Unbelief is on the uptick. People who check “None” for their religious affiliation are now nearly one in five Americans (19 percent), the highest ever documented, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press.
The Korea Host Committee for the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) are proposing a number of events for the gathering that focus on the “reconciliation and unification on the Korean peninsula,” according to a new report called “Korea Peace Project.”
Who would have thought that the loss of “flannel graph” teachers in Sunday School would spell doom for the Presbyterian and other Christian churches?
When preaching on Acts 8:26-40, many pastors focus on the conversion of the eunuch. But Linnea Nilsen Capshaw’s father, a Lutheran pastor, preached a sermon about Philip, who put aside his prejudices about the eunuch’s social status to share the good news of Jesus. “Philip has to look at himself and decide what is his truth,” Capshaw said. “He was converted so that the eunuch could also be converted.”
In 1662, a group of colonists ― primarily from Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, who had settled in what would become Jamaica, Queens ― began holding worship services in a public meeting house. The congregation was the beginning of First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica. In 2012, First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica is celebrating its 350th anniversary, making it the longest continually serving Presbyterian church in the United States.
The Orthodox Church in America has announced that it forced its controversial leader, Metropolitan Jonah, to resign earlier this month chiefly because he had failed to remove a priest accused of rape.
Roman Catholic bishops in Kenya have cautioned the government against joining a global push for birth control, citing concerns about its effect on society and family values.
At the national New Church Development (NCD) conference during the “Mid Council Strategy” track to discern how to start 1001 new worshiping communities, more definition was given to the new churchwide movement. “For us, there is a reframing of new church development going on,” said Philip Lotspeich, coordinator of church growth for Presbyterian Mission Agency. “1001 is becoming the umbrella for our work.”
Saying he was speaking about his favorite things ― church, faith and discipleship ― best–selling author and futurist Len Sweet told leaders at a dinner here on Tuesday night (July 31) that the church made a mistake.
Transforming existing congregations seems much like the story of Abraham and Sarah, said the Rev. Shawn Barkley, pastor of Louisville’s Trinity Presbyterian Church. “God tells them to leave their place of comfort and familiarity and go to a place completely different and unknown,’ he said.