People of faith build hope, homes on Gulf Coast

Tracking the itineraries of volunteers who have gone to the Gulf Coast is like tracking the progress of the recovery effort itself -- from the earliest days of providing for basic survival to more recent efforts to get people back into their homes.

"One of the greatest blessings we could receive is people from all over the country -- Presbyterians from all over the country -- sending work crews and staying in our building," said Cliff Nunn, pastor of First Church in New Orleans.

Volunteers cleaned the sanctuary, put up sheet rock, painted, drained the elevator shaft, and the basement. And when that was done, they started working on the neighborhood.

"We have collaborative relationships with the neighborhood association that we never had before," Nunn said. "We have an Episcopal church down the street that we barely knew existed, that we now have a very good relationship with. ... My whole ministry has been changed," as work groups venture out to rebuild houses of people living all around the church.

Presbytery of New Covenant set limits on scrupling

By a vote of 145 for, 75 against, and 4 abstentions, the Presbytery of New Covenant (Houston, Texas) approved the following policy at its August 22, 2006 stated meeting:

"The Presbytery of New Covenant in its discernment of the essentials of reformed polity and for the sake of preserving the peace, unity and purity of the church does adopt the principle that compliance with the standards for ordination adopted and held authoritative in the Book of Order shall remain essentials of reformed polity and any departure from said standards for ordination set forth in the Book of Order will disqualify a candidate for ordination or installation by the Presbytery of New Covenant.  Those provisions of the Book of Order deemed to be standards and therefore essentials of polity include those statements using "shall,"  "is/are to be," "required," "requirement," or equivalent expressions.  
 
This discernment of the essentials of reformed polity shall remain in effect until removed by a majority vote of the Presbytery of New Covenant."

Cohn encourages PGF gathering to confront world injustice

ATLANTA -- Every day, 25,000 children die of malnutrition.

A billion people have no access to health care.

Millions of children, with no one to care for them, live on the streets.

Women and girls are routinely sold for sex.

Across the globe 27 million people are being held as slaves -- the greatest number in history, a trafficking in human life and dignity that enriches the perpetrators by $13.6 billion a year.

Those are just a few painful statistics -- there are more, according to Sharon Cohn, vice-president of interventions for International Justice Mission, https://www.ijm.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=178&srcid=-2 a human rights agency that tries to rescue victims of slavery, violence and exploitation.

Faithful missions require balance between short and long term support, says Hestenes

ATLANTA -- It's become a staple for many congregations: the one or two-week mission trip, from which many Presbyterians return saying the experience has opened their eyes and changed their lives.

But Roberta Hestenes, an evangelical who has worked with World Vision International and traveled the globe on behalf of outreach to the poor, tempers enthusiasm for such mission work with practical wisdom.

She recognizes the value of sharing one's faith -- of connecting with Christians from other places and backgrounds.

But the balance between Presbyterians' sending long-term missionaries and congregations supporting short-term mission trips "has reached the tipping point," Hestenes told the Presbyterian Global Fellowship https://69.15.106.21/ August 18.

Thousands of congregations are sending people on mission trips, "or their own people are already going whether or not they have permission from any official anybody to be going," she said.

PGF considers challenges of Western mission efforts, next steps for organization

ATLANTA -- They're good-hearted Presbyterians -- serious about their faith, people who want to show God's love to a suffering world. But it's not as easy as just getting on a plane with a suitcase and a pocket stuffed with dollars.

In a religiously diverse world, in which Americans often enjoy prosperity and peace which others do not share, working in partnership with others can be a complicated thing. And those at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship https://www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org meeting August 17-19 -- a mostly white, evangelical crowd -- were challenged to temper their energy for mission with some hard thinking about realities that are not always comfortable to face.

Lucas de Paiva Pina, a Brazilian who is working with immigrant fellowships in Georgia, looked out across the room and said: "We need to put more color here -- yellow, black, red, all of them."

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has pledged to become 20 percent people of color by 2010, but still is more than 92 percent white.

Moving beyond old mission models: Global Fellowship meeting opens

ATLANTA -- Think of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as a lemon-colored rotary phone in a cell-phone world.

Useful in its time. Not right for now.

That was the image that Vic Pentz, senior pastor of Peachtree Church in Atlanta, used to kick off the first-ever gathering of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (https://www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org) -- an entity that he acknowledged is brand-new, is still taking shape, that no one is exactly sure how to describe.

But more than 800 people from 42 states have come to this meeting at Peachtree -- ready for something different, wanting to "move beyond the old model of mission, which is simply sending great gobs of money from the West to the rest," Pentz told the opening night gathering on August 17.

So he thunked the yellow rotary phone down on the pulpit -- and there it stayed, a visual clue as to what some say is not working with the PC(USA).

The church is called to go to the world, not vice versa, Dudley tells PGF

ATLANTA -- Even in the Bible Belt, fewer than half the people go to church. In Seattle, it's less than 10 percent.

And "what do the unchurched people think of us?" asked Scott Dudley, senior pastor of First Church in Bellevue, a Seattle suburb. "They don't. They don't think of us at all."

Dudley said research has shown 7 of 10 Americans think of church as irrelevant.  "And some of them go to church."

Dudley spoke August 18 to the Presbyterian Global Fellowship about what Christians can do to evangelize in their own communities -- basically, how to reach the unchurched. A while back, he said, a college student doing research on "unusual professions" came to spend some time following him around -- to her, being a pastor seemed to qualify as a truly odd job.

California courts uphold PC(USA) Constitution on church property issues

August 16, 2006

Media Inquiries: contact Mary Pace

GAC Office of Communication

(502) 569-5490

Mark Tammen

Constitutional Services

Office of the General Assembly

(502) 569-5433

George S. Burns

Legal Counsel for Presbytery of Hanmi, Synod

 of Southern California & Hawaii, and

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

(949) 263-6777

California courts uphold PC(USA) Constitution on church property issues

Three cases tried or settled, fourth expected soon

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, has recently issued a series of decisions that consistently hold that the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) prevents factions of local congregations from seizing church assets and harassing the faction of the congregation which remains loyal to PC(USA).

Recently, the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, Hanmi Presbytery and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been named as parties to lawsuits in the Los Angeles Superior Court involving particular churches that were in schism. Another was filed against the Presbytery of the Pacific, also within the synod. Those lawsuits involved Korean Hope Christian Church, Serone Church, Torrance First Presbyterian Church and Bethany United Presbyterian Church. 

In each of those cases, congregations split into factions over selection and other issues concerning their pastor. After one side appealed to the presbytery or synod, the other faction unilaterally declared that the particular church had quit the denomination, and asserted control and ownership of all church property and funds, to the exclusion of both the other faction and the presbytery.

In all these cases, the courts have ruled that the dissident faction must follow the directions of the presbytery as to control or ownership of the church property. 

"The courts applied the rules from our Book of Order which is part of the PC(USA) Constitution.  The Presbyterian Church (USA) has clear processes based on its theology, said Mark Tammen, director of Constitutional Services, Office of the General Assembly, PC(USA).

"As such, the Constitution entrusts presbyteries with determining their 'strategy for mission' in their bounds. This is the 'yardstick' for making such decisions.  Obviously secular judges would have difficulty in making such a theologically based determination, and in fact, are prohibited from doing so by well established U.S. Supreme Court precedent," Tammen added.

Church groups demand Lebanon-Israel cease-fire to deal with crisis

(PNS/ENS) -- Church relief agencies were pleading July 25 for an urgent cease-fire so emergency assistance can be provided to hundreds of thousands of civilians uprooted and threatened by Israeli bombarding of Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel. 

PC(USA) mission personnel, partners in Middle East reported safe

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission workers and ecumenical partners in the Middle East have not suffered physical harm from the violence that is gripping Lebanon and Israel.

"All our mission workers, partners and other colleagues are reported safe," said Victor Makari, the PC(USA)'s area coordinator for the Middle East, on July 18. "This includes pastors in southern Lebanon very close to the border with Israel. All our colleagues (in Lebanon) are stuck in their homes, some sleeping in hallways away from windows and outside walls."

The violence between Israel and Hezbollah, which began July 12, has claimed the lives of 210 Lebanese and 24 Israelis as of July 18, according to media reports.

Nuhad Tomeh, a PC(USA) mission worker in Lebanon, was in the United States when the fighting broke out and was scheduled to remain through the end of  July. Tomeh serves with the Middle East Council of Churches and is the PC(USA)'s regional liaison for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Gulf region.

Presbyterian work in Lebanon dates back to the 19th century and the PC(USA) continues close ties to its partner church in the nation, National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. The denomination also maintains partnerships in Lebanon with the Lebanese American University of Beirut (which it founded) and the Near East School of Theology (NEST). The PC(USA), along with the Reformed Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, supports the mission service of Jon Hoover, a professor who teaches at NEST. He serves in Lebanon with his wife, Jacqueline.

The PC(USA)'s Jinishian Memorial Program, an endowed relief and development program that serves Armenian communities in several countries overseas,  works in the Armenian Quarter of Beirut. Its entire staff is safe, Makari said.

Makari reported that conditions are calm in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where four PC(USA) mission workers and others related to the PC(USA) serve. The denomination's seven mission personnel assigned to Egypt are also safe, he said.

Middle Eastern Caucus issues statement on “terroristic activities”

In response to the latest wave of violence in the Middle East, The National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus issued a statement calling for 'all illegal and terroristic activities on all sides come to an abrupt and final end ... an end to Israel's occupation as the first real step toward a genuine peace in the region ... [and] to base US foreign policy on the legal and moral values that our nation and constitution are founded on.'

The complete text follows.

Christian groups press for Middle East ceasefire

(RNS) As Middle East hostilities entered its second week, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders around the world continued to press the combatants --and the Bush administration -- for an immediate cease-fire.

On July 24, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches called for "an immediate cessation of violent acts by all parties," and said the first step "is for all acts of violence to end immediately." In a July 21 letter to Bush, signed by more than a dozen Roman Catholic and Protestant groups including the National Council of Churches, Churches for Middle East Peace told the president his leadership "and the full weight of the Untied States, acting in concert with the international community, must be applied now to achieve an immediate cease-fire and to launch an intensive diplomatic initiative for the cessation of hostilities.

"This is a necessary first step toward the diplomatic resolution of this crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the way toward a comprehensive Middle East peace," the letter to Bush said.

BOP Medical Plan dues up .5% effective Jan. 1; costs cited

(PNS) With health care costs continuing to rise annually by nearly 10 percent, the Board of Pensions (BOP) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted to raise its Medical Plan dues by one-half percent, to 19.5 percent of "effective salary."

The increase, which brings total dues for medical plus pension benefits to 31.5 percent, is effective Jan. 1, 2007. The board approved the increase at its July 13-15, along with subscription increases in related health care programs, such as the Affiliated Benefits Plan (an 8.8 percent increase) and medical coverage for seminary students (an increase commensurate with the Medical Plan dues increase).

PC(USA) sexual standards must be required, Gagnon tells New Wineskins

TULSA -- Some say that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has historically permitted freedom of conscience within certain bounds.

But the presbyteries never intended the denomination's ordination standards regarding sexual behavior to be anything but required and compulsory, contends Robert Gagnon, a New Testament professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Those standards -- which limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they're married or chastity if they are single -- should mean the PC(USA) won't ordain sexually active gays and lesbians, and will not countenance what Gagnon calls "serial unrepentant sexual immorality."

Robert Gagnon