c. 2006 Religion News Service
Considering that 98 percent of the students are Mormon, some classrooms are converted into worship spaces on Sundays, and alcohol and drugs are banned from campus, perhaps it's not surprising that Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, received the sacred No. 1 spot on the list of schools where "Students Pray on a Regular Basis" in the Princeton Review's 2007 college rankings.
Meanwhile, the liberal arts Reed College in Portland, Ore., where the Christian student group is called "Oh, for Christ's Sake," ranked atop the "Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis" category, according to the same rankings, which were released in August.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
Mark Schaefer knows how to throw a good party, and offering free food to hungry college freshmen is a sure-fire way to satisfy guests.
Making the rounds, Schaefer talks to the students and thanks them for attending the recent Friday-night event at American University, aptly named S'mores with S'Methodists.
"That's one thing I've learned," said Schaefer, the chaplain for the United Methodist Student Association. "You have to thank people for coming. We actually appreciate that they show up."
Leaders of campus religious groups find that an early commitment is often a lasting one. That makes this time of year prime recruitment season for campus religious groups before freshmen get swept up in college life and other activities. Some campus leaders say if they don't catch students early, they may never get their attention.
"People are creatures of habit," Schaefer said later. "The relationships you make during the first few weeks at school are often the lasting ones."
Senior Aaron Bregman, president of AU's Jewish Student Association, understands the time crunch. "Freshman year," he said, "basically you have a small window to get involved in things."
reprinted with permission
As college students across the country returned to campuses recently, more and more were moving into church-sponsored dorms -- a trend that can trace its roots to the corner of College Avenue and Bancroft Way in Berkeley.
There, just across the street from the UC Berkeley campus, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) renovated its Westminster House campus ministry building a few years ago and added a dorm for 125 students. Besides a room, students there are offered Bible study, theology classes, and social justice projects.
It was a success at Cal, where student housing is always an issue, and soon religious denominations around the country took note.
Mark Elsdon, the pastor of Pres House at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which is building a 280-bed student residence hall, said many campuses looked to Berkeley and said that if it could be done there, it could be done anywhere.
If I were honest, I would have to confess that my most enjoyable moments in seminary were not those hours spent parsing Greek verbs or memorizing important dates in church history--though of course, both are worthwhile endeavors. No, the most enjoyable and most memorable times of my seminary experience were spent on the intramural field. It was that time of shared experience, coming together as a team whose members spanned many denominational and theological divides, and getting to know each other on an entirely different level than the classroom allowed that made my seminary experience.
Yes, on the surface it might seem trivial--though we took it quite seriously. Flag football is hardly serious business in the grand scheme of things, but it provided an excuse for a group of diverse individuals to get to know each other better through the shared task and time spent together in pursuit of that task.
San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Angelo, Calif., has received a commitment of $2 million to establish the Rice Family Chair of Christian Spirituality at the seminary.
LOUISVILLE -- What's around the corner for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?
In this time of red-hot rhetoric, who knows? (Some would add: Who cares?)
But something different seems to be coming -- and at the recent meeting of the General Assembly Council, Presbyterians thought out loud about what that might be.
Why a denomination?
"Why do we need a denomination?"
That's the question Joan Gray, moderator of the 217th General Assembly, put straight to the council on Sept. 27 -- in essence, asking leaders of the PC(USA) whether or not the denomination they serve is relevant anymore.
But Gray also spoke a word of hope -- contending that "living into that scary, anxious question may be one of the ways that God opens us to the new thing that God wants to do among us, whatever it is."
Jan Opdyke has resigned as director of the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands fundraising campaign of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The $40 million, five-year effort came under close scrutiny at the Sept. 26-29 meeting of the General Assembly Council, when Opdyke announced that the campaign had not raised enough in unrestricted revenue to pay its expenses in 2007. Opdyke said Hearts & Hands only had enough unrestricted money to pay its operating costs through February or March, and if additional funds couldn't be found to pay the campaign's operating expenses, it was in danger of shutting down prematurely.
LOUISVILLE -- A major fundraising campaign of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) could shut down early, falling as much as $15 million short of reaching its five-year, $40 million goal, if it doesn't obtain money soon to pay its operating expenses.
The Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign so far has raised $25 million in pledges for new church development in the United States and Presbyterian mission work overseas. But much of the money has been given with strings attached -- donors are insisting that it be spent for particular projects, reflecting perhaps distrust of the national church or enthusiasm for particular projects.
© 2006. Used by permission
LOUISVILLE - Melham Farhad is talking as he drives from his village, called Alma Ashaab, in southern Lebanon, to his restaurant in nearby Marjouran.
He can't hurry. The road, still battered by the shelling it took last spring from Israeli fighter jets, won't allow it. Nor is he in a hurry. He has customers. But he is hoping the Spanish soldiers deployed as United Nations peacekeepers last week will like his menu. That would boost business.
So he talks. As the car stops and starts, and stops again. He talks as he waits, which is the only thing most people can do now. Wait. To see what happens next. To see what hostilities may interrupt their lives or whether nothing happens at all.
What farmers here know for certain is that they have no control whatsoever over what happens or what doesn't. Other forces are in control. Israel, Iran, or the United States may have known what was coming last summer, but they didn't.
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Suicide bombings are a legitimate weapon, according to the supreme Palestinian religious leader, the newly appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Lands Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein. Such action is a part of the Palestinian people's legitimate resistance, he told The Media Line. The post of the grand mufti was never reduced to that of a senior cleric merely delving into religious issues. In the 1940s the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, was the most powerful and influential leader of the Palestinians. Politics and religion were completely mixed back then, and Al-Husseini was considered a political leader as much as he was a religious one. | |||
© 2006. Used by permission.
CHARLOTTE -- More than 140 Scots are part of a study week focusing on dilemmas facing congregations in both the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and celebrating the ties that bind the two denominations as a mother-church and her now-grown offspring.
Under way now in Charlotte, N.C., the week-long event is being financed and hosted by the city's four largest Presbyterian congregations, Myers Park, Covenant, First, and Sardis churches. The goal is to exchange both models for ministry and address common problems such as membership loss.
"Its really individual churches (doing this), rather than the church nationally," said Robin McAlpine, a pastor and a member of a commission within the Church of Scotland that is studying the future. " ... This is more of an informal arrangement to take ideas back into local congregations."
Over and over again, people say this: it will all get sorted out in the courts.
But in the meanwhile, people are laying the foundations now for what's to come -- and this hasn't exactly been a time of peace and happiness in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Reports are popping up all over the country of presbyteries and sessions marking their positions, getting ready, taking first steps.
Some congregations that want to leave the denomination -- most prominently, Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa -- are testing the question of whether churches can leave and take their property with them.
The PC(USA)'s stated clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick, has sent a letter to presbytery stated clerks raising concerns about some of what he sees happening -- and warning that some proposals being considered could violate either the denomination's constitution or authoritative interpretations of the constitution that the General Assembly has approved.
Peggy Hedden, chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, has responded by accusing the denomination's leadership of being in a "take-no-prisoners attitude" and of trying to threaten and intimidate those who disagree with recent General Assembly actions.
That's not all.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, p. 6), Marilynne Robinson has the main character, a minister who is reaching the end of his pastorate, write the following in his journal: "That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either."
It is not surprising that the Rev. Ames' observations accord with a recent survey taken among contemporary preachers in which 63 per cent of them admit that they feel lonely and isolated in their work (Outlook, Sept 11, 2006 issue). This happens primarily because pastors are often distanced from their members as human beings and diminished in their fundamental existence.
LOUISVILLE -- With the challenge to "invest in the church we have not yet become," leaders of presbyteries and synods are meeting with members of the General Assembly Council to think of ways to bring new life and vitality to a struggling denomination.
In June, the 217th General Assembly voted that, once a year, the General Assembly Council (representing the national church) and leaders of presbyteries and synods (representing the church at a regional level) should meet for prayer and discussion.
The planners of this first convocation, being held Sept. 26 and 27 in Kentucky, are using the slogan "A New Way for a New Day" -- and in 24 hours of conversation they're searching for a way forward from the difficulties so apparent in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
LOUISVILLE * Marianne Wolfe, a Pittsburgh elder who was the preeminent parliamentarian in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), died Oct. 10 at her home in Cranberry Township, PA. She was 78.
Wolfe, a Professional Registered Parliamentarian from 1970 until her death, literally wrote the book on Presbyterian parliamentary law. Her published works included a teaching curriculum, Members Together (1976); Parliamentary Law for the Presbyterian Church (1983); The Elder (1991); and the chapter on polity in 1992's Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith.
In 2003, the PC(USA)'s Association of Stated Clerks named her the first winner of the C. Fred Jenkins Award for her contributions to the polity and parliamentary law of the denomination.
Richard L. "Rick" Oppelt has been pastor of Oak Tree Church in Edison, N.J., for more than 12 years, so he and his parishioners share a depth of knowledge and caring for each other.
However, when Oppelt heard that church member Carol Trapp, a type one diabetic for most of her life, needed a kidney transplant, his knowledge and caring faced a real test.
He already knew they shared the same blood type: O positive. While that is a good blood type for blood donations, it is not "universal" for organ recipients, Oppelt said. He decided to go through the testing to see if he was an organ donor match while others--family, donor banks--were tested and checked as well. Members of Mrs. Trapp's family did not match, but Rick Oppelt did.
While not simple, the decision seemed clear cut, he said. Research assured him that persons could live normally with one kidney. If a kidney donor in subsequent years needs a kidney, he or she is placed at the top of transplant waiting lists, he found. And Mrs. Trapp, with a less than 15 percent kidney function, faced an average five-year wait in New Jersey for a donor kidney, during which time she would be on dialysis.
Sacramento Presbytery, in a vote that is catching the attention of folks around the country, has passed a resolution that apparently would allow congregations that wanted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do so with their property.
It also voted not to grant any exceptions to the PC(USA)'s ordination standards, not to recognize any "scruples" involving individual conscience, and not to allow the presbytery to make up the difference if congregations withhold their per capita payments to protest policies of the national church.
The presbytery met for more than four hours on Sept. 9 in a specially-called meeting requested by three pastors and three elders, who presented four resolutions for the presbytery to consider. All four passed, including one that would allow congregations that want to leave the denomination to do so without forfeiting their property. That resolution -- approved by a 73-65 margin -- states that the presbytery "shall take no action to enforce any general trust interest" involving property of congregations within the presbytery.
What exactly this will mean in practice remains to be seen.
Being a pastor isn't easy.
National studies show that while ministers often feel a sense of satisfaction from their work, they also feel the pressure of having too much to do, too little money, ambiguous expectations placed on them, and conflicted relationships in their congregations.
So some presbyteries, conscious of the difficulties of pastoral work, are trying different models of both providing pastoral support and of challenging ministers to do the best and most ambitious work possible.
In Pittsburgh Presbytery, Jim Mead's title is "pastor to presbytery" -- but that should not be interpreted as primarily a therapeutic or counseling role, Mead said in an interview. Instead, his emphasis is intentionally missional: encouraging pastors to be bold in mission, to take risks, to follow where God is calling them to go.
"The pastor to the presbytery's number one job is walking with pastors while they try to help their congregations walk with God in what God is doing," Mead said, or "asking pastors to do difficult things and to pay the price that comes with change."
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c. 2006 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON -- On Aug. 21, Jay Hein became the third director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In his new role, the former think-tank president intends to continue toward President Bush's goal of giving religious groups equal access to federal funding for social services.
Despite the initiative's tendency to be controversial because of its location at the intersection of church and state, Hein is convinced of its purpose and hopes to see it have greater influence on the local and state level.
Hein stepped down as elder of his nondenominational church in an Indianapolis suburb, but he expects to eventually return to the area and resume his work with Sagamore Institute for Policy Research. RNS spoke with Hein, 41, about his plans at the White House.
ATLANTA -- What does it mean for an established church, in which tradition is revered, to see the world changing all around it?
What can a mostly-white church do to be truly welcoming to those of other cultures and other colors -- to share power and faith with those who speak many languages and have their own ways of doing things?
Those are hard questions for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that is more than 92 percent white and has been losing both numbers and influence for a long time. But some Presbyterians are exploring exactly those questions -- are excited about what could be and at the same time somewhat apprehensive about the challenges.
"There are all kinds of people from all over the world right here in small-town America, and we don't know how to deal with that," said Tracie Mayes Stewart, director of Christian education at First Church in Statesville, N.C.
Used by permission
Conventional wisdom, backed by some research, has suggested that the United States is becoming a more secularized nation - one where the significance of religion is declining. But results released Sept. 11 from the Baylor University Religion Survey paint a different picture.
In 2004, the General Social Survey reported that 14.3 percent of the population had no religion, but by using a more detailed measure in the Baylor survey, researchers determined that only 10.8 percent of the population or approximately 10 million Americans are unaffiliated.
"We believe, and are going to argue, that it [the statistics] has more to do with how you ask about the religious connection than what it says about the commitment of the average American to their faith," said Kevin Dougherty, assistant professor of sociology and one of the Baylor Survey researchers.
c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
RALEIGH, N.C. -- He's 88 years old and technically retired. But the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor still shows the preaching skills that have placed him on virtually every list of America's greatest contemporary preachers.
As a guest preacher in pulpits across the nation, Taylor continues to charm -- and enlighten -- worshippers as he has for more than six decades. But he says preaching is always a tenuous endeavor.
"It is quickly lost," he recently told the PBS show "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly." "It's uttered, heard, and sometimes lost. But it is the mystery of preaching that it survives, and that it has survived so much of our bad preaching."
By most accounts, little bad preaching can be traced to Taylor, who moved here after retirement.
LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council made it clear Sept. 29 that it wants some questions answered about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s $40 million fundraising campaign -- significant questions, such as how many international missionaries the denomination actually is sending out and how much money is available to support them.
At the same time, the council does not want to signal that it's pulling back its support for the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign, which is raising money for new church development in the United States and for international mission work.
Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, said during the council's meeting in Kentucky that the denomination's primary story line needs to be "we want to lift mission up and are looking for ways to support that."
Ufford-Chase said he recognizes that the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is now "the public face of the General Assembly Council's commitment to mission" -- and that because of it, money has been raised for mission work that the denomination would not have otherwise had.
But the push for public accountability of the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is gaining steam because the campaign's leadership announced this week that they don't have enough unrestricted funds available to pay their operating expenses for 2007 -- they expect to run about $500,000 short.
LOUISVILLE -- An internal audit has determined that Judy Golliher, the former treasurer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), took more money from the denomination than had first been detected when the PC(USA) fired her last summer for embezzlement.
The audit shows that, in addition to the $102,000 that a preliminary investigation showed was missing, $21,912 in unauthorized charges were run up on Golliher's corporate credit card, and $8,925 that was disbursed from General Assembly bank accounts cannot be documented or reconciled.
So the investigation concluded that Golliher misappropriated $132,837 from the PC(USA), according to an Audit Committee report to the General Assembly Council Sept. 29.
LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council has approved the broad outlines of a plan restructuring the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- condensing the national structure into six program areas.
The council also confirmed the appointment of Joey Bailey as the PC(USA)'s deputy director for shared services, responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution.
While it considers how the denomination's national staff should be organized and the impact of this year's $9.1 million downsizing, the council also is being pushed to confront a hard reality at the regional level: that some of the 173 presbyteries and 16 synods are experiencing significant financial distress. Some say the denomination needs to look hard, and quickly, at the current system of middle governing bodies, to ask whether it's feasible to continue the current configuration with funds in such short supply.
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