ENI — Religious leaders praised Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, who died in April at age 76, for enabling a religious revival. “Boris Nikolayevich strove to maintain good relations between the state authorities and the Church,” Patriarch Alexei II of the Russian Orthodox Church stated.
ENI — “What I believe we need for a renewed theological grasp of scripture, is the recognition that scripture is something heard in the event where the community affirms its identity and seeks its renewal,” the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in Toronto in April.
The Presbyterian Church's website is going through a massive reconstruction. The new site is scheduled to be launched this summer, the result of a months-long process involving an outside web design company and a team of people at the national office. Keith Knight, associate secretary for communication, spearheaded the reconstruction process. “New technology allows us to transform our website from a library of resources into an interactive community where information is shared and conversation takes place.” He said new software allows people at the national office to easily update their portion of the website. The new format also makes the site easier to manage and navigate, and allows for the creation of discussion forums and blogs to provide for regular interaction with Presbyterians, sessions and presbyteries.
Many of us as Christians have directive to forgive — forgive those who trespass against us; to forgive is divine; love your enemies; turn the other cheek — but not training in how to forgive. We are frustrated and puzzled by how hard it is to let go of our hurt, especially when we have seen little or no remorse on the part of an offender. Unable to forgive, we might then ask, “are we being bad Christians?”
Guy Smagghe, of Presbyterian World Service and Development, right, visited the Kashtra refugee Camp, near Mansehra, Pakistan, for victims of the October 2005 earthquake that flattened many mountain villages. Over a thousand aftershocks since that fateful event have kept thousands, like the man beside him, from returning permanently to their traditional homes. PWS&D supports the camp through Action by Churches Together.
ENI — Global migration poses new challenges for churches worldwide, said Rev. Samuel Kobia, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches.
Seek and Ye Shall Find There is good Christian fiction, you just have to look for it by Carol J. Garvin A Tasty Morsel A […]
Becoming Heroes by Marion Schaffer Psalm 23, for chemotherapy by Art Van Seters God of Calvary’s Grief and Glory Words by Stuart Coles Sung to […]
The Centre for Asian-Canadian Theology and Ministry at Knox College is hosting a seminar on May 28 on cross-cultural issues. The third and last in an annual series, the seminar aims to explore the histories of the Presbyterian Church in Canada along with those of the Korean, Ghanaian, Chinese and Taiwanese churches, and explore how these communities can share mission and ministry in the future.
New web manager arrives
ENI — Christians in Toronto commemorated the 200th anniversary of the law abolishing the slave trade in the then-British Empire, at a service in a church founded as the city's first black congregation in 1826.
ENI — Lent should be for penitence and fasting, and it should also be a time to live as the poorest people do and be united with them, say Roman Catholic labour activists in Hong Kong.
Though the wider church may know little about the Eastern Han-Ca Presbytery, the presbytery's members are eager to connect to other congregations and share their […]
Presbyterian congregations in Canada have almost doubled their givings to missions over the last 20 years. In 1985, according to data reported in the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly, Presbyterian congregations gave $9.5 million to missions (General Assembly budget, as Presbyterians Sharing was called at the time, Other Benevolences, and Women's Missionary Society/Atlantic Mission Society). In 2005, Presbyterian congregations reported giving $18.5 million to missions. What is striking about this $9-million increase is that $6 million went to Other Benevolences, to mission projects and initiatives outside the national church budget. Other Benevolences includes local food banks, Presbyterian World Service and Development, interdenominational mission efforts, congregational short-term mission projects, and so on.
ENI — Churches in England and Scotland are taking part in wedding fairs to encourage couples to get married and to do so by marching down the aisle rather than into a registry office.
Giving just a little can help others in a significant way. These three church members thought of an idea, and with the support of their […]
For many of us, summer, that much-anticipated season of warmth and light we're entering, is all too brief. Naturally, we'd like to savour it as much as possible. In order to really do so, though, we need to depart from our usual habits and routines.
Today is my day off and it snowed this morning, almost a foot in some places. Disgusted, I went to work. After lunch the snow stopped and I decided to leave the office and see if I could salvage the remains of the day. I went home, grabbed my fi eld glasses, my rambling rifle and the rest of my field kit.
ENI — Religious groups have joined civic groups and international companies that include Volvo and General Electric in backing The Path to Climate Sustainability by the Global Roundtable on Climate Change. The coalition of more than 150 groups is calling for governments to set “scientifically informed targets” for reducing greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions.
The way Mission is organized and delivered, who is involved, and how the national office engages participants, will undergo a massive shift, according to a document discussed at the church's national mission agency committee meeting.