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'Our own culture has become a mission field' Presbyterian Global Fellowship conference hopes to build on 2006 successes By Patrick Jean / The Layman
	Presbyterian Global Fellowship, an initiative started last year to transform Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations into "missional" congregations, will hold its second annual conference Aug. 16-18 in Houston. The Rev. Vic Pentz, an organizer of the group and senior pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta – where last year's inaugural conference was held – said he hopes to build on the group's goal of taking church outside the congregation's walls, rather than bringing the world to the congregation. "Our hope for this year's conference is to build further on themes that seemed to resonate with and inspire us last August," he said, "especially moving beyond the old Christendom model of the church as primarily 'attractional,' saying to the world, 'Come to church.' Instead, we want to grow toward becoming 'missional' in a way that challenges Christians to 'Go to the world,' seeking to find where Christ is at work and join him there."

Gender and the pulpit – by Lauren McCauley / Newsweek Workplace difficulties can arise for trangendered persons in nearly all professions, but what about those who are called to work for God?
	"In 1973, Eric Karl Swenson was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and went to work doing what he’d always dreamed of: ministering to a congregation of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. More than 20 years later, one dream almost ended when another began. When the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta discovered in 1996 that Swenson had finally fulfilled another lifelong desire – having sex-change surgery to become a woman – it started proceedings to revoke Swenson’s ordination... "” Married with two daughters before her transition, Swenson described her struggle, years later, in a sermon..."

Adee climbing Mount Kilimanjaro "for LGBT equality"
	"Michael J. Adee, our National Field Organizer, is climbing the world's tallest free-standing mountain, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa in January 2007. He is doing this as a benefit to raise money for LGBT Equality in the Presbyterian Church (USA) through More Light Presbyterians..." "Adee to use his sabbatical month for two purposes: to fulfill a life-long dream of climbing Kilimanjaro and to raise money for a cause close to his heart and faith – spiritual, ordination and marriage equality for LGBT persons and their families through the work of More Light Presbyterians..."

Scripture lessons for today – from the Lectionary
	"...By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. .." " I have been crucified with Christ; 20and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Today in the Yearbook for Prayer and Study The Presbytery of Arkansas
	"...from Midwest retirees to Hispanics from Mexico and Central America, to Laotians and Koreans, from longtime Arkansans to newcomers in the vital northwest part of the state. Yet they have come together through their common faith and love in Jesus Christ..."
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Eritrea: 68 more Christians arrested in new clampdown

(Compass) – Police and military authorities in the East African nation of Eritrea jailed 68 more Christians in three official round-up operations conducted the first week of January.
     The new arrests of both Protestant evangelicals and Orthodox renewal movement church members marked the Eritrean government’s widening crackdown against Christians whose faith and freedom to worship have been outlawed for nearly five years.
     In an unprecedented arrest, on January 5 police officials in the northern town of Keren took into custody eight staff members working in government ministries.
     The jailed Christians are all members of Medhane Alem, a renewal movement within the Coptic Orthodox Church.

China may lower fines for poor who violate one-child-only policy
Why should only the rich be able to have more kids?
By Maureen Fan / The Washington Post

Fines imposed on Chinese who violate the country's one-child-only policy may be reduced for the poor, a top family planning official said Tuesday, as authorities stressed a broader approach to population management.
The announcement came a day after state media reported that many Chinese believe it is unfair that the wealthy can "buy" a second child by simply paying fines for breaking the one-child-only rule for most urban couples.

Armenian church leader says killing journalist will not kill cause

(ENI) – ANTELIAS, Lebanon — The former moderator of the World Council of Churches, Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian Apostolic Church, has condemned the assassination of Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian descent, who was the editor-in-chief of the bilingual weekly newspaper Agos in Turkey.
"Hrant Dink was a man of faith and vision. He was a committed journalist who had the courage to question all attempts depicting the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century as a ‘fiction’ or ‘alleged,’” said Aram, Catholicos of Cilicia, whose headquarters are at Antelias in Lebanon.
Aram said Dink had courageously challenged present-day Turkey to recognize the mass killing of Armenians in 1915, which, Aram said, had been planned and executed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

African Church leader warns of 'disease' of pentecostalism
By Daniel Burke / Religion News Service

The president of the All Africa Council of Churches, a fellowship of mainline Protestant, Orthodox and indigenous Christians, said Pentecostalism is a "disease" spreading across Africa, according to an AACC news release.
Speaking at the Ecumenical Platform of the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, the Rev. Nyansako-ni-Nku seemed to direct his remarks at a type of Pentecostal prosperity preacher who "gets richer and the congregation gets poorer."
The AACC news release also said that Nyansako, who is moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, exhorted "mainline churches (to) wake up to the challenge and provide direction; otherwise many people will follow these Pentecostal churches."

A force from the pulpit – Could the Church of England’s first black archbishop be the next Archbishop of Canterbury?
By Tom Hundley / The Chicago Tribune

Few outside the Anglican hierarchy would have recognized John Sentamu's name before June 2005, when he was tapped as the Church of England's first black archbishop.
     But five months later, when his enthronement ceremony at York Minster cq cathedral featured pounding drums and bare-chested African dancers wearing feathered headdresses and leopard-print outfits, it became apparent that Sentamu he had a knack for making headlines.
     As archbishop of York, the 57-year-old Sentamu stands second in the Church of England's hierarchy. Many believe he should be No. 1, replacing the professorial but dithering Rowan Williams as archbishop of Canterbury.
     There have been persistent reports in the British media that Rowan Williams may be prepared to step aside in favor of Sentamu within a year or two.

UK: Catholic leaders, government clash on same-sex adoptions

(CWNews.com) – Top Church leaders in England are warning Prime Minister Tony Blair that Catholic adoption agencies might be closed down if the government implements a new anti-discrimination law requiring equal treatment for same-sex couples seeking to adopt children.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster has written to the prime minister, asking for a provision that would make Church-related agencies exempt from the new law, which is due to take effect in April.

Cheerleading for divorce – Socially irresponsible reporting.
By Jennifer Roback Morse / National Review

“51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse,” the New York Times trumpeted last week. Is this something to celebrate, as the paper of record seemed to do? And more importantly, is it even true?
     There is certainly a trend away from marriage, but the numbers reported by the New York Times are deliberately misleading.
     One way this headline is misleading is in its definition of “women. The number is based on all women over the age of 15. Look at the 15-19 age group: What a surprise to find that only 2.5 percent of them are married.
     The New York Times is so eager to show marriage as a declining institution that it tortured the data until it confessed.

Media outlets battle it out over free-speech rights
Boycott over rhetoric pits bloggers against radio station
By Martin Kasindorf / USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — In a dispute between the "new media" of the Internet and the "old media" of broadcasting, liberal bloggers and conservative talk-radio hosts are accusing each other of trampling the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech.
Hundreds of blogs are exhorting national advertisers not to buy commercial time on Disney-owned KSFO-AM in San Francisco because some on-air hosts have made comments that the bloggers allege are racist or encourage violence.
KSFO personalities say the bloggers are trying to muzzle their political views. The bloggers say they're rallying behind the free-speech rights of a colleague whose website was briefly shut down after Disney's ABC network threatened to sue over alleged copyright violations.

TUTU: war on terror will never be won in a world of poverty and ignorance

The war on terror will "never" be won "as long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate," like dehumanizing poverty, disease and ignorance, Nobel laureate and former Archbishop Desmond Tutu told ecumenical participants at the start of the 2007 World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi.
"God weeps and says: 'Who will help me so we can have a different kind of world, one in which the rich know they have been given much so they can share and help others?'" A creation that was very good has "turned into a nightmare".

Vatican: The past year "unusually fruitful" in ecumenical progress

(CWNews.com) – Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, told reporters that the past year has been unusually fruitful in the realm of ecumenical progress.
     Cardinal Kasper held a briefing for reporters on January 23, as the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity moves toward a conclusion on January 25.
     The cardinal highlighted the Pope’s trip to Turkey in November, and his meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. He also called attention to the meeting of the joint Catholic-Orthodox theological commission.
     He scoffed at the suggestion that the Vatican has lost interest in efforts to pursue ties with Protestant groups.

Evangelical: Can the E-word be saved?
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Who's an evangelical? Until last year the answer seemed clear: Evangelical was the label of choice of Christians with conservative views on politics, economics and Biblical morality.
Now the word may be losing its moorings, sliding toward the same linguistic demise that "fundamentalist" met decades ago because it has been misunderstood, misappropriated and maligned.


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