Jan. 16, 2003
Gathering will put spotlight on international mission
By United Methodist News Service
Church leaders from around the world will share their stories and challenges during the United Methodist "Global Gathering" April 10-13 in Birmingham, Ala.
Sponsored by the Board of Global Ministries, the denomination’s mission agency, the event will feature morning and evening worship services, daily Bible study, panelists and keynote speakers discussing mission, a choice of 43 different workshops and a "global village" area with exhibits and performances.
The opening worship at 7:30 p.m. April 10 will celebrate partnership with churches of the South Pacific. The preacher will be the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior pastor of Riverside Church in New York. A former professor at Union Theological Seminary, Forbes is well known for leading his church in mission outreach both in New York and around the world.
Methodist Bishop Nelida Ritchie, Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina, will lead the morning Bible study sessions April 11-13.
Morning keynote speakers for April 11 and 12 will be the Rev. Elizabeth Tapia, a theologian and ecumenical leader from the Philippines, and Janice Love, a United Methodist lay person and professor from South Carolina who has been active in the World Council of Churches. "Witnesses" from various countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia and Cambodia, will talk about the need for global mission.
The April 11 evening worship will be a service of baptismal remembrance, celebrating partnership with churches in Africa. The Rev. R. Randy Day, new chief executive for the Board of Global Ministries, will preach.
Morning worship April 12 will focus on prayers for wholeness and mark partnerships with churches in North America and Europe. The Montana Logging and Ballet Company, a performing group whose satirical commentary on current events is heard regularly on National Public Radio’s "Sunday Weekend Edition," will provide the evening’s entertainment.
The four members of the group, who met as students at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Mont., 27 years ago, are Tim Holmes, an internationally acclaimed sculptor; Steve Garnaas-Holmes, a United Methodist pastor and poet; Bob Fitzgerald, a business manager; and Rusty Harper, a musician, writer and seminar instructor.
The closing Palm Sunday worship service April 13 will celebrate partnerships with churches in Latin America and the Caribbean. Members of two Birmingham churches will lead a procession to the service, where the Rev. Randolph Nugent, the board’s recently retired chief executive, will preach.
Events connected to the Global Gathering include the April 9-10 "Youth Go Global" conference, drawing young people from every continent to share their diverse faith journeys in seminars, workshops and fellowship; three planned tours of national mission agencies and institutions in Birmingham and North Alabama immediately following the gathering; and projects for mission volunteers, such as the construction of a Habitat for Humanity house.
The Global Gathering registration fee is $150 per person. Those registering will receive information about hotel reservations, which are being coordinated through the Birmingham Convention Bureau. More information, including event registration forms, can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org, the board’s Web site.
top
Jan. 15, 2003
Profile: Janette Carter, country musician with fabled roots
By United Methodist News Service
UMC.org, the official Web site of the United Methodist Church, is spotlighting the spiritual journey of Janette Carter, daughter of country music legends A.P. and Sara Carter, in this month’s "UMC.org Profiles" audio-feature. Often called the "First Family of Country Music," the Carter Family’s early recordings helped forge the foundation of today’s country music. Last year marked the 75th anniversary of the Bristol Sessions, the family’s first recording sessions. In 1974, Janette Carter started the Carter Family Memorial Music Center as a way to celebrate her family’s music and preserve the music of Appalachia. Now 80, she lives in southwest Virginia and attends Mount Vernon United Methodist Church in Hiltons. Her brother, Joe, and daughter, Rita Forrester, joined in the interview with writer Bill Friskics-Warren of Nashville, Tenn.
Q: How long have you been putting on weekly Saturday night shows?
Janette: I started my programs in 1974, and I had them for two years here in this little building. This was a store that was built by my daddy in the ’40s. And the big building over there was built in ’76, and then I decided to put little music shows in it.
It starts out always with me and Joe, and my son Bill helps a lot. We do all Carter family songs. And we do two or three, then make all the announcements. Then we let the band come in. They have two 45-minute sets, the bands that I book. And they either do acoustic or bluegrass. That’s what I’m trying to preserve, is that kind of music. I said it’d be a disgrace to have any other kind here in the valley where the family come from, you know.
It has been quite a journey, let me tell you. I’ve not made a lot of money. I didn’t expect to do that. But I wanted to try to keep it a-going, and I’m lucky to have kept my doors open. Now I’ve had some friends that have done some benefits and given me the money to help continue what I’m doing. And of course, I’ve had Johnny Cash and I’ve had Marty Stuart and I’ve had Tom T. Hall, and they’ve all done benefits for me over the years.
I hope I can (go on) a while longer, but I get very tired. It is something to give every weekend up for going on 29 years. That’s a lot of dedication.
I’ve never tried to quit, but I’ve got a few times that it got so hard I didn’t think I could go on. But I just more or less leave it all in God’s hands. And he’ll tell me what to do and when to stop. And I hope my children will continue with it.
I’ve never made a lot of records. I’ve helped some (with) Mommy and Daddy and Maybelle. I’ve done three albums; two of them is discontinued. But my parents’ music will always be there.
Q: Why do you think it has had lasting appeal?
Janette: It was such good music. And it was done right. They done a lot of rehearsing. They worked awfully hard at it. And you stop and think, three people and two instruments have made all them songs and worked all them many years and on the radio, in concerts. My daddy called them entertainments. And I, a lot of times, will call them programs. They wasn’t among the first to record, but they was among the first to start having them really sell records. It was a new process when they more or less started.
And I guess there was a change wanted in music. Music changes. It seems like it’ll go down and maybe (people will) just about quit listening, and the next thing you know it may be a song or a band (becomes popular). And I think my daddy, people never realized what he had done. He didn’t realize it.
I watched Mother, my mother Sara, and Maybelle. My mother did not sing unless it was in the right pitch. You can get it too high; you can get it too low. But she had to sing it in a way that Maybelle could come in for her part and that Daddy could come in for his. He sung bass, of course, and arranged a lot of it. And they picked out the music leads or worked it out. I never heard three people that their voices blended any more than these did.
And they sung good songs. You never heard some of the songs like they hear (today). Some of it is just not very good, I don’t think. There’s so much good things to sing about, like hymns and ballads and love songs and things like that. I just can’t endure music that has bad language in it. It’s just not good.
Q: Joe, I would just like you to say a little about what it’s meant for her to coordinate these shows for the past 30 years.
Joe: Oh, she’s got her heart at it all right. She hangs right with it. She pushes too hard.
Q: Tell me about the role of gospel music in the Carter Family’s music.
Janette: They done quite a few hymns and ballads. And my daddy’s people were very religious people. They were dedicated. Now, of course, like I say, with the music and the way children are brought up and training, it changes. When we was a-growing up, they’d tell you one time what to do and you didn’t tell them you wasn’t aiming to do it and argue with them. You done what you was told. And they was trained that a-way.
And they was firm believers in church. Well, I can remember as a child there wasn’t anything much in this valley to go to but to church. So we went to church. And I wanted to go. And the church would be full.
(Nowadays,) I don’t go to church like I ought to; I have a lot to do. But everybody has a lot to do. You can get along so much better if you take time out to thank (God). Every day of your life when you get up, thank him. And when you go to bed, thank him for every blessing. I give him all the credit. Some people ask me, ‘Well, how do you go on…?’ Well, like I said, I don’t have a lot of money. But I do believe he’ll help you in anything you ask him to do.
I remember the first time I ever (performed alone). Standing behind them big drapes over at East Tennessee State, the big stage, and I got to listening. I was supposed to come on in a few minutes. And (the announcer) was a-trying to talk about me and my people and this and that. And I thought, Well, my lord, I’ve got to walk out there. I’ve got to get gone. He was a-calling my name. And I started trembling. I said, "I can’t go out there." And I said, "Well, what in the world am I going to do? He’s calling my name. I’ve got to go out there and do something." I said, "God, you please go with me." And he did. And I’ve learned that no matter where I go, if I’ll ask him to help me, he will. He’ll go with you. So when I got through, I sure thanked him that I got through it. Well, I quit trembling and I walked out there.
Q: You grew up in a Methodist church.
Janette: Yeah, Mount Vernon Methodist Church. Well, I lived in Bristol first when I was married, for 18 years. Of course I didn’t come down here much to church then because, well, it was a little ways off. But yeah, I’ve belonged to that church since I was a child. Yeah, it’s been there for the whole valley and the whole community.
And a lot of people go visit the grave of Mommy and Daddy. And Maybelle’s buried in Hendersonville, Tenn., because she worked there off of the Opry for so long time, you know.
Q: Describe this valley.
Janette: They’s some wonderful people here, and they’re like all communities. They talk a lot to one another. But they would do anything to help their neighbors. That’s the way it is here. It was that a-way when I was a child. It’s still that a-way.
Q: Could you describe the role the church played in your family memories?
Janette: Well, every year they’d have a big revival, as a rule, you know. And then when they got through the revival, of course, ever who was saved, they’d want to be baptized. And you’d go to the baptizing and then they’d usually join the church. And when they started, the children growed up and had their family, but they still going to the same church in the same valley in the same place.
Q: Do you have any memories of church from your early days?
Joe: Yeah, the congregation and all that. They had some good revivals up there. My grandfather was a very religious man and grandmother, too. And they called him a praying machine. And when they called on him, I mean, he would put them right, almost bring the fire down on them, you know. But he was a good man. My dad never was that strict on his, you know, religion. He was a believer and all that, but he just didn’t carry it like they did.
(We) used to have a lot of tent meetings, you know and even up through this country they’d have a tent meeting. People turn out to that. It wasn’t strictly all Methodists. There was Baptist, Presbyterian and I guess a few Holiness gets mixed in with it even.
Q: Has your family been Methodist from way back?
Joe: Back as far as I can remember. I think that church was built up there at 1905. That’s when the first one was buried there in that cemetery. And it’s been remodeled a time or two.
Rita: My granddad, his father and brothers helped to bring the timbers down from Clinch Mountain to build it. So it’s more than close to our hearts. It’s very special. And I guess today the sixth or seventh generation of Carter children attend that church, which you don’t see that very often. You really don’t see that. So that’s a very big part of what we do and our focus.
Q: The "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack from 2001 put roots music back on the charts. The album includes the Carter Family’s "Keep on the Sunny Side."
Rita: I do think "O Brother" sort of helped to bring a new focus on our kind of music. And I think people just don’t get the opportunity to hear our music. When you think about the fact that the "O Brother" soundtrack sold the last count was over 6 million copies with no airplay, that’s phenomenal.
Q: Would you like to add anything?
Janette: I’m just a lucky person to hang in there like I have. And, like I say, I give him all the credit. My grandson says, ‘Grandma, how do you go on and on and on?’ And I says, ‘Well, I pray a little, I pray and then I go a little ways, then I’ll pray some more and go on another little way.’ These grandmas, they’re something else.
top
Jan. 14, 2003
Commission to recognize outstanding young people
By Rich Peck*
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) – Young people will be recognized and honored for personal and selfless contributions to others in a program sponsored by the Commission on United Methodist Men.
Awards of $500 each will be given to five young people representing each of the denomination’s five U.S. jurisdictions. A minimum of 100 nominations per jurisdiction is required to award the scholarship.
To qualify, a person must be between the ages of 12 and 19 and must have received a Good Samaritan Award.
Begun in August 2000, the United Methodist award program was created to recognize young people who represent the attributes of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A recipient may be involved in a Boy Scout troop, Girl Scout troop, Venture crew, Camp Fire USA group or 4-H club chartered to, sponsored by or meeting in a United Methodist church. Or the recipient may be an active member of his or her local United Methodist church. To date, more than 200 boys and girls have received the award.
Young people have received Good Samaritan Awards for being involved in hunger relief efforts, service projects, programs for homeless people, work in thrift shops, construction projects for low-income families, service to senior citizens and impromptu acts of compassion.
To receive the award, the youth must be nominated by an adult not related to them. The nomination must be supported by the pastor or the president of a local church unit of United Methodist Men.
The award, together with a certificate and lapel pin, may be presented at any time during 2003 in order to be considered for a jurisdictional scholarship. If the recipient is a Boy Scout, Girl Scout or Venture Crew member, the church has the option of presenting Good Samaritan Awards on Scouting Ministry Sunday, Feb. 9.
Pastors who have been working with young people may also use that Sunday to present God and Country Awards. This program series offers various awards for different ages (God and Me, grades 1-3; God and Family, grades 4-5; God and Church, grades 6-8; and God and Life, grades 9-12).
Parents or pastors may also use the Sunday to honor adult scout leaders. Adults may receive either the Torch Award or the Cross and Flame Award.
For information on any of these awards, contact the Office of Civic Youth-Serving Agencies/Scouting, P.O. Box 340006, Nashville, TN 37203-0006, e-mail mstowe@gcumm.org, or call (615) 340-7129.
*Peck is communications consultant for the churchwide Commission on United Methodist Men in Nashville, Tenn.
top
Jan. 15, 2003
Walk to Emmaus celebrates 25 years
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) – The Walk to Emmaus, an international movement for spiritual renewal and leadership development for service through the church, celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer.
The July 24-27 anniversary observance will offer the Emmaus participants, called "pilgrims," an opportunity to gather for spiritual renewal, church leadership training, learning about God’s work through the program and exchanging faith stories.
"We look forward to a festive fellowship of people from around the world who have participated in the Emmaus movement," said the Rev. Stephen Bryant, editor and publisher of Upper Room Ministries, which launched the program in 1978. "Worship, music and dynamic presentations will resound as we celebrate the many colors of God’s grace as they shine through the Walk to Emmaus."
The program, which gets its name from Luke 24:13-35, develops leaders for the church, encourages them to live as Christian disciples and enhances the partnership between clergy and laity. The Upper Room, a ministry unit of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship, sponsors it. Although connected to the United Methodist Church, the program is ecumenical.
The Walk to Emmaus has transformed the lives of more than 500,000 Christians in 27 countries, Bryant said. It "has become a contagious spiritual renewal movement" in which participants return to their churches "bearing witness to the risen Christ with burning faith, expanded spiritual awareness and a deeper commitment to serve Christ through missions," he said.
More than 80 workshops support the theme, "Making a World of Difference," and will help participants discover how grace is real in their lives. The workshops focus on leadership, diversity and spiritual growth and renewal.
The silver anniversary event will be at the Nashville (Tenn.) Convention Center.
Guest speakers will include the Rev. Tony Campolo, commentator and author; Larnelle Harris, a recording artist and winner of five Grammys and 11 Dove Awards; Michael Hingson, who escaped the attack on the World Trade Center with the help of his guide dog; the Rev. Isron Tlholwe and the Rev. Christopher Harrison, key leaders in the development of Emmaus in Southern Africa; and the Rev. Eradio Valverde Jr., who helped establish the Emmaus Walks in Spanish-speaking areas, including Puerto Rico and the United Methodist Church’s Rio Grande Annual Conference.
Others will include Mickey Griffin, director of programming for Kairos Horizon Communities Corp., who developed a program for the children of inmates that resulted in family reunifications and restorations; the Rev. Robert Pierson, whose Tulsa, Okla., church has experienced "extraordinary growth" attributed to strong lay involvement; and Bishop Graciello Alverez, member of the team who brought Emmaus into Mexico and Cuba, and who continues to serve as an Emmaus spiritual director and local church pastor.
Special workshop tracks designed for personal retreat will also be available for those seeking a time to enhance their prayer life, to practice spiritual discernment, to become more aware of God’s grace and to exercise the disciplines of piety, study and Christian action.
The four-day celebration will offer opportunities for praise and worship, music and singing, and fellowship with Emmaus pilgrims from around the world. Pilgrims are encouraged to bring their community banners and stands for a parade that opens the silver anniversary festivities.
For registration information, go to www.upperroom.org/emmaus/25th. Early bird discounts, group rates and youth rates are available. For hotel accommodations, call (800) 657-6910 or visit the Web site. Registration is also available for a Vacation Bible school-like program for children 12 and younger.
top
Jan. 22, 2003
Religious leaders call for peace
By Carol Fouke-Mpoyo*
WASHINGTON (UMNS) – An estimated 3,200 people filled the National Cathedral Jan. 20 to pray for a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis. Afterward, worshipers marched down Massachusetts Avenue to the White House, bearing candles and "War Is Not the Answer" placards.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Day Prayer Service for Peace and Justice focused on the connection between war and poverty. The theme of the service was inspired by the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spoken in the cathedral 34 years ago, when the Vietnam War was at its height. During his last Sunday sermon, just four days before he was assassinated, King challenged the country to "find an alternative to war."
"Imagine that the kind of time, creativity and money that are being poured into preparations for war against Iraq were being poured instead into the challenge of ending poverty in the United States and around the world," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, staff head of the National Council of Churches and a United Methodist clergyman.
"Martin Luther King Jr. was right – war diverts attention and resources from the needs of impoverished people, especially the children. War is an enemy of the poor."
The ecumenical service was co-sponsored by the National Council of Churches, Children’s Defense Fund, Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Call to Renewal and Sojourners. Leaders of at least 24 denominations, faith-based organizations and religious orders participated.
Bishop Felton Edwin May, of the United Methodist Church’s Baltimore-Washington Conference, read a Scripture passage.
The service’s three segments – "for peace," "for the eradication of poverty and racism" and "for the world" – each included readings from King’s last Sunday sermon, March 31, 1968. Each segment also included Scripture, prayer and a brief reflection.
"Most gracious God .... (H)elp us today to remember that our gathering in this cathedral is not a time for demonstration," said the Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, Episcopal bishop of Washington, in his reflection on "for peace," which he offered in the form of a prayer.
"Help our nation, its leaders and the leaders of Iraq and other nations that would use violence as a threat or means to accomplish their ends to understand that we are living in a new global age, where war is no longer an option in settling disputes.
"Most gracious God," he continued, "help us as a nation to use the richness of our wealth, technology, medical research and agricultural abundance as the new ‘weapons of mass rebuilding’ in our war against violence, poverty, disease, famine and the feeling of hopelessness that billions of people on this planet now experience. May we seek to remove from our language once and for all the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction!’"
The Rev. Jim Wallis, executive director and editor of Sojourners and the convener of Call to Renewal, reflected on "for the world." "Today," he said, "we pray to God and plead with our national leaders to avoid the destructiveness of war and find a better way to resolve the very real threats involved in this conflict with Iraq. We believe that is possible, and we believe we can still stop this war before it starts.
"From this National Cathedral and then in our candlelight vigil at the White House," Wallis said, "we appeal to President George W. Bush today, not in anger but in hope, to a fellow brother in Christ, to heed the words of the prophets, the words of our brother, Martin Luther King Jr., the words of Jesus, the prince of peace – to win this battle without war, to transform our swords into plowshares, and, yes, to persevere in disarming the world of weapons of mass destruction – all of them, including our own – but without the killing of more innocents."
Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, offered the reflection on "for the eradication of poverty and racism."
Organizers of the service pointed out that, by most accounts, war with Iraq would cost at least $100 billion – at a time when domestic spending is facing a large cut. That $100 billion, they note, is three times the amount spent by the federal government on K-12 education. It is also enough money to provide health care to all uninsured children under age 5 in the United States for the next five years.
*Fouke-Mpoyo is the communications staff person for the National Council of Churches.
Back to the Top
