The sign outside the church lists what most signs say: the times of both the Sunday service and the usual seasonal greeting. Underneath, however, on the last line it says simply, “Sanctuary Week 23.”

I work for the City of London Fire Department and my captain on Engine 11 is Glen Pearson, Director of the London Food Bank and former missionary. Having served for many years in Africa, Glen and his wife Jane Roy are currently assisting the people of South Sudan. This is an area suffering the results of 25 years of civil war.

ENI – “We are at a point of no return,” said Bishop Wolfgang Huber, who heads the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the country's main Protestant grouping. He was speaking to more than 300 delegates from throughout Germany gathered in Wittenberg, the town where Martin Luther launched the Reformation five centuries ago, to consider how to strengthen the profile of Protestantism in Germany.

Mark L. MacDonald, former bishop of Alaska, has been named the Anglican Church's first national indigenous bishop with pastoral oversight over all native Anglicans across Canada, a move that was described by Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, as “an historic moment” for the life of the Anglican Church of Canada and the country.

For the first time in its history the Caribbean and North America Council for Mission met in Canada, at Crieff Hills Community last fall. The delegates seen here — including the PCC's Ron Wallace and Margaret Zondo, of International Ministries and Reuben St. Louis, of Youth in Mission — represent 12 denominations from nine countries.

ENI – Rev. Ishmael Noko, a world Lutheran leader, says that if the international community wants the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement for south Sudan to hold, it must meet financial pledges agreed to when the pact was signed. “When the Sudan conference took place, there were pledges made. Lots of money was promised and not much has been done,” Noko, who is general secretary of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation, told journalists in Nairobi. “If the international community really wants the peace to hold in southern Sudan and the tensions not to return again, then it needs to do something.”

ENI – Rev. Robert S. Bilheimer, an American Presbyterian minister who organized the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and later was credited with helping turn South African theologian C. F. Beyers Naude into an opponent of apartheid, has died at age 89.

Presbyterian History turns 50 this year, first published in March 1957. The bi-annual publication of the Committee on History has recounted the stories of Canadian Presbyterianism, including tales of how congregations got started, biographies of lay and ordained Presbyterians, and the role of Presbyterians in the history of Canada.

For the past two years, David Phillips has acted as the Leading with Care coordinator for the denomination. During this time, he has visited or worked with more than 500 congregations. He is also convener of the Pickering Presbytery’s Leading with Care Committee, and serves as clerk of session, teaches the adult Sunday school class and convenes the mission committee at his home congregation.

Kouwenberg came to his current charge after 20 years at St. Giles, Prince George, B.C. He has served on a number of the church’s national committees, including the Assembly Council and the Task Force for the Revision of The Book of Praise. He has been clerk and moderator of the Synod of British Columbia and moderator of the Presbyteries of Kamloops and Westminster. Currently the convener of the Board of St. Andrew’s Hall and a member of the Committee on Theological Education, Kouwenberg has served as a member of the governing bodies of all three of the church’s theological colleges. In 2005, the Presbyterian College, Montreal, awarded him an honorary D.D. He has also been the editor of Channels and a contributing editor to the Record.

Before settling in Calgary, Marple served on several summer mission fields in various provinces, and three different pastoral charges in Nova Scotia. He has been moderator of presbytery and of the Synod of the Atlantic Provinces and is presently clerk of the Presbytery of Calgary-Macleod. He has served on a number of presbytery, synod and General Assembly committees including a Rural Ministry Consultation, the Senate of Knox College and Assembly Council. He has been active in areas of social justice including advocacy for refugees as well as being involved in the establishment of a local chapter of KAIROS in Calgary. Ecumenically minded, Marple has always been involved in inter-church relations. He currently serves as president of the Calgary Council of Churches and is a Presbyterian representative on Calgary’s Muslim-Christian Dialogue.

Born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, DeWolfe was ordained in 1983, and has served numerous congregations since that time, including two ordained missionary appointments at Knox Listowel, and in a team ministry in Palmerston and Drayton with his wife, Rev. Janet Allan DeWolfe. He came to his current charge in 1999. For the past seven years, he has also served as Lecturer in Homiletics at the Atlantic School of Theology.

The Presbyterian Church has its very own ambitious, aggressive human rights activist in David Kilgour, a member of parliament from 1979 to 2006, who has advocated for global social justice and peace issues throughout his time in public office. On a recent 10-country European tour he drew attention to the alleged organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners in China. Along with human rights lawyer David Matas, Kilgour conducted a two month investigation into this practice, uncovering evidence that Falun Gong practitioners (a banned spiritual movement in China with about 70 million members and founded in 1992) are being wrongfully imprisoned, killed and harvested for their vital organs which are sold to local and foreign patients.

ENI – Australia's religious communities have united to call for urgent action on climate change at a time when the country is facing its worst drought.

ENI – Church officials say the resurgence of ethnic fighting in Sri Lanka has stalled the tsunami reconstruction. “The situation is very frustrating,” said Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, general secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka.

ENI – Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi has urged his government to reconsider a decision to close its borders to refugees from neighbouring strife-torn Somalia. “At times of emergency, it is important to be humanitarian,” said Nzimbi after the January announcement by the government that it was closing its border with Somalia and deporting refugees who had crossed to Kenya. “We should not allow them to remain where they will be killed,” said Nzimbi.

Cynthia Chenard spent her formative years in Manila, Philippines, where her parents were missionaries. She worked as a radio announcer and a teacher prior to entering pastoral ministry. Ordained in 1991, she served West St. Andrew’s in St. Catharines and First Church in St. David’s, Ontario, before moving to Iona in 1996. Serving also as a police chaplain for the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police, Chenard was a front line pastoral presence during the Swissair tragedy and its aftermath.

ENI – The American Religious Newswriters Association held their annual poll in December to name the top religion news:

The Towards a World Without AIDS campaign of Presbyterian World Service and Development not only funds projects in far away countries; it assists people right here in Canada. As of December 31st, more than $1 million had been raised for the campaign since its launch in 2004. About $75,000 of that has been allocated to support projects in Canada, such as:

Rev. Dr. Cynthia Chenard Iona, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Rev. Dr. Laurence DeWolfe Church of St. David, Halifax, Nova Scotia Rev. Dr. Hans Kouwenberg Calvin, Abbotsford, […]