At Holy Family Roman Catholic Basilica in Nairobi, African workers were recently singing lively Christian worship songs as they broke ground for the construction of a new office block for the Nairobi Archdiocese.

However, they were not working for an African or British construction company. China Zhongxing Construction is building Maurice Cardinal Otunga Plaza, one of many church contracts Chinese construction companies have won in recent years as China has expanded its influence in Africa. Now, Chinese firms build many bridges, roads and stadiums across the continent.

Feasting on the Word Curriculum: Teaching the Revised Common Lectionary introduces its new seasonal pricing plan to respond to churches’ needs.

The new pricing structure is a response to comments from congregations requesting a seasonal pricing plan in the midst of financial challenges. It also provides opportunities for churches to try Feasting on the Word Curriculum for a season or to decide to start the all-church program midyear. Visit feastingcurriculum.com to view the new seasonal pricing.

Feasting on the Word Curriculum is a groundbreaking, online lectionary curriculum based on the award-winning commentary series Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Ecumenical and downloadable, it incorporates the uniqueness of the commentaries, which provide four different approaches to teaching biblical passages in the Revised Common Lectionary. Adaptable to a variety of learning settings and teaching styles, this innovative curriculum integrates the Feasting on the Word commentary style to explore lectionary passages in ways suitable for all participants.

Eleven international peacemakers from different countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 23-Oct. 18.

They will share their stories about church-based ministries in their countries that seek peace justice and pursue peace in the name of Jesus Christ. This year’s international peacemakers come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.

The International Peacemaker program is sponsored by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

Dr. Mazen Asaqa was born in Mosul, Iraq (old Nineveh), where he served in the Presbyterian Church in Mosul as youth leader, assistant lay pastor, and doctor in the church clinic. Following the kidnapping and murder of his father, Mazen fled to Jordan and in 2009 he was granted refugee status and currently resides in Michigan where he is studying to practice medicine in the USA. He is interested in the meaning of being Christian and the effects of persecution on faith and church.

The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami is causing a worldwide re-evaluation of nuclear power and renewing debate within faith groups on the subject.

It’s not news that young people are more liberal on issues like same-sex marriage, but a new poll charts just how deeply that split has been carved into the white evangelical community, one of the most socially conservative groups on the American religious landscape.

The poll, released in late August by the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute, found that nearly half (44 percent) of young evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

Spiritual care in disasters is a hallmark of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), and by working with agencies such as the American Red Cross, PDA is better positioned to be of maximum service to those in need, PDA personnel assert.

Every faith-based disaster organization does spiritual care, but “what is different is that in PDA, rather than trying to set up our own separate spiritual care process apart from others, we see our role as working with other agencies and organizations including the Red Cross,” said the Rev. John Robinson, PDA’s associate for national response and a veteran staffer. PDA provides nonsectarian training and guidance  that enables the community to become aware of what the issues are in spiritual care, specifically in disasters, Robinson continued.

PDA has been working with the Red Cross for several years, providing joint trainings for disaster responders and direct care to those in need. “We do side-by-side training with the Red Cross,” said Robinson. “It’s a natural fit.”

Three Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) new church developments will receive $25,000 each in mission program grants from the Evangelism & Church Growth ministry area of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC).  The new church ministries in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are:

• Downtown Presbyterian in Columbia, S.C. (Synod of the South Atlantic) is reaching a younger generation of professionals.  The organizing Pastor, 30-year-old Amos Disasa, whose family is from Ethiopia, moved to Columbia when he was a boy.  He felt God’s call to begin a community of faith to address some of the questions being raised by his peers in the downtown community.   In the fall of 2010 he began to lead Bible studies and other exploration groups.  To meet people where they were, he collaborated with local museums and art gallery openings, for church to be at “the intersection of faith and life.”   Monthly worship services have had as many as 120 in attendance, causing Trinity Presbytery to encourage Downtown Presbyterian to consider weekly worship.   The community, which is African-American, Hispanic and Euro American, believes in a relational style of evangelism “where belonging precedes believing.”

Eleven international peacemakers from different countries around the world will visit congregations and presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from Sept. 23-Oct. 18.

They will share their stories about church-based ministries in their countries that seek peace justice and pursue peace in the name of Jesus Christ. This year’s international peacemakers come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia and Sudan.

The International Peacemaker program is sponsored by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.

Emad Ramzy Philobbos is professor emeritus of geology at Assiut University in Upper Egypt. He is involved in the Forum of Inter-cultural Dialogue run by the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, and in establishing a Center for Capacity Building and Social Cohesion to serve the Egyptian, Middle Eastern and North African potential leaders in churches and civic circles. Emad was the General Secretary of the Protestant Community in Egypt and is now a board member for the Presbyterian Seminary in Cairo.

EVERETT, Wash.― Twenty-three members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Everett in North Puget Sound Presbytery will travel to Haiti to help build a playground for H.I.S. Home for Children.

H.I.S Home For Children is an interdenominational Christian ministry created in 1999 to care for orphaned and abandoned children in Haiti.

The ministry includes 35 full-time staff members who administer three homes with approximately 125 kids ages birth to 16. Some of the children are orphans, but many have been abandoned to the home by a single parent who is unable to provide for them due to extreme poverty. …

Local government officials in Hungary are handing state-owned schools over to churches, unable to afford their upkeep during the economic recession, according to church sources.