Presiding Bishop of the Church Of God In Christ, Bishop G. E. Patterson, passed away March 20 at 4:03 p.m. at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., as a result of heart failure. Patterson was surrounded by his wife, Mrs. Louise Patterson, and his family.
Patterson served as the leader of the fourth-largest Protestant religious denomination in the world with an estimated membership of 6.5 million members. He led the denomination since November 2000.
More information about funeral arrangements will be posted later.
Presbyterians for Renewal has named Harry S. Hassall interim National Wee Kirk funding consultant, effective April 1, Hassall will be working with designated fundraisers in the nine regional Wee Kirk conferences across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to mentor and encourage them in their ministry and to deepen and broaden financial support for these conference opportunities.
Hassall was for many years on the staff of Highland Park Church in Dallas, Texas. But he has a long background relating to the needs of small-membership churches. Beginning as member of a General Assembly-level planning team for small membership churches in the mid 70s, Hassall was responsible for birthing the Wee Kirk ministry, coordinating the first national Wee Kirk Conference in 1980 at Montreat.
by Hannah Elliott
©2007 by Associated Baptist Press. Used by permission.
AUSTIN, Texas -- The characterization of Muslim and Christian conflict as a "clash of civilizations" only prolongs problems and encourages dangerous forms of fundamentalism, one prominent scholar told listeners at an ethics conference Feb. 19.
Charles Kimball, who has visited the Middle East 40 times and worked closely with Congress, the White House and the State Department, spoke at Ethics Without Borders, an event in Austin, Texas, organized by the Texas Baptist-affiliated Christian Life Commission.
A professor of religion at Wake Forest University, Kimball called the clash of civilizations framework "an extremely unhelpful one" for people in the United States, most of whom know very little about Islam.
Updated 3/20/07
RICHMOND, VA. -- Dr. Isabel Wood Rogers, 82, Professor Emerita of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, died March 18 in Richmond.
Services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, March 24, at Ginter Park Church in Richmond with a reception to follow. Interment will be in her birthplace of Tallahassee, Fla. Survivors include a sister, Elizabeth Green McCord of Tallahassee, and two nephews.
Born in 1924, she held degrees from Florida State University (A.B.), the University of Virginia (M.A.), the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (M.R.E.), and Duke University (Ph.D.). Austin College, Westminster College, and Centre College all awarded her honorary degrees.
Dr. Rogers, known affectionately as "Dr. Izzie," taught at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education from 1961-1998. Upon her retirement, she was named Professor Emerita of Applied Christianity. Prior to her work at PSCE, she was the Presbyterian campus minister and chaplain and the director of campus religious activities at Georgia College in Milledgeville.
(Montreat, NC) -- Montreat Conference Center is pleased to introduce Diane Pennington, the conference center's new Director of Development Operations. Professionally, Pennington brings a diversity of experience to the Montreat Conference Center Development office. Over the course of 15 years in corporate New York, she gained experience in management, operations, administration, and corporate communications and marketing.
LOUISVILLE -- Responding to a request from the Evangelical Church of Iran, the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has passed a resolution asking U.S. political leaders to initiate "direct diplomatic dialogue with leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, so that by all means, a military confrontation would be avoided" involving Iran.
It asks Presbyterian military chaplains to lead prayers for peace and the "well-being of all peoples in the region."
And it asks the council to remind Presbyterians of the denomination's policies on nuclear weapons "and the dangers of military confrontation."
LOUISVILLE -- "We are in a time of great change in our church."
That's how General Assembly Council member Steve Benz presented the challenge -- shorthand for everything from infighting in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to financial distress to the reality that nearly half of the denomination's congregations have fewer than 100 members.
And Tom Gillespie, a council member and retired president of Princeton Theological Seminary, preached on that reality during worship.
The Presbyterian Foundation reported March 13 that $78.5 million was made available for mission in 2006, an increase of $6.3 million from 2005. As a ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Foundation is called to nurture the accumulated resources of Presbyterians to further the mission of the Church and grow the resources that support mission giving for the future.
LOUISVILLE -- Most Presbyterians don't sit around thinking about how the top levels of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are organized. But just understand this:
· The reorganization of the top levels of the denomination's national staff is continuing -- with a key appointment in communications and funds development recently being announced. That appointment, if confirmed by the General Assembly Council this week, will round out the top level of the PC(USA)'s administrative team.
· The council, meeting March 14-16 in Louisville, is also being reorganized, with the election of new leadership and a new committee structure. The size of the council also will change in the months to come, producing a council that's supposed to be more streamlined and more focused on the denomination's Mission Work Plan goals.
· Linda Valentine, who was named the council's executive director in June 2006, spoke of how she hopes the new alignments will allow the council to more effectively "talk about big issues, what the church needs and how we can respond." Valentine spoke of the need for "adaptive thinking, generative thinking, strategic thinking" in the PC(USA).
LOUISVILLE --The Committee on the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) agreed today to allow its ministries to solicit designated funds from potential donors. Heretofore, the Office of the General Assembly has been funded singly by per capita funds, with the exception of special fund raising that has been done in recent years by the Presbyterian Historical Society.
When people of faith think the war in Iraq is wrong, what's the right thing to do?
Some Presbyterians, grappling with that question, have decided it's time to take to the streets in public witness. They are planning to come to Washington D.C. on March 16 to participate in Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, https://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.cpw&item=cpw_main, an event that will involve worship at the National Cathedral and nonviolent civil disobedience outside the White House, possibly including arrests.
Recently one of church's most beloved elders passed away unexpectedly. We all were in a state of sadness and shock and wanted something to help remember Grace. When her daughter and I met at Grace's house to plan her memorial service we found the following list of resolutions that had been part of one of our Sunday bulletins stuck on her refrigerator with a magnet. Each time she opened the door she remembered the kind of person she wanted to be in Christ.
Are you ready to fire yourself? Presbytery and synod representatives, gathered in Albuquerque, N.M., Feb. 14-16, seeking ways to salvage their governing bodies. In the process they were asked to risk losing their careers.
"Do we need synods? Do we need executive presbyters?" asked conference facilitator Gilbert R. Rendle. "These [questions] are dangerous because as we ask them, we have to ask whether we are ready to lose our jobs. I don't take such questions easily. Three times I've gone through a process that led to the determination that my job was not needed. I didn't like it then. I don't like it now."
Rendle spoke about more than a corporate restructuring. He pressed those gathered leaders like a revival preacher. "This is a spiritual issue, a Mosaic issue. Are we ready to go out into the wilderness, not knowing where we are going to end up?"
Thirty-six denominations and Christian organizations, representing more than 100 million Americans, gathered February 6-9 in Pasadena, California, for the meeting of Christian Churches Together (CCT).
CCT began in 2001 with a group of Christian leaders who "expressed a longing for an expanded Christian conversation in our nation." Six years later CCT claims the "broadest, most inclusive fellowship of Christian churches and traditions in the USA." CCT membership is open to all churches, Christian communities and organizations that adhere to its three basic tenants--belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures; worship and serve the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and those that seek ways to work together in order to present a more credible Christian witness in and to the world.
ORLANDO -- Saying the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is close to "utter ruin" and possibly extinction, the New Wineskins Association of Churches has laid the groundwork for a group of congregations to leave the denomination together, probably to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).
The association voted unanimously Feb. 9 to ask the EPC to create a new, non-geographic presbytery into which congregations leaving the PC(USA) would be admitted, for a period of five years. The EPC's General Assembly would have to approve such an idea in June, but "all indications are that we will step forward and begin a journey with you," Paul Heidebrecht, moderator of the EPC's General Assembly, told the New Wineskins.
The national board of That All May Freely Serve has named Lisa Larges to the position of Minister-Coordinator. The action was taken in anticipation of the August 2007 retirement of the Rev. Dr. Jane Spahr, who has served as the founding minister-director of TAMFS,
ATLANTA -- Here's a story from author Diana Butler Bass for all those people in mainline denominations who don't quite get the Emergent Church movement.
After Bass https://www.dianabutlerbass.com/ had published her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, she got a letter from one of her husband's relatives, 82-year-old Uncle David. He is one of eight active members of an 18-member congregation in a small town in Texas. (That this is a mainline church goes without saying.)
"We have tried everything to get new members," Uncle David wrote. "Results, zero. But we haven't tried changing our church or ourselves. We remain the frozen eight."
Sometimes it's hard to say exactly what Emergent is -- it's a way of thinking, an approach to Christianity that's dynamic and fluid and not hierarchical, built around words like relationship and authentic and postmodern. It means different things in different places.
Used with permission by Mennonite Central Committee (www.IranDelegation.org )
Tehran, Iran -- In the first meeting of its kind since the 1979 Islamic revolution, a group of Americans met with a sitting Iranian president in Iran Feb. 24.
(RNS) A majority of U.S. adults say that the overall health of the nation's economy is dependent on how spiritual Americans are, a survey by the Gallup Organization shows.
PHILADELPHIA -- More than 1,000 Christian educators have unanimously endorsed an appeal to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leadership to create a mechanism for the ordination of church educators. The vote took place at the annual convention of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE) held here Jan. 31 -- Feb. 3.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), anticipating the New Wineskins Association of Churches meeting https://www.newwineconvo.com/ that will take place in Orlando Feb. 8 and 9, has sent a letter to pastors of Presbyterian churches warning that some congregations may be about to leave the PC(USA) but saying that "we are better followers of Jesus Christ when we stick together."
Perhaps it's the wacky winter -- northern towns with little snow, daffodils pushing their fragile stems up way too early.
Perhaps it's President George W. Bush, calling during his State of the Union Address for the United States to reduce its use of gasoline by 20 percent in the next decade.
Perhaps it's just time for people of faith to begin paying closer attention to environmental concerns.
When the National Association of Evangelicals issued recently an "Urgent Call to Action," joining with a group of scientists to call for addressing environmental problems ranging from habitat destruction to global warming, that just added more momentum to what has becoming an increasingly hot issue.
More than 500,000 American teens nationwide will take part February 23 in World Vision's 30 Hour Famine, forsaking food for 30 hours to get a taste of what the world's poorest children and families face everyday.
©2007. The Media Line Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
The sound of gunfire echoes in his head. The smell of gunpowder and flashing images of the dead haunt him like ghosts that can never be exorcised. He still hears the artillery pounding and the frightened children crying.
He could no longer bear to see his country plunged into the abyss of lawlessness.
When his paintbrush, and even his own fingers, would not obey his restless mind, Mohammad Mahredin, one of Iraq's pioneer contemporary artists, slowly and painfully abandoned hope of a sorrow-free Iraq and decided to bid farewell to his country.
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The Rev. Roger Harp, pastor at First Church, Grand Island, Neb., and former Synod Executive/Stated Clerk/Treasurer of the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic died tragically Sunday afternoon in a traffic accident on Interstate 80 while on his way to pick up his wife in Lincoln, Nebraska. His vehicle apparently crossed the median on the interstate and struck a westbound tractor trailer.
Roger served as Synod Executive/State Clerk/Treasurer at the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic (the Middle Governing Body of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A) from August, 2003 until December of 2006 when he began to feel led to "seek to conclude my ministry in a parish setting, if possible."
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