An annual conference of Anglican bishops in Newcastle has been told the church is even more relevant during times of natural disasters.
The past few months has been described as an ‘onslaught of disaster’ with the Queensland floods, West Australian fires and New Zealand’s double tragedies of the Pike River mine disaster and Christchurch earthquake.
Newcastle Bishop, Brian Farran says in Brisbane, unaffected parishes were critical in providing support to those in the flood zone.
Christchurch is broken and will never be the same, and people would need to offer strength and support to each other for ”many, many months”, a minister told his flock.
”We need to be kind to one another, and patient with one another,” he said.
Reverend Mark Chamberlain, the vicar of St Barnabas Anglican Church in Fendalton Road, told about 250 people gathered in chilly morning shade outside the cracked and unsafe 1925 stone church yesterday that when he was appointed, ”I never dreamed of being called upon to lead you in your grief”.
”I’m just beginning to realise the depth of that grief.”
A candlelit Vigil is to be held in York Minster on Sunday 27th February to mark the 37th Birthday of Claudia Lawrence, the York chef who has been missing for nearly two years.
It will start with an informal procession from the Mansion House, St.Helen’s Square at 2.30 pm, entering the West Doors of the Minster at 2.45 pm for the short Vigil at the High Altar where candles will be lit. Both the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu and the Dean of York, The Very Revd Keith Jones will officiate.
What would you say to children who have aging parents?
When we’re young we usually don’t think much about growing old, or about our parents growing old either””not until something forces us to think about it. But it will happen, if they live long enough. So the first thing I’d say to those whose parents are growing older is to be prepared for it, and to accept whatever responsibilities it brings you.
Then be patient with them. They may not be able to do everything they once did, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily helpless or incompetent. And be alert to their needs””including their emotional and spiritual needs. Sometimes they just need to know that you’re there, and that you care….
Three years after a gunman opened fire and killed six people at a Kirkwood City Council meeting, the Rev. David Holyan recently found himself in Tucson, Ariz.
Holyan, 46, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, has become an accidental expert in what the Presbyterian Church (USA) calls “human-caused disaster” response. More precisely, he is a member of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s National Response Team.
His expertise comes from the victim side. Holyan’s church became a spiritual hub for the community in the wake of the shooting rampage on Feb. 7, 2008, that claimed the lives of six people””including two of Holyan’s parishioners””and the gunman.
Via email:
The Christ Church community in Jerusalem is relieved at the capture of those who are alleged to have killed Kristine Luken and injured Kay Wilson. Today’s arraignment doesn’t end our grief, nor does it bring healing. We look for that consolation in God’s presence amongst us and in the hope of the resurrection. This tragedy will not discourage us as we seek to live out the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and support all those working towards a society which upholds justice and mercy. We will continue to remember and honor Kristine, our colleague and friend, and remain in prayer for the Luken family in their bereavement. With friends and family around the world we will support Kay Wilson as she struggles towards recovery. We are grateful to those from the communities here in Israel and abroad who have expressed their care and concern for our community during this tragic time.
David Pileggi, Rector
Christ Church Jerusalem
…now the once-private funerals and memorials of less-noted citizens are also going online.
Several software companies have created easy-to-use programs to help funeral homes cater to bereaved families. FuneralOne a one-stop shop for online memorials that is based in St. Clair, Mich., has seen the number of funeral homes offering Webcasts increase to 1,053 in 2010, from 126 in 2008 (it also sells digital tribute DVDs).
During that same period, Event by Wire, a competitor in Half Moon Bay, Calif., watched the number of funeral homes live-streaming services jump to 300 from 80. And this month, the Service Corporation International in Houston, which owns 2,000 funeral homes and cemeteries, including the venerable Frank E. Campbell funeral chapel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said it was conducting a pilot Webcasting program at 16 of its funeral homes.
A minister at Shelter Community Church of the Nazarene in Belmont as well as a realtor for Keller Williams, [Ryan] Riddell, 45, also owns a roofing business in Miamisburg.
“I have four reasons for doing this,” he explains. “The first is for my own spiritual renewal. I’m trying to take 30 days to step back from the things I do in the business world and the church.”
A second reason, he says, is that “Jesus became like us in order to reach us.” Riddell says the more he gets into the world of the homeless, the more receptive people have been, allowing him to be of help….
At first it dispensed aid to hungry homeowners rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Then the reconstruction volunteers came by the thousands. And so for the past five years, the volunteer ministry of Trinity Episcopal Church has dispensed nearly 100,000 meals, five and six days a week to the young men and women in kerchiefs and tool belts working in neighborhoods all over metro New Orleans.
“After five years, we’re still serving volunteer groups — and that’s wonderful,” said Claire DeBow, the ministry’s only paid staffer. “After we’ve served them they say thank you. And we say, ‘No, thank you. Thank you for being here.’ ”
While still serving volunteer work crews, the ministry has begun to shift focus — showing up with food, coffee, warm clothing and odds and ends to help the homeless around New Orleans.
The Rt. Rev. Kirk Smith, Bishop of Arizona, wrote Jan. 10 that Christians “can go behind the rhetoric of blame and name the root cause of acts of violence like these ”” fear. Whether the young man was rational or not, he certainly was influenced by the escalating violent language which seems to characterize our political discourse these days, when anyone who disagrees with you is labeled as an ”˜enemy’ or as ”˜evil.’”
Bishop Smith added: “We fear others when we are afraid. There has to be someone or some group to blame for our anxiety about our economy, our social breakdown, our drug culture and our institutional collapse. And so we find a scapegoat ”” our problems are all the fault of ”˜liberals’ or ”˜tea-party members’ or ”˜illegals.’”
The Rt. Rev. Dan Thomas Edwards, Bishop of Nevada, wrote that the weekend’s violence reflects wider societal problems.
ABC News has reported: Premier Anna Bligh says Queensland is facing a reconstruction effort of post-war proportions as the state battles possibly the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.
The Brisbane River inundated more than 20,000 homes and businesses across the capital when it peaked this morning at 4.46 metres. More than 100,000 homes are without power across the city and to the west in Ipswich where floodwaters are receding rapidly after yesterday’s peak. The search for missing people continues in earnest across the Lockyer Valley, where this morning the body of a man was found in a field near Grantham, bringing to 13 the number confirmed dead.
The Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, said during his sermon Jan. 9 that “if we are to stand against the flames of violence and hatred that even now are licking at the edges of our state, we are going to have to live into our vocation as members of the Body of Christ”
“We are going to have create humanizing relationships with each other that will make it impossible to objectify our sister and brother,” he said. “We are going to have to make our city, our state and our country into our neighborhood. We must build walls of love with each one of us serving as a brick in that wall. And those walls will stand against the flames.”
As Tucsonans continued to reel from the Jan. 8 shooting spree at a shopping center that left six dead and another 14 wounded, religious leaders around the country looked to help heal the emotional pain through prayer and memorial services.
Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas planned to preside at a public commemoration and healing service Jan. 11 and expected to participate in the funerals later in the week for his friend, Judge John Roll, 63, and 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, both Catholics.
He also was going to be part of an interfaith memorial service at Catalina United Methodist Church, also Jan. 11, which was organized by United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcano of Phoenix. She planned to attend a public Mass of commemoration at St. Odilia Catholic Church that evening.
In the Gospel of Luke, early Christians are urged to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (14:13) to their gatherings. But how far can ”” or should ”” modern religious congregations go to accommodate people with physical or intellectual disabilities?
With the Baby Boom generation about to age into infirmity, and wounded war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in growing numbers, the issue of worshippers with disabilities will very soon overwhelm ethical and theological abstraction….
The Rev. Mary Bredlau has officiated at 350 to 500 funerals a year for 15 years. That’s 4,500 to 7,500 souls.
The teenagers are the hardest, especially the murders and suicides.
“To see the pain in the parents’ eyes, the despair and the shock in the other children’s eyes. Those are the most emotional,” she says.
Lapsed Catholics will be wooed as never before later this year when the church in Australia launches Catholics Come Home, a media campaign credited with lifting mass attendances in the US by up to 17 per cent.
Archbishop of Sydney George Pell is sending a team to Chicago to study and replicate the program, which tells non-practising Catholics: “There is a big family that loves you and misses you. It’s a wonderful adventure – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain – and we say welcome home.”
The television advertisements, Facebook entries and tweets also discuss the church’s role in schools, universities, health care and charitable works. “Progress has been good in turning around mass attendances so I’m sending over a small team to see what it might do for the church in Australia,” Pell says.
Two decades after declaring victory in the war over biblical inerrancy, Southern Baptists are battling about booze.
Seeking to remain relevant in today’s culture, many Baptists have abandoned former taboos against social activities like dancing and going to movies. Now some are questioning the denomination’s historic position of abstaining from alcohol, prompting others to draw a line.
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina recently passed a motion to “study a policy of the social use of alcohol” related to funding of church plants, employment of personnel and nomination of persons to committees and boards of trustees.
Churches all over the Miss-Lou will be having their annual watch night services this evening to help kick off the New Year by looking back on the previous year, and looking ahead for what’s to come.
“We take the time to reflect over the year,” Zion Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church Pastor the Rev. Birdon Mitchell said. “It is a very spiritual atmosphere.”
Mitchell said the service at his church will include songs and a testimonial time where anyone who wants to speak can share.
“Any person who would like to speak and reflect over things that happened that the Lord brought them through over the year or what their desires and aspirations are can do so,” he said.
The United Methodist church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is anything but united.
Two pastors preach from the same pulpit and live in the same parsonage next door, but they are barely on speaking terms and openly criticize each other’s approach to the faith.
In the church’s social hall, two camps eye each other suspiciously as one finishes its meal of rice and beans while the other prepares steaming pans of chicken lo mein.
Two very different congregations share the soaring brick building on Fourth Avenue: a small cadre of about 30 Spanish-speaking people who have worshiped there for decades and a fledgling throng of more than 1,000 Chinese immigrants that expands week by week ”” the fastest-growing Methodist congregation in New York City.
The Latinos say they feel steamrolled and under threat, while their tenants, the Chinese, say they feel stifled and unappreciated. Mediators have been sent in, to little effect. This holiday season, there are even two competing Christmas trees.
Grief, anxiety and depression don’t take a holiday at this time of year.
In fact, they can weigh even more heavily, according to the Rev. Bill Van Oss, rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Duluth, which hosted its third annual “Blue Christmas” service on Sunday.
“We want to acknowledge that, for some people, Christmas and the holidays are a difficult time,” Van Oss said. “Not everyone has positive memories of the season.”
He pointed out that many people still are haunted by childhood experiences related to alcoholism, abuse or poverty in their lives.
Healthy and growing churches pay close attention not only to their members but also to those who are not yet a part of the flock. New people are the lifeblood of a growing church. We want to ensure that nothing impairs or cuts off the flow of new people to the church.
[Parish clergy]… need to be aware of five significant facts about first-time guests looking for a church home….
The recession has finally caught up with churches.
After two years of treading water, more Protestant congregations have seen their Sunday collections drop this year.
Pastors blame high unemployment and a drop in per-capita giving by members. To make ends meet, churches have laid off staff and frozen salaries, put off major capital projects and cut back on programs. At the same time, more of their congregation members and neighbors are asking for help with basic needs such as paying the rent and buying groceries.
Attending religious services regularly and having close friends in the congregation are key to having a happier, more satisfying life, a study finds.
Even attending services irregularly ”” just several times a year ”” increases a sense of well-being, so long as there is a circle of friendships within the community and a strong, shared religious identity.
That’s the key finding of a study released today in the December issue of the American Sociological Review.
Even before he was officially installed as the Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland in 2006, Richard G. Lennon was already talking about the need to close churches.
“As painful as a funeral is, it’s there that you commend your loved one to God,” Lennon told reporters just weeks before his installation.
Those words, coming from an auxiliary bishop who had just closed scores of churches in Boston, sounded a death knell for dozens more in Northeast Ohio””and unleashed a small but shrill backlash across Lennon’s new flock.
The extensive downsizing is essentially over, although some of the closings remain under appeal with the Vatican. In the end, 50 parishes were closed. Vacant churches are up for sale, merged parishes are moving forward.
The delegation included Melkite Bishop Elias Shacour, Latin Rite Vicar of Jerusalem Msgr. Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, and Anglican Bishop Emeritus Riah Abu al Assal, reported Vatican Radio. The group traveled to the city of Haifa Dec. 4 to receive an update on the damage from the Mount Carmel fire.
The Auckland service will be led by Anglican Church and Catholic Church leaders and will feature representatives from other faiths and the wider Auckland community.
“At times like this, it is important for the community to come together to remember those who have been lost and support those left behind,” says Anglican Bishop of Auckland, the Right Reverend Ross Bay.
To repeat the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury: “But again ”˜pastoral response’ has been interpreted very differently and there are those [”¦] who would say: ”˜Well, pastoral response means rites of blessing’, and I’m not very happy about that.” The Archbishop is not alone in his feelings. But the bishops of the Diocese of Toronto have decided to pour more fuel upon the smoldering flames of that unhappiness.
Interestingly, the Toronto Guidelines tell us that parishes can go forward with requesting to be designated as places where same-sex blessings can be performed only when some kind of “consensus” within it has been found on the matter. This is further explained as follows: “Consensus is not total agreement; however, every effort should be made to reach a decision where everyone feels heard and is willing to live with the wider body’s decision.” This is explicitly qualified in this manner: “The way forward should not be achieved or prevented by a few taking an opposing view to the vast majority”.
An obvious question arises in the face of this definition of consensus and its requirements: is there in fact a “consensus” of this kind in the Diocese of Toronto around the motives, meaning, and substance of the new Guidelines? The process for putting the Guidelines together precluded such a consensus, and the implementation of the Guidelines moves forward without it. How should those within, but also those outside of the diocese interpret this failure to discern consensus? For we should also ask another and related question: where do the bishops of the Diocese of Toronto stand vis a vis the “consensus” of the Communion’s bishops and her “consultative organs”, a consensus that in fact is equivalent in this case to a unanimity? Do they stand with the “vast majority”? Or do they stand with “a very few taking an opposing view” that is thereby seeking to “prevent” a “way forward” towards the healing of the Communion? Does this matter to them?
Diocesan Diversity ”“ The Diocese of Toronto honours and appreciates the diversity represented in its parishes and clergy. This diversity will continue to be reflected in the selection and appointment of clergy, and in the membership of committees and councils of the diocese. We recognize there are theological and cultural differences across our diocese and within parishes which are strained by both the limits and permission represented in blessing same gender relationships.
–All congregations and individual Anglicans are called to exercise pastoral generosity one to another.
–Permission to participate in blessings of same gender commitments will be extended only to those parishes and clergy who fulfill the requirements noted above and are granted permission by the diocesan bishop.
–No clergy nor parishes will be required to participate in the blessing of same gender relationships.
–Clergy who object to blessing same gender relationships will be asked to exercise pastoral generosity by referring same gender couples seeking a blessing, if requested, to the Area Bishop.
–Clergy who support blessing same gender couples will be asked to exercise pastoral sensitivity to those in their parish who are not in agreement with the parish designation.
A new book, “The State of Church Giving,” says congregations have waning influence among charitable causes because their focus now seems to be on institutional maintenance rather than spreading the gospel and healing the world.
The 20th annual study by Empty Tomb Inc. reaffirmed a “long-term turning inward of congregations” exhibited by a dwindling share of church donations spent on benevolence and evangelism. It also found a dip in money given to churches during the 2008 recession, even while donations to religious organizations overall increased.