia. She also visited South Korea and Japan.

These days, serving God by serving the people can be deadly for religious and human rights workers in the Philippines.