NATION & WORLD

Expanded News Briefs
United Methodists give $10.4 million in response to Sept. 11
Anglicans, British Methodists take steps toward unity
Millions become available in grants for care-giving programs
Presbyterian Leaders Ask for Prayers for Unity
NCC's Friendship Press offers book on Islam


UMNS National News Briefs

Table cards remind restaurant patrons To Give Thanks
By Woody Woodrick

JACKSON, Miss. (UMNS) – Many folks pause before eating at home to thank God for their food, but it happens less often in restaurants.

In Jackson, patrons of three popular restaurants have a reminder to say the “blessing.” Chimneyville Smokehouse, BoDon’s and George’s Cafeteria feature laminated cards on their tables with a brief blessing. The cards were placed by Epworth United Methodist Church. The cards have drawn a positive response since being placed on the tables four months ago. In fact, Deborah Kees of BoDon’s credits the blessings with improving business.

“We’re Christians and believe in praying over a meal,” she said. “Our business has picked up since we started putting the blessings on the tables.”

The table blessings are an idea that the Rev. Tom Sorrell, pastor at Epworth, has wanted to try for several years. “This has been my idea since I was down on the (Gulf Coast), and it just never got instituted,” he said. “I had written most of the prayers down there. One of the problems was we couldn’t find a family restaurant that would do it. Chain restaurants won’t let you do it.”

Recently, he suggested Epworth try placing the blessings. The church leaders liked the idea.

Seven different non-sectarian prayers were written and printed on cards about the size of an index card. They were laminated and placed in small stands next to the salt, pepper and hot sauce. The prayers are placed so each table has a different prayer from the ones nearby. Sorrell said one of the most exciting aspects of the outreach effort is its ecumenical nature. None of the restaurant owners involved is United Methodist. Yet, when approached with the idea, none hesitated to go along.

“After it was all said and done, we put them in restaurants where the ownership was not even Methodist,” Sorrell said. “This makes it an ecumenical effort, and that’s very special to me.”

“There are going to be all denominations in heaven,” said Kees, who attends First Pentecostal Holiness Church in Crystal Springs.

Sorrell said another goal of the blessings is to help people of faith be more open about praying in public. The table blessings are designed to promote thankfulness to God first, he said. They don’t push a Methodist philosophy, but Sorrell hopes they do help put Epworth United Methodist Church in people’s minds.

“With the way things have changed with communication and publicity, we have to find new ways to get (our) name out there,” he said. “If you’re not Methodist, you haven’t ever heard of Epworth. It’s a foreign word tonon-United Methodists.”

Woodrick is editor of the Advocate, the newspaper of the United Methodist Church’s Mississippi Area.


Church allows homeless to sleep on steps

(RNS) A prominent New York City church has asked a federal judge to prohibit police from removing several dozen homeless people who sleep on the church’s steps each night.

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, in a suit co-filed with the American Civil Liberties Union, said recent overnight police raids violated the right to “free association” of the church and the homeless people and constituted trespassing on private property.

Beginning on Dec. 4, police made three overnight raids, telling the 40 or so homeless that they needed to leave, go to a city shelter or face arrest. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Thomas K. Tewell, wrote Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to express his “extreme disappointment,” according to The New York Times.

The imposing church in the heart of New York’s premier shopping district has run a 10-person homeless shelter since 1986, but has offered sanctuary and a hot cup of coffee to the several dozen who sleep on the steps on Fifth Avenue and West 55th Street.

According to the church’s Web site, church members “have made an intentional effort to get to know these church visitors.” A recent study found that most stay only a few nights and some for several months. With the church’s help, the Web site says, 14 have found permanent housing, three have been reunited with families and six have received needed medical attention.

EXPANDED NEWS BRIEFS

Dec. 13, 2001
United Methodists give $10.4 million in response to Sept. 11

By United Methodist News Service
United Methodists have given more than $10 million to the church's special offering in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

More than $6.4 million was raised in November alone for the special fund. By the end of November, gifts to the "Love in the Midst of Tragedy" fund totaled $10.4 million. The church's response to the attacks is being channeled through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the denomination's relief and development agency.

"When there is a need, United Methodists respond," said Sandra Kelley Lackore, treasurer of the church and staff head of its General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) in Evanston, Ill.

From the time of the attacks, local churches in New York, the Washington area and central Pennsylvania have opened their doors and reached out to offer food and water, comfort and child care, and counseling and practical aid, such as help in filling out claim forms for assistance from various agencies.

At the same time, UMCOR has provided relief at local, national and international levels. UMCOR officials have committed to developing a three- to five-year comprehensive response plan by January.

Contributions to the "Love in the Midst of Tragedy," as part of the denomination's general Advance special gifts program, are not subject to administrative or fund-raising costs. Such expenses are covered by the church structure, so 100 percent of Advance special donations go to the designated cause. By the end of November, UMCOR had received a total of $22.3 million through general Advance specials, including "Love in the Midst of Tragedy."

In addition, Advance specials to other mission program areas totaled $13.2 million. Almost $1 million had come in for bishops' appeals. Together, these three areas of Advance specials had received nearly $36.4 million.

"Giving has nothing to do with recessions or with downturns in investment portfolios," Lackore commented. "It has everything to do with gratitude and compassion. When United Methodists are excited about what we are doing, they give."

Other figures released Dec. 13 by Lackore and the GCFA support her contention. More than $79.6 million had been received for the church's seven apportioned funds, which do not include Advance specials. The 2001 figure is almost $2 million or 2.6 percent greater than the comparable amount in 2000.

At the end of November, giving to apportioned funds - which are supported by each annual (regional) conference by formula - stood at 62.6 percent of the annual apportionment. This was almost the same percentage - 63 percent – in 2000, despite General Conference's approval of an increase in the budget for this year. General Conference is the church's top legislative assembly.

Giving to six special Sunday offerings amounted to $5 million, up 7.8 percent over last year.

Combined churchwide giving to the apportioned funds, special Sunday offerings, general Advance specials and other outreach funds totaled $121.6 million, an amount that generally represents about 4 percent of the church contributions of United Methodists. Much of their giving is used in operating their local churches and for local and regional ministries of service.

"When people see that their giving changes lives, they faithfully respond," Lackore said.

UMCOR continues to accept donations to Advance No. 901125-3, "Love in the Midst of Tragedy." Checks so designated may be place in church collection plates or mailed to UMCOR at 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card contributions can be made by calling (800) 554-8583.

Dec. 18, 2001
Anglicans, British Methodists take steps toward unity

By Kathleen LaCamera*
LONDON (UMNS) - British Methodists and Anglicans have announced a proposed
covenant for greater unity between their two communions that church officials liken to an "engagement to be married."

The proposed agreement is part of a December report resulting from formal conversations between the two traditions since 1998. For the first time ever, Anglicans and Methodists have agreed to the "mutual affirmation of the life and ministry of each other's churches." Both churches will vote on whether to accept the covenant at denominational meetings next July.

Like many who already work in ecumenical settings, the Rev. Rosemary Wakelin, a prison chaplain and Methodist minister, said she welcomed the news of closer official ties between Methodists and Anglicans. At Norwich prison, Wakelin's supervisor is an Anglican priest, and her responsibilities regularly find her working with pastoral teams from a wide variety of faith traditions.

She is glad the official talks are progressing, but observed that when it comes to real ecumenical relationships, people at the grass roots have been "getting on and just doing it" for years.

"(My job as prison chaplain) is jolly hard so you just do the best you can," Wakelin added. "When you're at the cold face, you don't argue about who is holding the pick, you just get on with it."

The Rev. John Taylor, who co-chaired the formal conversations said, "As has often been the case at grass-roots level, Christians in their local communities have led the way and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

For years they have recognized each other as true Christians.... Yet in terms of our national churches, (this) is a major and significant step that will make wider things possible.”

The "Anglican-Methodist Covenant" as it is known, includes a series of affirmations, including the statement that both communions belong to the "One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ" and affirm each other's "authentic ministry of Word and Sacrament."

Topics on which there is still no formal agreement include the mutual recognition of each other's ordained clergy, the role of women in church leadership, some matters of order and practice in communion, and concerns about "establishment" or the status of the Church of England as Britain's official state church. Taylor acknowledged his own disappointment that the report did not go further to resolve some of these issues.

"There are many unresolved issues. This report does not try to gloss over them," he explained. "It rather resolves that the vast list of things that still separate us should be the ongoing agenda for continuing, open and frank discussion.... We do not want to fudge issues, but face them together."

A longtime ecumenical activist and former British Methodist president, the Rev. Stuart Burgess, told United Methodist News Service that these developments must be seen as a positive, creative step forward and a building block for the future.

"I hoped we could go much further much more quickly than we have, but the report is really a pragmatic stage; it provides a way forward, and that is what is important. The ecumenical journey is about patience and endurance."

For the Rev. Stephen Plant, Cambridge faculty member and convenor of the British Methodist working party on church/state relations, the proposed covenant pushes Methodists on the question of whether to buy into a state-established church. His national working party is looking at a range of church-state issues and is hoping to develop an official Methodist political theology that has not before been articulated.

"Some in our church would say that a close relationship such as the one the Anglican Church has with the state, does not permit the church to criticize or influence the government effectively," he explained. "Other Methodists would say that (state) establishment of the church provides an opportunity for evangelization of rulers and authorities."

Currently, all 26 Anglican bishops are voting members of the British Parliament's House of Lords.

Plant said that this Anglican-Methodist covenant would also influence the work he does with the Cambridge Theological Federation. Through the federation, students from many Christian denominations and other traditions regularly worship together. Groups take turns leading services from their own liturgical heritage. Plant admitted that occasionally when non-Anglicans led the service or a woman presided over communion, some Anglicans stayed away.

"This new covenant will provide some assistance, thought not necessarily solve these issues," he said.

Bishop Barry Rogerson, who co-chaired the formal conversations for the Anglicans, said the covenant "could well change the face of English Christianity."

"We have laid the foundations, which we hope will lead at some point further down the road to full communication with the interchangeability of ministers and subsequently to visible unity," he noted.

Wakelin hopes it will happen. She believes Methodists should never have split from the Anglican Church three centuries ago and thinks that in the end, with God's grace and a certain amount of humility, the two churches might succeed.

But her experience of nearly 20 years in the ordained ministry tells her that real obstacles to such unity will not be overcome easily. She remembers a conversation with an Anglican priest on the day she was ordained in 1983. "He said to me, 'If you ordain women, you will lower the status of the priesthood.' I said, 'It's never been about status, it's about service.'"

In the continuing dialogue, Wakelin believes that Methodists bring a great tradition of women with them to the Anglican-Methodist unity table, starting with John and Charles Wesley's mother, Susanna.

"We've got something to offer them," she said. "We have a much better attitude towards women than they do."

Other ecumenical participants taking part in the formal conversations included representatives from the Baptist, Moravian, Roman Catholic and United Reformed churches in Great Britain.

*LaCamera is a United Methodist News Service correspondent based in England.