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Editorials

New Beginnings 3: Recoving from Blindness

On the road with God’s Presbyterian people, who are called today to recover their reason for being, their sense of mission, we begin with the recovery of sight — the gift of God.

Jesus’ healing of the blind in the Gospels always points to the fact that blindness — spiritual blindness — is a pervasive reality in the community of God’s people. Only Christ, through the Holy Spirit, can open the eyes long since closed to the light of God’s divine activity. We cannot open our own eyes through our own efforts.

Uncategorized

Youth affirm call of homosexuals to ministry, but also say it’s time to emphasize other issues

LOUISVILLE -- It wasn't wild fun -- it took hours of talking and sometimes wading waist-deep through parliamentary muck. But this was a chance for young people from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to say what they think about issues in the world and in the church. They prayed before the most controversial votes, sometimes listening in silence for the voice of God. And unlike when the grownups do it, some of the teenagers stood on top of the tables waving their paddles when they were ready to vote.

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Churches awash in a growing tide of people attend, but don’t join

After they moved to California in 1997, Pat and Gil Field shopped around for a church for three years, not caring what denomination it was but wanting, in Pat’s words, a church "where people weren’t dead in their seats."

But week after week, "we were just coming out of churches really empty, and not feeling fulfilled," she said. For a while, they held Sunday school in their backyard, "which we jokingly called First Church of the Gazebo."

Voices

The Myth of an Independent Judiciary

As disputes in our denomination are wending their way through the judicial system, there are frequent expressions of confidence in the "independent judiciary" to resolve the disputes in progress and to help us escape some of our most pressing difficulties. It would appear that this notion has its origin in the system of governments in the United States, where there is a "separation of powers."

Book Reviews

Ministry Loves Company: A Survival Guide for Pastors

By John T. Galloway Jr.

WJKP. 2003. 168 pp. Pb. $16.95. ISBN 0-664-22584-5

— Review by John D. Dalles, Longwood, Fla.

Want a long conversation with a venerable pastor reflecting on 37 years of ministry, innovative mission and congregational renewal? It's here in John Galloway's Ministry Loves Company. This is theoretical and practical advice on how congregations work and how pastors can help them work better without losing their religion.

Editorials

New Beginnings 2: Biblical Foundations

Last week it was suggested that one way to honor the 20th anniversary of Presbyterian re-union in Atlanta in 1983 is to measure hopes against realities in this initial period, and to look forward to what may lie ahead — under the title “New Beginnings.”

Reformed Presbyterian Christians always begin their reflections with the scriptural foundation — indeed, the lens through which experience must always be evaluated.

Voices

Conservative groups receive more money; large donors’ identities are still kept secret

Conservative Presbyterian special interest groups tend to have deeper pockets than liberal ones — although who’s giving the money often isn’t being revealed.

This year, for the first time, groups that wanted to rent display space in the Exhibit Hall at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), held May 24-31 in Denver, were required by the Assembly to submit financial disclosure forms — Internal Revenue Service Form 990s, which the federal government requires nonprofit groups with incomes over certain thresholds to file.

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