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Tuesday,
May 12, 2009
Come
to this page first...
it is
the quick and easy way to miss nothing
of
All the National PC(USA) news
Something we may have overlooked? Please, tell
us |
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Pool
of available ministers mismatched to churches’
needs
By Leslie Scanlon / The Presbyterian Outlook |
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"...The
future leaders of the church will need to be flexible
and creative, able to serve at a time of new denominational
and religious realties. Among the types of ministerial
leaders the PC(USA) will need: church planters;
those who can transform older congregations into
new ways of being; and those capable of “hospice”
ministry, who can guide congregations that won’t
survive faithfully through their final days...
"Even though
most Presbyterian churches are small... many Presbyterians
do worship in the bigger congregations...
"...there’s
a big mismatch, with many of those seeking calls
preferring larger congregations in bigger cities,
and those with open positions being smaller churches
in small towns or rural areas..." |
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All
in God’s Family: Creating allies for our
LGBT families
New Curriculum
By Michael Adee / More Light Presbyterians |
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"Giving
you opportunities to gather with other members
of your congregation to pray, to learn, to share,
and to work together to transform your lives,
your congregation, and your world into a loving
place in which God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender families can thrive..." |
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| Presbyterians
in their local news |
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Lake
Wylie pastor's mom is National Mother of the Year
By Carolyn Click / The (Columbia) State [SC]
Even though he couldn't spend Mother's Day
with his mom, the Rev. Sam McGregor Jr., pastor
of Allison Creek Presbyterian Church in Lake Wylie,
proudly shared her with the whole nation after
Betty McGregor was recently honored as the 2009
National Mother of the Year. |
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| Letters
from PCUSA missionaries and Young Adult Volunteers |
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Shirley
Hill in Cameroon |
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Susie
Frerichs in Mexico |
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Garth
Moller in Russia |
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| Scripture
lessons for today
– from
the Lectionary |
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"O
sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done
marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have gained him
victory..."
"...they did not obey your voice or follow
your law; of all you commanded them to do, they
did nothing. Therefore you have made all these
disasters come upon them. See, the siege-ramps
have been cast up against the city to take it,
and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence,
has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans
who are fighting against it. What you spoke has
happened, as you yourself can see.."
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your minds, so
that you may discern what is the will of God –
what is good and acceptable and perfect..."
"...The twelve were with him, as well as
some women who had been cured of evil spirits
and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from
whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the
wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and
many others, who provided for them out of their
resources..." |
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Today
in the Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study
The
Synod of Lincoln Trails |
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"...Lincoln
Trails’ New Pastor Program has touched the
ministries of more than four hundred pastors since
its beginning in 1985. The program includes six
retreats over a period of three years and shorter
small group meetings. New pastors meet to learn
from each other and from experienced leaders about
the realities of leading congregations. Often
groups continue to meet even after the initial
three-year program is over..." |
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| Vote
chart for 08-B: 76
yes – 91 no |
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If
the 6 remaining presbyteries would vote the same
way on 08-B as they did on 01-A (2001/2002), the
final result would be the rejection of 08-B by
Please,
email
results to us. Or call 641.673.9389. Thank
you! |
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News of all other churches.
in the USA and worldwide.
and their interaction with
the world around them.
Included: opinions, resources
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Voices
from the entire spectrum
Therefore:
Always something to like,
always something to dislike,
always something to ponder...
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Arriving
in Israel, Pope says hopes rest on Holy Land peace
By Luigi Sandri / ENI |
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TEL
AVIV/AMMAN – After urging Christians not
to abandon the Holy Land region while in Jordan,
Pope Benedict XVI on his arrival in Israel called
for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.
“The hopes
of countless men, women and children for a more
secure and stable future depend on the outcome
of negotiations for peace between Israelis and
Palestinians,” said Pope Benedict in remarks
at the Tel Aviv airport on May 11 where he was
welcomed by Israeli President Shimon Peres and
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Tel Aviv, Pope
Benedict condemned anti-Semitism and said he would
honor the memory of six million Jewish victims
of the Holocaust. He also urged a “just resolution”
of the Middle East conflict to enable Israelis
and Palestinians to live in peace in internationally-recognized
homelands of their own. |
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Pope
at Yad Vashem
Benedict's speech showed verbal indifference and
banality
By Tom Segev / Haaretz |
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"Pope
John Paul II was received in Israel with enthusiasm
that sometimes bordered on the excitement generally
reserved for pop stars. He radiated warmth. Pope
Benedict XVI, in contrast, comes across as restrained,
almost cold.
"In the best-case
scenario, Benedict will leave behind indifference,
not hostility. The speech he gave yesterday at
Yad Vashem was surprising mainly because one would
have expected the Vatican's cardinals to prepare
a more intelligent text for their boss...
"There is
nothing easier than expressing real horror when
talking about the Holocaust, than identifying
with its suffering, pain and grief. If that is
not done, it is a sign that there was a deliberate
decision not to do so... What he said about the
Holocaust sounded too calculated, too diplomatic
and professional...
"Yad Vashem
officials rushed to express "disappointment"
at Benedict's failure to mention the Germans,
and naturally they attributed that omission to
his own background..."
Related: A
Pilgrim's lack of progress – by Scott
MacLeod / TIME
"...overall, I've been underwhelmed so
far by this papal pilgrimage to the Middle East..." |
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BBC
appoints Muslim to top religious post in controversial
first
By Steve Doughty / The Daily Mail |
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The
BBC yesterday appointed a Muslim as its head of
religious programming in a radical departure from
broadcasting tradition.
The post –
considered one of the most influential religious
roles in the country - has gone to Aaqil Ahmed,
who has been working as an executive at Channel
4.
It comes at a time
of deepening worries among Christian leaders that
their faith is being sidelined and downgraded
by authorities.
Last year the BBC
gave the job of producing its most popular and
longrunning religious programme, Songs of Praise,
to a Sikh, Tommy Nagra.
The Church of England
points out that 70 per cent of the population
of Britain professes to be Christian, but only
3 per cent are Muslims. |
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Obama's
faith-based council still finding its footing
By Adelle M. Banks / RNS |
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The
overhaul of the office centers on an expanded
mission to go beyond matching faith-based groups
with government funds, advisory council members
said in recent interviews. One of the biggest
changes is asking religious leaders to help shape
policy on a number of hot-button social issues,
including abortion. |
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Pro-life
Notre Dame seniors to hold alternate commencement
By Nathan Black / Christian Post |
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Days
away from the highly publicized and debated commencement
at the University of Notre Dame, a coalition of
student groups opposing the invitation of President
Obama will hold its own gathering on graduation
day.
Notre Dame Response
announced on Tuesday that it has received "official
permission" by the university to hold a two-day
rally that includes a "meditation" and
prayer vigil. The protesting seniors want to affirm
the university's Catholic identity and pro-life
position.
"It's not
a political issue; this is an issue of human dignity,
and it's a Catholic issue," said Greer Hannan,
a Notre Dame graduating senior, in a video by
ND Response. "As a Catholic university, we
need to stand up for it."
Awarding a Notre
Dame honorary law degree to Obama who has used
the law to deny equality to the unborn would diminish
the value of the degree itself, ND Response has
said. |
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Former
Catholic head of Milwaukee admits he's gay
By Rachel Zoll / AP |
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A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002
over a sex and financial scandal involving a man
describes his struggles with being gay in an upcoming
memoir about his decades serving the church.
Archbishop Rembert
Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese,
said in an interview Monday that he wrote about
his sexual orientation because he wanted to be
candid about "how this came to life in my
own self, how I suppressed it, how it resurrected
again."
Called "A
Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic
Archbishop ,"
the book is set to be released in June.
Weakland stepped
down soon after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette
University theology student, revealed in May 2002
that he was paid $450,000 to settle a sexual assault
claim he made against the archbishop more than
two decades earlier. The money came from the archdiocese. |
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Abstinence
funding to end in Obama's 2010 budget
By Erin Roach / BP |
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President
Obama's proposed budget for 2010 would eliminate
federal funding for abstinence education programs
in public schools, replacing them with so-called
comprehensive sex education programs that promote
the use of condoms and other contraceptives among
the nation's teenagers.
Under the plan,
released May 7, Obama would cut more than $100
million in spending on abstinence-only education
and create a new $110 million "teen pregnancy
prevention initiative." Another $50 million
would be directed to states for pregnancy prevention
programs that rely on condoms. |
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Leading
questions: Climate change polls and Evangelicals
By E Calvin Beisner / Cornwall Alliance for the
Stewardship of Creation |
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"Over
the last year multiple polls have shown very few
evangelicals share fears of manmade global warming.
In fact, they are the least likely of all Americans
to support global warming legislation.
"So, what
do you do when you're desperate to get lawmakers
to believe they'll have evangelicals' support
if they back massive, expensive legislation to
fight global warming?
"If the latest
development is any indication, you fake it. You
try to create the illusion of massive evangelical
support even when it's not there..."
Related: New
progressive faith group launches Christian radio
campaign for climate bill / U.S.News –
listen to the ad here |
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The
new (Evangelical) mainline – American
evangelicalism is displacing the old mainline.
How do we keep from suffering the same fate?
Editorial / Christianity Today |
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"...is
it possible that Newsweek missed the real
story? According to the survey, rather than being
headed for a crash, the American church, while
shrinking slightly relative to the overall population,
is becoming more conservative and evangelical,
though somewhat less denominational...
"The real
story here, for good and for ill, is that evangelicals
nationwide are becoming the new mainline. And,
there is a new reality that evangelicals are becoming
a vital force for biblical renewal within the
old mainline...
"So how do
we, the new mainline, avoid becoming like the
old mainline and present an authentic faith to
our American neighbors? While the factors in the
decline of the old mainline (what some now call
the sideline) are many, certainly theological
compromise in a misguided pursuit of relevance
at all costs played a major role..." |
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What's
next for The Gospel Coalition
Co-founder Don Carson on the organization's growth.
By Susan Wunderink / Christianity Today |
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Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School professor Don Carson
and Tim Keller came up with the idea for the Gospel
Coalition (TGC) several years ago. They kicked
it off in 2007 with a conference attended by 500.
In 2008, the conference was a by-invitation-only,
off-the-record meeting of the nearly 50 men on
the coalition's council. In 2009, 3,100 pre-registered
and 223 walked in.
They also rolled
out the Gospel Coalition Network (TGCN) on The
City, a social networking site developed at Mars
Hill Church in Seattle. |
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Socialized
failure
Dissecting health-care data from Britain, Canada,
and elsewhere
By John C. Goodman / National Review |
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"The
health-care systems of all developed countries
face three unrelenting problems: rising costs,
inadequate quality, and incomplete access to care.
A slew of recent articles, published mainly in
medical journals, suggest that the health-care
systems of other countries are superior to ours
on all these fronts. Yet the articles are at odds
with a substantial economic literature.
"What follows
is a brief review of the evidence... the American
health-care system has plenty of problems. But
it is not inferior to other developed countries’
systems – and we should therefore not be
looking to these systems, most of which are characterized
by heavy government intervention, for inspiration..." |
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A
perfect (cultural) storm – How
the Church should respond
By Chuck Colson |
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Today
Americans find themselves swept up in the perfect
cultural storm. We have a financial meltdown caused
largely by moral failures in government, Wall
Street, and the public. We’re paying the
bill for decades of self-indulgence, fueled by
rampant relativism, rejection of the Christian
work ethic, and materialism. And we have an army
of Islamic jihadists who hope to destroy Israel
and the Western world.
In the midst of
this storm, many of our neighbors are in despair.
But Christians ought not to despair; we should
redouble our efforts to winsomely engage this
culture. Remember, culture is just religion incarnate,
and politics is only an expression of culture.
So to fix a broken culture, you reinvigorate the
Church – offering deeper discipleship and
worldview teaching. |
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What
to Do with the Stranger?
Two evangelicals argue for more generous immigration
policies.
By Tony Carnes / Christianity Today |
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I
had an intense reaction to Welcoming
the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the
Immigration Debate
(InterVarsity Press) because my great-grandfather,
born in England, may not have informed the U.S.
government that he had arrived on American soil.
He traveled by Conestoga wagon to Texas and became
a successful rancher. And some years later, my
dad assigned me to work alongside Mexican illegals
on a farm crew.
So how could I
not love this book from Matthew Soerens and Jenny
Hwang, who are involved in immigration work through
World Relief? They advocate a generous, biblically
based invitation to all immigrants to take part
in America. Most evangelicals are leery of doing
anything to encourage immigration lawbreakers.
This book will not persuade all Christians to
support liberalized immigration laws, but even
the skeptical should find the authors' approach
useful. |
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Churches
get religion on marketing
By Beth Snyder Bulik / Advertising Age |
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"Marketing
may or may not have played a role in American's
increasingly fickle relationship with religion,
but it's certainly playing one today as organized
religions scramble to get consumers' attention...
"The United
Methodist Church launched a $20 million campaign
last week to specifically reach 18- to 34-year-olds
with a "Rethink Church" message..." |
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The
first Thin Place – by
Mark D. Roberts
Part 2 of series: Thin Places |
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"...thin
place is a metaphor with Celtic Christian origins.
A thin place, in this tradition, is a place where
human beings experience God more directly. The
metaphor assumes a worldview in which heaven and
earth are, in general, separated by a considerable
distance. But some places on earth seem to be
thin in the sense that the separation between
heaven and earth is narrowed. Thus people sense
God’s presence more readily in so-called
thin places.
"The metaphor
of thin places does not appear in Scripture. That
does not mean it’s unhelpful or theologically
suspect. But those of us who base our theology
on the Bible will want to consider this metaphor
in light of biblical revelation..." |
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| Letters
from readers – email
us |
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Earl
Tilford "Tom Hobson makes
an excellent point on torture as concerns "popular"
opinion. That is why this nation is a democratic
republic and not a pure democracy, much like the
Presbyterian Church. We should be a nation of
laws and, I think, the Presbyterian Church should
be grounded in the Christ as God-incarnate and
unchanging, the Bible, our doctrines and the Book
of Order..." |
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