A Very Difficult Circumstance... At Christmas
Topic: News Items
A dear friend runs a very compassionate shelter. I
’ve watched her pour her very life into the hardships of others for years as God’s instrument of peace. Her shelter and ours, work very closely together, and in fact our MAIN Street shelter exists, in all too many way, because of her and her compassionate vision.
At the beginning of December, and very good man named Pastor Paul arrived from Kenya. He was here to do some speaking engagements at some local churches that are friends of his, trying to raise money for his very poor church, and at their invitation. He is poor and his ministry is to the poor and handicapped back home. When he came here, he had a host, or so he thought.
He needs our help.
Click to read his story: http://www.besidestillwaters.net/stories.html
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 8:12 AM EST
Desmond Tutu in the Washington Post
Topic: News Items
10:30 PM Jan 15, 2007
Last week, over 70,000 ONE members sent over 200,000 letters to Congress, urging our government to save nearly a billion dollars for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs.
Today, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, one of the most remarkable leaders of our time, asks Congress to fund the fight and "remind the world of the good that can be done in the name of the American people."
From Desmond Tutu's Op-Ed in today's Washington Post:
"The U.S. government has repeatedly promised to combat HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria: At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 and as a member of the Group of Eight the United States committed to the goal of universal access for HIV-AIDS prevention and treatment by 2010. However, the funding resolution Congress is considering would shortchange and potentially sabotage every American program to address these diseases, leaving innocent people in its wake...
"It is a sign of our breakdown as one human family. Worldwide, we have made stops and starts at healing this rift and keeping our promises to one another. But if Congress does not act to restore that $1 billion for global health, poverty alleviation and foreign aid, the rift will only grow wider and healing will be further beyond our reach...
"As we honor the life and vision of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. today, I hope and pray that Congress will choose the righteous path, the path that will save tens of thousands of lives and give countless children opportunities and hope they have never before imagined. I join the world in watching, and waiting for its decision."
Read the full piece here
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 12:43 PM EST
Can a home be a house of God?
Topic: News Items
Hi Everyone,
I found this on Scot McKnight’s Blog “Jesus Creed” this morning...
We’ve been saying for a long, long time that “emerging” is more than philosophy and theology and progressive thinking. In fact, it is about “how to do church.” Our local paper, The Daily Herald, has a front-page story about homes becoming the house of God. This is no small element of the emerging movement. The challenge for all churches is whether or not they will shift to include such groups as central to what “church” is all about. Church needs to move to the neighborhood.
Can a home be a house of God?
An increasing number of Christians are moving from cavernous churches to worship in a more intimate setting - their homes.
BY LISA SMITH Daily Herald Staff Writer, Posted Sunday, December 24, 2006
There are no pews and no altar, just six chairs arranged in a circle.
There is no pastor relating Scripture to contemporary American life, just a group of friends discussing
spirituality.
Neither bread nor wine is offered. Most who walk in are clutching cups of Starbucks coffee.
Yet the people who enter this Arlington Heights living room every Sunday morning label this gathering - and themselves - church.
“We have a deep conviction that we grow spiritually when we’re in relationships,” said Andy Padjen, 33, who has been hosting this weekly get-together for about the past year. “We feel like a lot of times there’s some structure and theology in the institutional church that limit people’s intimacy with each other. So we’re all about making relationships central, helping people to be known and loved.”
That’s something that attracted Curtis Anderson to the group after a lifetime of involvement in traditional churches. Getting to know Padjen and the others in the group has made the Lake in the Hills resident feel closer to God.
“I would say that we would all agree that we’re feeling God in a very personal way through the group,” said Anderson, 29.
Click Here to Read On...
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 11:09 AM EST
CNN to Air After Jesus: The First Christians, Tonight
Topic: News Items
This is a post from Scot McKnight's Blog, "Jesus Creed." If you can tape this show, or find the time to watch it, I would like to spend a little time ourselves discussing it since our church model is trying to leap the enlightenment wall as rediscover what Jesus really meant, and how the early church followed His "Way."Here is what Dr. McKnight posted this morning...
If you have a chance, I recommend each of you carve out tonight, from 7-9pm, to watch CNN. The show is called After Jesus: The First Christians, and it is an excellent and stimulating presentation of the first four centuries of the Christian faith. CNN kindly sent me an advanced copy and I have watched it in its entirety.
Tomorrow morning I would like to begin a conversation on this blog with those who watched the show. (It will also be replayed Friday Dec 22 at 10pm and 1am; Saturday Dec 23 and Sunday Dec 24 at 8pm and 12am.)
Here are some highlights and an indication of the shape and content of the program:
CNN interviewed Bart Ehrman, Claire Pfann, Amy-Jill Levine, Robin Griffith-Jones, Lawrence Schiffmann, Richard Freund, Marvin Meyer and Gerald O'Collins. Ehrman appears the most.
The visual images are brilliant, as always for CNN, and there are an abundance of graphics, icons, artwork, pictures, all done with lovely color and texture.
The emphasis, to be expected, is diversity in the first four centuries, with a solid segment devoted to the gnostic threat to orthodoxy.
I won't give away too much of my own view here, but the essential story line is one familiar to those who have engaged the public debate since Dan Brown's DaVinci Code and Bart Ehrman's numerous publications. In my estimation, the silencing of the voices of Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Athanasius is telling.
Posted by Pastor Kork
at 9:01 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, 20 December 2006 1:30 PM EST
