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Proposed Form of Government: Resources, not regulation

“The G.A. ought to help us, not make our life more complicated!” “Why don’t [they] do something useful for a change, not make more rules!” “No wonder denominations are dying!”

Proposed Form of Government: Is there a hook in it?

A trophy trout lies patiently in his hole near the edge of the river. His gaze is fixed upstream where he watches a spinning mayfly. A neuron fires in his brain; he lunges toward his quarry.

Participant in or instrument of God’s mission?

Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh essay in a series dealing with theological topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. The essays are a response to the General Assembly Task Force Report on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, but also a considered effort to probe the Reformed heritage and find fresh theological language with which to move beyond the poles that divide us.

It’s not my worry!

For the last few weeks I have enjoyed the daily reports of the agony of the California Supreme Court listening to testimony in cases around the issue of marriage between people of the same sex. (As a famous English professor once said at a commencement address not long ago, people have sex, nouns have gender.)

An examined life

“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” Christopher McCandless wrote these words – a psalm-like prayer – during the late summer of 1992 and prior to his death on an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness.

2008 seminary commencements

Austin Presbyterian Theological

Seminary, Austin, Texas

The Reverend Dr. Devison T. Banda, principal of Justo Mwale Theological College in Lusaka, Zambia, will address graduates at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s commencement on Sunday, May 25, at 2:30 p.m.

Questions of leadership

Recruiting leaders is hard work.

It is easier to accept the willing, to anoint whoever steps forward, even if they lack requisite skills or cannot “play well with others.”

An interfaith Baccalaureate prayer

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha’olam

Blessed are you, Eternal God, ruler of the universe

Synod Commission to examine South Louisiana concerns

IRVING, TEXAS — Synod of the Sun, a regional governing body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has appointed an administrative commission to examine concerns regarding church property and presbytery leadership in South Louisiana Presbytery.

Stewardship committee, foundation reps to take on investment return rates; Recommendations come up tomorrow

LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council’s Stewardship Committee is recommending that discussions continue between the council’s leadership and the Presbyterian Foundation over the issue of whether the council should be required to invest all of its medium and long-term funds with the foundation.

Task force recommends against separately incorporating PDA

LOUISVILLE — With many questions still unanswered, a task force studying the pros and cons of creating a separate corporation for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has recommended that church leaders not move forward with incorporation at this time.

Synod of Southwest proposes overture to allow investment outside foundation

LOUISVILLE – The Synod of the Southwest, concerned that the Presbyterian Foundation isn’t producing as strong a return on investments as is available elsewhere in the financial market, is pushing for change.

Ed Koster to stand for election as stated clerk of the General Assembly

DETROIT--The Rev. Edward H. Koster, current stated clerk of the Presbytery of Detroit, announced April 21 he will stand for election as stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Koster comes to the election from a varied background with experience as a pastor, presbytery stated clerk, and lawyer.

He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and served five years in the Navy during the Vietnam War. After receiving his Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., he studied Old Testament history in the doctoral program of the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Michigan for three years, receiving his MA in 1974. He served as pastor of Calvary Church in Ann Arbor, Mich. for 10 years, during which time he also served as chaplain in the Washtenaw County Jail, president of the Ann Arbor Council of Churches, and chaplain at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor. He studied organizational development in 1985-86 under the late Dr. Ronald Lippitt, then at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, and Kathie Dannemiller, who was principal in Dannemiller-Tyson Associates of Ann Arbor.

Big or small, local or international, churches work together in mission

Sometimes it happens organically -- a small church and a big church form a relationship and start working together.

Two Indianapolis churches find mutual ministry in the inner city

One long-standing partnership between a big congregation and a smaller one is the local mission partnership between Second Church in Indianapolis -- a suburban church that stands more than 4,000 strong -- and Westminster Church, an inner-city congregation that's dropped to just 22 active members.

The partnership goes back to 1980, when Catholic, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations in the neighborhood -- a low-income area just east of downtown -- decided to hold Vacation Bible School together. That led next to the idea of creating a summer-long program for area children, "a safe place to be," said Donna Studevent, a member of Westminster since 1982. She is an educator who trains substitute teachers and now is Westminster's clerk of session and commissioned lay pastor.

More mission workers proposed in budget GAC to consider this week

LOUISVILLE -- The mission budget being proposed for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 2009 and 2010 does not call for layoffs, but would use $7 million in reserves to balance the budget.

The proposal, which the General Assembly Council will vote on this week -- probably April 25 -- also calls for an increase in the number of missionaries who would serve the PC(USA) in the next two years.

And it would restore the denomination's Environmental Ministries office, which was eliminated in a major round of budget cutting in May 2006. At least two overtures coming to this year's General Assembly have asked for that -- with one from Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, for example, saying that the office was eliminated "at a time critical to sustaining the planet and life on earth as we know it."

The cost for restoring the office is estimated at $100,000 a year.

The council will vote this week to approve a proposed two-year budget that it will send on to the General Assembly for consideration in June. Concern about Presbyterian presence in global mission work definitely will be part of the discussion.

Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands reaches 25th missionary deployed

LOUISVILLE  – (PNS) With the announcement that Bruce and Lora Whearty will begin their mission service in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August, the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) celebrates the deployment of its 24th and 25th new mission co-workers since the campaign was launched at the 214th General Assembly (2002).

Pope Benedict meets sexual abuse victims

New York, 18 April (ENI)--Pope Benedict XVI has met privately and prayed with several survivors of sexual abuse by clergy during his visit to the United States, in a move that is believed to be the first time a pontiff has met with abuse survivors.

The unannounced meeting on 17 April, reportedly at Benedict's request, was held at a chapel at the papal nuncio's residence in Washington.

Bernie McDaid, an abuse survivor who was at the meeting, said in an interview with the CNN television network that he told the pope 'it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was spiritual abuse. And then I told him that he has a cancer growing in his ministry, and needs to do something about it,' said McDaid, who was abused by a cleric as an altar boy.

John Allen, who writes on Vatican affairs for the National Catholic Reporter, described the meeting as 'an unexpected and essentially unprecedented move'.

CIW co-founder to testify on Capitol Hill today

LOUISVILLE -- The co-founder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-backed Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is to be among those testifying before a U.S. Senate committee today (April 15) about conditions facing farmworkers in the growing fields of southern Florida.

         CIW co-founder Lucas Benitez, a former tomato picker, and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, are among the witnesses expected to appear at the hearing of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

         The CIW, an Immokalee, Fla.-based group of farmworkers, receives support from the PC(USA) and other faith groups.

         The hearing, in Washington, D.C., beginning at 10 a.m. comes after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) visited Immokalee in January to urge support for the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food, which is working to persuade Burger King and other food industry leaders to raise tomato workers' pay.