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Seminaries hold baccalaureate services, Commencement ceremonies for 2005-06

Seminaries hold baccalaureate services, Commencement ceremonies for 2005-06 summarized for the following seminaries: 

• Austin
• Columbia
• Dubuque
• Louisville
• McCormick
• Pittsburgh
• Princeton
• San Francisco
• UTS/PSCE

• Colgate/Rochester/Crozer Divinity
• Harvard Divinity School

Commissioners, GA business divided among 15 committees

(PNS) Fifteen committees will process the business of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in June, according to the Office of the General Assembly (OGA).

Committee leaders for the eight-day Assembly, which starts on June 15 in Birmingham, Ala., also were named recently by OGA and Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase. Each committee will have elected commissioners as moderator and vice-moderator, plus an appointed assistant and a parliamentarian/recorder.

The 534 commissioners -- 267 elders and 267 ministers -- will be randomly assigned to the 15 committees. Nearly every item of business before the Assembly will be processed by one of the committees, which will make recommendations to the full Assembly. The committees will meet all day on June 16 and 17, and on the afternoon of June 18 if necessary.

Some Assembly committees will be more closely watched than others.

Company of New Pastors group supports first-time pastors

The young woman told the story of her first call, as the associate pastor at a mid-sized church. She was learning a lot, starting to hit her stride, beginning to earn respect from the congregation. That's about when the senior pastor started showing -- sometimes in not-so-subtle ways -- that he didn't much appreciate her being in the limelight.

She began to wonder, "Is this really where God has called me to be?"

That experience, which the woman shared during a workshop recently, may not be all that unusual -- first calls often bring some jolts, some rough roads along with the thrills and adventures.

And now some serious work is being done to help first-call pastors deal with the bumps -- to put them in networks with mentors seasoned in the ministry and with peers who are also starting out; to give them a sounding board to figure out what's typical and what can't be tolerated; to help them develop spiritual disciplines that can last a lifetime.

Expectations, realities hit first-time pastors

For Christopher Crotwell, a Columbia Theological Seminary graduate who's pastor of New Providence Church in Raphine, Va., the Company of New Pastors "allowed me to fill a hole I wasn't sure how I was going to fill" after graduation.

Peacemaker tells presbytery about CPT work in Iraq

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -  Beth Pyles, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams group that suffered the loss of member Tom Fox in Iraq, recently described her spiritual journey at a workshop during the Presbytery of West Virginia's annual Festival of Faith educational event.

The decision to join CPT was "mostly spiritual, partly political," acknowledges Pyles, who set aside a 22-year legal career in Parkersburg, W.Va. to attend Princeton Theological Seminary. It was spiritual because "we follow a Savior who was killed for the greater good for the greater number. We are a people who do not follow a cause, we follow a person," she said. It was political because "what we're doing in Iraq is problematic," Pyles stated.

Law and Gospel

Editor's Note: This essay is Part 2 in a series aimed at giving a voice to the center in the current theological debate within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. 

The General Assembly's Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church has called us to the task of theological dialogue, and its report has given us a lead in starting the discussion. We might be tempted merely to re-polarize around this report, as some have done. A more constructive response is to reconfigure the issues with which we are dealing, and press forward--together.

Canadian Jews told Anglicans won’t divest from companies in Israel

(RNS) The head of Canada's Anglican Church is trying to reassure the country's Jewish community that his church has no plans to divest from companies that do business with Israel.

Christian Reformed leader suspension lifted

(RNS) A minister who was forced to step down from the top executive post in the Christian Reformed Church last year because of alleged inappropriate conduct has been reinstated to active ministry.

GAC releases names of those laid off

LOUISVILLE -- General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick today (May 2) formally released the names of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff employees who have lost their jobs in the "reduction in force" needed to reduce the 2007-2008 General Assembly mission budget by $9.15 million.

Seventy-five employees lost their jobs May 1, the largest single layoff at the Presbyterian Center since 1993, when 140 jobs were eliminated.

GAC approves 2007 budget; details on cuts May 1

LOUISVILLE -- Without releasing any specifics of a $9.1 million budget cut, the details of which are expected to emerge May 1, the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has unanimously approved a budget of $97.2 million for 2007 and of $95.9 million for 2008.

What exactly that will fund -- what programs will be kept and which will be cut -- remains to be seen, as virtually all the council's budget discussions over four days took place behind closed doors.

When the council finally pushed open the doors, about a half-hour before they were scheduled to adjourn for worship April 29, they handed out only overall budget figures they had approved. More details will be released May 1 after employees being terminated are informed.

PDA hurricane response plan

LOUISVILLE -- Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is proposing a long-term strategy for responding to the hurricanes of 2005 -- a plan that would organize the Presbyterian response for five to seven years in Mississippi and for eight to 12 years in Louisiana.

"The affected area is so large that responding to all communities is not feasible," states a report to the General Assembly Council outlining the plan. 

But Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is working now in 15 communities in Mississippi and seven in Louisiana. It has set up six "Volunteer Villages" where volunteer teams from churches across the country stay when they come to assist with the relief work.

The volunteer tent villages each cost about $8,500 a month to operate. And the response from churches has been terrific, said Susan Ryan, who leads Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Volunteers have come to help from 40 states and three other countries, she said in an interview. In March alone, the villages hosted 1,890 volunteers who gave 12,372 days of work valued at $1.48 million.

GAC requests diplomatic response to divestment

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council is asking the General Assembly in Birmingham to respond to more than two dozen overtures on Israel, Palestine and divestment by setting up a process for monitoring what's happening in the Middle East.

The council wants the assembly not to jump to action -- but to set up a seven- member "working group" that represents a range of views on divestment. That group would spend time listening carefully to Christians, Jews and Muslims concerned about the difficulties in Israel, and would "develop guidance that honors each of their concerns" to present to the assembly in 2008.

Immigration in America: What will churches do?

Presbyterians concerned about immigration, who are watching closely the Senate debate over immigration reform and feeling the press of an estimated 12 million undocumented workers on cities and congregations, know this: whatever legislation gets passed, this issue won't just go away.

A new "Presbyterians for Just Immigration" e-mail network https://www.pcusa.org/acrec/immigrationreform.htm  is jumping with conversation about what's happening -- with folks tracking the status of proposed legislation and lobbying efforts, and brainstorming about what, in local communities, can and needs to be done.

If legislation is put in place that would impede churches from helping undocumented immigrants -- a version of this has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives -- then "we aren't going to obey," said Mauricio Chacón, pastor of Iglesia Presbiteriana de la Misión in San Francisco. "We are going to have civil disobedience. ... as Christians, we have a higher law than the law of man. ... This goes against my principles, against my beliefs, as a religious person."

Immigrant Resources

How can your church learn more about immigration issues and the challenges they raise for Christians? Here are some resources:

The General Assembly in 2004 passed a "Resolution Calling for a Comprehensive Legalization Program for Immigrants Living and Working in the U.S." https://index.pcusa.org/NXT/gateway.dll?fn=default.htm$f=templates$vid=GA216:10.1048/Enu$3.0

Does prayer help healing? No benefit, says study

c. 2006 Religion News Service

It's a profound if unanswerable question for many who ask God to heal the sick: Can prayer actually help another person recover from disease?

A group of prominent scientists recently sought at least part of the answer, in the largest study of its kind, and concluded that prayer from strangers had no effect on whether people suffered complications from coronary artery bypass surgery.

"The effect of intercessory prayer was neutral. It showed no sign of any benefit," said Charles Bethea, an Oklahoma cardiologist and researcher who participated in the $2.4 million study by the John Templeton Foundation, which supports exploration of ties between religion and science.

Not only were effects of prayer by strangers neutral, the study said, but a selected group of patients -- who knew with certainty that strangers were praying for them -- experienced complications at higher rates than did two other groups who were told only that they might receive prayer. The group faring best was the only one not to receive strangers' prayers.

The researchers acknowledged their study was not definitive and called for more research on the subject.