Agef Gendy, president of Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, preached Jan. 19 at the Fellowship of Presbyterians' Covenanting Conference in Orlando, Fla. The following report from The Layman, describing the current climate and the experiences of Christians in Egypt, is from presentations Gendy made Jan. 17 and 18 at the Reformed Theological Seminary campus in Orlando. Click here to read full story
ORLANDO, Fla. – Two members of a writing team that produced a theology document that's part of the constitution of the new denomination created by the Fellowship of Presbyterians said Jan. 19 that they expect changes to be made in their handiwork in the years to come.
ORLANDO, Fla. – All through the day on Jan. 19, John Ortberg and others at the Fellowship of Presbyterians Covenanting Conference cast a vision.
It was of a bold church unafraid to take risks; one that makes disciples; one that takes the best of Presbyterian history and tradition and points it in new directions.
ORLANDO – Instead of just requiring congregations to submit annual statistical reports, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians would ask for annual narrative reports, as Presbyterian congregations routinely did in the years before 1925.
ORLANDO – The Fellowship of Presbyterians has given a name to its new Reformed body. The new denomination will be known as the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.
John Ortberg, a well-known author and the pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California, kicked off the second day of the Fellowship’s Covenanting Conference Jan. 19 by preaching at morning worship. As that ended, the Fellowship distributed revised copies of its theology and polity documents – the cornerstones of the new denomination’s constitution.
ORLANDO, Fla. – Most of the young evangelical church leaders attending a Fellowship of Presbyterians event this week are from congregations that either plan to stay in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or are still deciding whether to leave.
At the Fellowship of Presbyterians gathering this this week in Orlando, Fla., it's unlikely that participants will vote on the spot to create a new denomination, or that a huge number of congregations will decide to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) en masse.
Jerusalem (ENInews) Christians have the lowest growth rate among
religious groups within the Israeli population, according to an Israeli
Central Bureau of Statistics report released Jan. 6.
Eight Presbyterians, including Cynthia Bolbach and Landon Whitsitt, the moderator and vice-moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have issued a letter and video expressing their hope in the future of the denomination.
The quaint expression, “essential tenets,” comes from the 18th century-bred subscription vow for Presbyterian officers: “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?”
(ENI) Christian leaders in Egypt are meeting to discuss
opening a dialogue with Islamic groups as a way of addressing sectarian
violence.
(ENI) The international Christian organization Open Doors
released its annual World Watch List this week, naming the 50 countries
where it says Christians face the worst persecution. For the first time in
the 20 years that the list has been compiled, the situation for Christians
did not improve in any country, Open Doors said.
WASHINGTON (RNS)
A star-studded array of political and religious leaders — from President Obama to rock legend Bono to AIDS activist Kay Warren — came together Dec. 1 for World AIDS Day to call for an entirely AIDS-free generation by 2015.
For mainline Protestant denominations, it is not good news.
Louisville, KY.
Doing ministry in a time of “shifting sands” has become the reality of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A).
WASHINGTON (Ekklesia)
The number of organizations engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington, D.C., has increased fivefold in the past four decades, from fewer than 40 in 1970 to more than 200 today.
HAVANA (PNS) The U.S. blockade of Cuba is a fundamentally theological issue because, in choosing isolation over reconciliation, the U.S. has chosen to serve mammon rather than God, Cuban Presbyterian theologian Reinerio Arce told Cuban and U.S. religious leaders here Dec. 1.
MATANZAS, Cuba (PNS) The liturgical dancers circle each other at a distance, then move closer together, then join in an intimate pas-de-deux.
(General Assembly Mission Council) Work crews in Haiti clear rubble from a home outside of Léogâne. Less than a decade old, Church of All Nations, a church plant out of the Korean immigrant context, has not only taken root but is already bearing fruit.
Editor’s Note: Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and Linda Bryant Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council, both have signed this statement of the Interfaith Commission of the National Council of Churches regarding the decision of the Lowe's home improvement chain to pull its advertising from the television program "All-American Muslim."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (General Assembly Mission Council) Four new church developments and two presbyteries will receive mission program grants from Evangelism and Church Growth of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC).
HAVANA (PNS) The National Council of Churches in the U.S. and the Council of Churches of Cuba have issued a joint statement calling for reconciliation between the two countries and committing themselves to “pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit that our churches may bear witness to God’s will for justice in economic life.”
(Presbyterian News Service) Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba’s deputy minister of external affairsHAVANA – Cuba and the United States have so much in common that despite political differences it’s “overtime” to normalize relations between the two countries, a Cuban foreign ministry official told a group of 15 visiting U.S. religious leaders here Nov. 30.
This is an update written by the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st Century, after its meeting in late November, and provided by the committee's moderator, Carol Howard Merritt. The committee will meet again in Louisville Feb. 1-3 and will report to the General Assembly in July.
LOUISVILLE, KY.
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (LPTS) is hoping to make student indebtedness for theological education a thing of the past.
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