Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a two-part series on the proposals to revise the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order, Chapter 1, relating to the Form of Government (FOG) provisions. The author says, “Current/1983, PC(USA) Form of Government (FOG) may not have caused our present polarizations and conflicts, but after 25 years it certainly has channeled and reinforced the worst dynamics at work among us now.
Cape Town — (ENI) Miriam Makeba has stopped singing but the ongoing music and spirit of the legendary South African singer who was driven into exile under the apartheid regime has touched the religious community of her native country.
(ENI) — The World Council of Churches has warned that a meeting scheduled to discuss the current global "financial meltdown" in Washington, D.C., includes many of the people, governments, and institutions whose policies are responsible for the crisis.
(ENI) — Otis Moss III, the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which the U.S. president-elect once attended, has said that even with the election of Barack Obama, who is of black African and white American descent, it is premature to talk of the end of racism in the United States.
After three days of making friends, comparing notes, hearing testimonies, and brainstorming their dreams, might 75 Presbyterians hope to create an evangelistic future for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? Most of those attending the Grow the Church Deep and Wide: Evangelism Consultation at Stony Point Center on November 10-12 hoped for that very thing.
We sing that we love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love, but Presbyterians notoriously keep the story to themselves. So reported Eric Hoey, the associate director for evangelism for the denomination’s General Assembly Council, to conferees at the Grow the Church Deep and Wide: Evangelism Consultation at Stony Point Conference Center on Nov. 10.
STONY POINT, N.Y. — If we’re going to do evangelism well in the US, who better to train us than a veteran mission co-worker fresh from the foreign mission field? About 80 participants at the Grow the Church Deep and Wide: Evangelism Consultation at Stony Point Center soaked in a tour de force collection of lessons from one such worker on Nov. 10.
STONY POINT, N.Y. — Mainline Protestant denominations have being shrinking for the past 40 years because they’ve scaled back what they did so well for decades before: birthing babies. Growth surged during the baby boom of the 1950s, but when that faded so did membership.
(PNS) Thomas D. Hay has been named director of operations for the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), beginning in January.
Marjorie Hass, provost of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., has been selected to serve as the fifteenth president of Austin College in Sherman, Texas. She will begin her duties on July 1, 2009.
Let’s say a lot of young adults switch jobs every three years or so. Pastor and blogger Carol Howard Merritt, author of Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation, cites research saying they’ll likely move every 2.7 years.
Utrecht, Netherlands — (ENI) Plans to form a new global grouping representing 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide in 2010 have taken a step forward, following discussions at a meeting in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a three-part series. Succeeding installments will appear in later issues of the Outlook The topics include: “Why Scripture divides us,” and “The priority of experience in moral debate.”
MINNEAPOLIS – When conservatives discuss sexual morality, they often focus on rules – as in, “Are you obeying the rules,” said theologian William Stacy Johnson. And liberals often start by asking, “Is this relationship sincere?”
