LOUISVILLE -- Recognizing there is opposition to some of what it has proposed, but still confident that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) needs a more flexible form of government to navigate in a post-modern world, the Form of Government Task Force is recommending significant changes in the denomination's constitution, but providing opportunities for amendment if the broader church disagrees.
For those who love Montreat and the sweep of Presbyterian history, it was a painful moment when the 2006 General Assembly voted to close the office of the Presbyterian Historical Society at Montreat, N.C.
But now another chapter is being written
The formal archives of the southern branch of the Presbyterian church have been moved.
Most of the material went to the Presbyterian Historical Society offices in Philadelphia, and some to Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga., and other places.
But now a nonprofit group that wants to keep the sense of Presbyterian history alive for visitors to Montreat is working, in cooperation with the Montreat Conference Center, to create a new Presbyterian Heritage Center.
LIMURU, Kenya -- After four days of meetings, some 240 leaders of a broad range of churches, confessions and interchurch organizations from more than 70 countries agreed to carry forward what they call "the Global Christian Forum process," an open platform for encounter and dialogue whose goal is to "foster mutual respect, explore and address common challenges."
Participants broke into a spontaneous doxology when the final draft of a "Message from the Global Christian Forum to Brothers and Sisters in Christ Throughout the World" was approved at the last session of the meeting, which took place Nov. 6-9 in Limuru, near Nairobi, Kenya.
LOUISVILLE -- A church-backed group of farmworkers and their supporters donned walking shoes today (Nov. 30) for a nine-mile march through Miami to the corporate headquarters of Burger King to demand higher wages and better working conditions in Florida's tomato fields.
The Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), which receives support from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other faith groups, is calling on the fast-food giant to pay a penny more per pound to farmworkers harvesting its tomatoes.
Because we can accomplish more together than we can individually, I am inviting you to rise with me to a new challenge.
When the Steering Committee of Joining Hearts & Hands met on Wednesday via conference call, we learned that $212,000 stands between us and the deployment of gifted mission candidates to serve where Christ has called them. Denise England -- called to Egypt; Carol Dolezal-Ng -- called to Lebanon; Kathy Reeves -- called to Switzerland; and other qualified candidates who are ready and waiting need your financial assistance now.
New Delhi, 29 November (ENI)--In an unprecedented protest, more than 30 bishops joined scores of priests, nuns and church activists in a sit-in near the Indian parliament in New Delhi to demand an end to the decades-old discrimination against Christian Dalits.
'We want the government to end this discrimination,' demanded Church of South India Bishop Jeypaul David, president of the National Council of Churches in India, addressing the sit-in on 29 November.
Rome, 29 November (ENI)--Pope Benedict XVI has responded to a letter sent to him and other Christian leaders by 138 Muslim scholars, by inviting a group of its signatories to meet him and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
The response came in a letter from the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan, president of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman and a prime mover of the Muslim letter.
Geneva, 30 November (ENI)--Faith-based campaigners and religious leaders say churches should not relax their efforts to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic despite UN figures showing a drop in the number of people worldwide living with the virus.
'This is not the time for complacency nor apathy,' said South African Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu in a 30 November statement released by the World Aids Campaign to mark World Aids Day on 1 December. 'It is the time for compassionate leadership.'
HAZLETON, PA -- It's the American Dream: find a good job, live in a safe neighborhood with good schools and churches, raise a family...
Yes, the American Dream: for North Americans, Central Americans, South Americans and every other country we in the USA -- a country founded by immigrants -- use to hyphenate ourselves.
Yet, in this immigrant nation, immigration is a hot-button issue in 3-D: documentation, denigration, deportation.
William "Bill" C. Teng, a fourth-generation Presbyterian minister raised in Hong Kong, is the first declared candidate for moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
National Capital Presbytery endorsed Teng, the pastor of Heritage Church in Alexandria, Va., at its meeting Nov. 27. Teng previously served as moderator of the presbytery and chair of its council.
-The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said the leadership of the United States in the world has broken down and he has in an interview with the British Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel urged a change in US foreign policy.
ATLANTA -- The Covenant Network of Presbyterians gathers November 1-3 for its annual conference ten years into its so-far-unsuccessful effort to convince the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to change its policy on ordaining gays and lesbians.
The theme for this year is "testimony", or, as preacher Scott Black Johnston, pastor of host church Trinity Church in Atlanta, put it during opening worship Nov. 1: "Can I Get a Witness?"
The idea is that there is power in testimony -- in honesty and truth telling; that minds and hearts can be changed through sharing stories of struggle and faith; and that testimony allows voices to be heard that are not always welcome in the church.
There is a further recognition that the territory ahead is bumpy and uncertain -- and that, as the Covenant Network perseveres in what it sees as a struggle for justice, losses will come along the way, and the network needs some way of measuring progress that's not only about simply winning or losing particular General Assembly votes.
ATLANTA -- They're saying, at the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, that the momentum may be shifting from a legislative season in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to a judicial season.
That shift means something like this.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court in the denomination, is poised to hear in February the appeals of at least two cases stemming from the work of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the PC(USA). Those appeals involve the question of what leeway presbyteries have to declare that no departures of conscience from denominational standards will be granted on particular issues.
Some presbyteries want to say they will not allow candidates for ordination or installation to declare departures from the national standards -- to announce a "scruple" -- on things the presbytery has declared "essentials" of faith. But other Presbyterians contend that the decisions of whether to grant departures of conscience from the standards must be granted on a case-by-case basis, in the examination of individual candidates.
LOUISVILLE -- Between 50,000 and 55,000 Presbyterians attended presentations by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionaries during "Mission Challenge '07," according to figures released Wednesday (Nov. 14) by the Presbyterian World Mission program area here.
Oslo, 20 November (ENI)--The (Lutheran) Church of Norway has agreed that living in a registered same-sex partnership should no longer be a barrier to someone serving as a priest, deacon or catechist.
'At last, the feeling of holding a second class membership in the church is gone,' Arne Groenningsaeter, himself a homosexual and a member of Oslo's diocesan council, was quoted as saying by the NTB news agency.
The church's general synod, at its meeting in Oeyer in southern Norway, agreed by 50 votes to 34 on 16 November that it would be up to each of the church's 11 bishops and diocesan councils to decide whether homosexuals in registered partnerships can be ordained as a priest, deacon or catechist.
Nyala (Darfur), Sudan, 15 November (ENI)--As peace talks about the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur province remain stalled, humanitarian officials
say that the issue of protecting civilians will continue to offer difficult challenges in an increasingly insecure environment.
LOUISVILLE -- First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge, La. -- at 1,600 members the largest congregation in the Presbytery of South Louisiana -- has voted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).
The vote by the congregation on Oct. 28 -- with less than one-third of its members present -- was 422-60.
LOUISVILLE -- Persistent membership losses. Struggles to keep young people in the church. Simmering controversies over homosexuality that threaten church unity. Restructure of the national offices.
Yes, it's the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). But it's also the Church of Scotland, two visiting officials of the PC(USA)'s "mother church" told the Presbyterian News Service during an Oct. 24 visit to the Presbyterian Center here.
"There are parallels all over the place," said Angus Morrison, pastor of St. Columba Old Parish Church in Stornoway and convenor of the Church of Scotland Mission and Discipleship Council.
"We see so many common strands that we're hoping we can spark each other," agreed Douglas A. O. Nicol, who is secretary of the Mission and Discipleship Council.
It's a hard concept to grab hold of: why Presbyterians from the United States should pay attention to how oil and minerals are being mined in central Africa.
But an overture is coming to this year's General Assembly, approved in October by Chicago Presbytery and up for consideration in other places, to ask the assembly to provide support for the "Publish What You Pay" campaign. That campaign -- an international effort -- is trying to persuade companies involved in mining and extractive industries in developing countries to make public the amount of money they provide the governments of those countries. Having those amounts publicly known, the campaign hopes, would pressure the governments to spend the money on public services and relief, not on weapons or personal extravagance.
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches also has passed a declaration asking for such information to be made public.
In those days John the Baptist appeared. ... They had been waiting for him, in fact, for 400 years they had been waiting for him and suddenly there he stood in the wilderness of Judea and his message was like taking fingernails and running them across a chalkboard. Every Advent, we still find him standing there and we are told to listen to what he is saying, for after all this is the one preparing the way!
Come into the darkness
and sit quietly
with the dreams of this season.
Dreams of the Hebrew people ~
of lions and lambs laying together,
of justice rolling down like full streams of water,
of lands flowing with milk and honey,
of joy that comes in the morning.
Dreams of a carpenter ~
of being faithful to his betrothed in the midst of public scorn,
of taking the road less traveled
and journeying on the back roads.
Dreams of your own heart and mind ~ of the searching for and
claiming the masculine within and beside the feminine,
embracing the mystical and the logical,
the creative and the protective,
the carpenter and the birthmother.
Text: Matthew 24:36-44
A church musician first threw down the gauntlet for me concerning Advent. She had grown up as a Lutheran and came to the Presbyterian Church in her late twenties, able to direct a choir with expertise but also filled with boundaries about what should and shouldn't be sung during the days preceding Christmas. It made great sense to me theologically.
Ever since, I have had to deal with the inquiry of complaint, meant more as an allegation against my Christmas spirit, "Why aren't we singing carols, everyone else is?" There is no question that once you have been to Bethlehem it is hard to get back on the road again and do it all over. But here it is Advent and the texts we are asked to read and to proclaim put us on the winding road upon which we have walked before. How do we get there, again?
My Advent by Michael Nelms ... and on earth peace among those whom He favors! And those He doesn't?..
We know you worry. We wish you wouldn't but since you do, we thought we'd send you something that offers another person's assurance that life continues normally here. This article was published last week but rings true yet today. (see article below) We thought it might be helpful for putting perspective into what you see on the news. And here's a bit more...
(RNS) Leith Anderson, the Minnesota megachurch pastor who has twice served as interim president of the National Association of Evangelicals, was formally named president on Oct. 11.
In a unanimous vote, the association board approved Anderson's selection during a meeting in Arlington, Va.
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