UMNS Weekly Digest
August 28, 2009
NOTE: This is a digest of news features provided by United Methodist Communications for Aug. 24-28. It includes summaries of stories, UMTV video reports and additional briefs from United Methodist News Service. Full versions of the stories with photographs and related features can be found at http://umns.umc.org.
Stories this week:
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UMTV
Relief agency helps Sri Lankans start new life
MUTHUR, Sri Lanka (UMNS) — Bombed out homes stand empty next to verdant rice paddies throughout the eastern Sri Lankan countryside. New life is springing up in places that once saw death and destruction. As Sri Lanka enters an era of peace after more than 20 years of internal conflict, the United Methodist Committee on Relief is providing a helping hand to those whose lives have been the most devastated. {353}
Native Americans explore youth outreach
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (UMNS) – Native American leaders are making plans to bring Facebook and other social media into the mission field for youth and young adults. Older Native Americans may be more comfortable with traditional forms of communication, but the younger generations are increasingly doing their talking through texts and Web sites, said United Methodist leaders at a meeting of the Native American Comprehensive Plan. Members of the Youth-Young Adult Ad Hoc Committee said they would have a Facebook fan page for the plan running by the end of August. {354}
Talbert institute to develop African-American leaders
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) — The new Bishop Melvin George Talbert Leadership Institute is seeking up to 20 young African Americans to commit two to four years to becoming creative leaders in The United Methodist Church. Black Methodists for Church Renewal announced last year plans to form an institute named after Talbert. Located at the group’s Nashville headquarters, the institute was launched in July. Talbert has led The United Methodist Church as pastor, agency executive and bishop. He was active in the civil rights movement and at one point shared a jail cell with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. {355}
United Methodists save one life in Uganda
BEL AIR, Md. (UMNS)—They're called "the invisible children" - a generation of young boys and girls in Uganda who were torn from their villages, brainwashed and used as pack animals and bullet fodder for the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony. A teen named Lazarus, who also calls himself Joe, lived amid these atrocities, and then on the streets, eating out of garbage pits, after escaping Kony's terrorist army. Only about a year ago did he let himself smile. This fall, if all goes according to plan, Joe will join the Rev. Stan Cardwell, his wife, Michelle, and their three children in Bel Air, welcomed as a blessing from God. {356}
Ecumenical pact does not open door to gay clergy
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)—The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's acceptance of pastors in same-sex relationships does not pave the way for noncelibate gay clergy to serve in United Methodist churches, officials from the two denominations said. The Lutheran vote Aug. 21 to drop its ban on gay clergy, coming a day after the denomination approved a full communion pact with The United Methodist Church, raised the question of whether practicing homosexual Lutheran pastors would be permitted in United Methodist pulpits. Leaders from both churches said Aug. 26, however, that The United Methodist Church's ban on noncelibate gay clergy is unchanged. {357}
Nicaragua ministry battles poverty one family at a time
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (UMNS) -- Fires fill the air with toxic fumes. Flies cover rotting hoofs of cattle. Vultures surround a pond of murky water waiting for a weak, malnourished dog to die. For 175 families, the Chureca refuse dump is also called home. It is into this place – named one of the 20 horrors of the modern world by the Spanish magazine “Interviu” in December 2007 – that United Methodists have come to minister and offer a way out. Started six years ago by United Methodist missionary Cheryl Avery, Project Chacocente moved eight families to fertile farmland in Masaya, about 20 miles southeast of Managua. {358}
Young clergy evangelize in cyberspace
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Young United Methodist clergy see the elephant in the sanctuary- the fact more ministers are headed for retirement than the pulpits-and they are grabbing the mops. The concerned under-35 crowd is using social media - Facebook, Twitter, and blogs - to form an online community that is searching for ways to draw more young people into ministry and into the pews. The effort has led to campaigns such as “40 Days of Prayer,” and “6 Questions for The United Methodist Church.” {359}
Baltic seminary names new president
TALLINN, Estonia (UMNS) --- Meeli Tankler, 53, a professor at the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary, has been installed as its new president. She was the unanimous choice of the board of trustees and of the United Methodist Estonia Annual (regional) Conference to lead the denomination’s largest theological seminary in Europe. She served a four-year term as president of the European section of the World Federation of Methodist and United Church Women and is pursuing studies toward a doctoral degree at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. Contributions to support the seminary can be made to Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary Scholarships, Advance, # 15021B.
Hamburg churches to share ecumenical center
TRIER, Germany, (ENI) -- Eighteen Christian denominations in Hamburg, including United Methodists, are sharing a single church building. Called “The Bridge – Ecumenical Forum HafenCity,” the project is located at Harbour City, a new development in the area known in German as HafenCity. "The Harbour City does not only need the presence of a sacred place for all confessions, but also people that live as part of an ecumenical community and who are involved as Christians in the area," the manager of The Bridge, Stephan Dreyer, told the Hamburger Abendblatt.
NCC leaders applaud full communion vote
NEW YORK (UMNS) –Top leaders of the National Council of Churches have praised the new relationship between Lutherans and United Methodists. The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, the council’s top executive, and its president, Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, sent a congratulatory message Aug. 24 to leaders of both denominations. “Allow us to express the delight of the wider ecumenical community at news of the overwhelming decision by the Evangelical Lutheran Churchwide Assembly to enter into full communion with The United Methodist Church. This completes the joy we felt last year when the United Methodist General Conference made the same decision," the message said.
Walls continue to divide the world, ecumenical leader says
GENEVA (ENI)—Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, churches need to offer a vision to a world divided in more complex ways than at the time of the Iron Curtain, the moderator of the World Council of Churches told its main governing body as it gathered Aug. 26. "It came to symbolize the division of the world into two conflicting systems," said the Rev. Walter Altmann, a Lutheran from Brazil."Yet we do not forget either that many other walls, be they of concrete or of prejudices or of laws which discriminate against foreigners, persist or are being raised, dividing peoples and causing great suffering, in many parts of the world." United Methodists are among the Central Committee members who will elect a new top executive and decide on the venue of the 2013 assembly for the World Council of Churches during eight days of meetings.
Nothing But Nets raises more than $7 million in 2008
WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- In 2008, the Nothing But Nets campaign raised more than $7 million from some 40,000 individual donors. “Based on the momentum of what began halfway through 2006, Nothing But Nets raised nearly $25 million by the end of 2008 from over 100,000 individuals and distributed over 2 million bed nets to areas of greatest need in Africa,” Timothy E. Wirth, president, United Nations Foundation, said in the 2008 annual report. As a founding partner of Nothing But Nets, The United Methodist Church contributed more than $2 million to purchase and distribute bed nets in 2008 alone. “We bring the value of people power to the campaign—11.5 million United Methodists,” said Bishop Thomas Bickerton, chair of The United Methodist Church’s Global Health Initiative. “When you have grassroots support fueling a movement like this, saving lives is the joyous result.”
Hispanic caucus requests immigration reform
CHICAGO (UMNS)—The Hispanic caucus of The United Methodist Church resolved Aug. 23 to urge President Barack Obama and Congress to “expedite” immigration reform. Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans, or MARCHA, also asked that the Council of Bishops invite all United Methodist congregations to assist minors that are being separated from their parents due to immigration raids. The group further called upon the United Methodist Board of Church and Society to promote hearings where testimonies of children separated from their parents due to immigration raids can be gathered and shared with the denomination.
Norway pastor elected general secretary of World Council of Churches
GENEVA (UMNS)--Norwegian theologian and pastor Olav Fykse Tveit, 48, secretary of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations, was elected 7th general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Aug. 27 during its Central Committee meeting. A member of the WCC Faith and Order Plenary Commission, Tveit replaces the Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya, who in February 2008 informed the Central Committee that he would not seek a second term. Kobia has served as general secretary since 2004. Tveit is expected to take office Jan. 1.
New life in Nicaragua
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (UMTV) -- Too many families call Managua’s city dump home. Children and adults live in shanties and work the trash heap every day searching for food and recyclables. Founded by a United Methodist missionary, Project Chacocente is relocating families away from the danger and desperation of the dump to farm plots miles away. Children can go to school and their parents learn agriculture and trades. It is an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty in the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. UMTV’s “New Life in Nicaragua” is available to view at http://www.umtv.org/archives/new life in nicaragua.htm. Find this and other UMTV stories on YouTube, Tangle and i-tunes by typing "UMTV" in the keyword search.
News In Brief
The Rev. Jorge Acevedo, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., has been named the 2009 Distinguished Evangelist of The United Methodist Church. He will receive the award Oct. 31, during the 60th Anniversary celebration for The Foundation for Evangelism, which sponsors the national recognition. The award is given annually to a United Methodist leader whose life and ministry reflects a personal commitment to helping persons experience God's transforming love through Jesus Christ. Under Acevedo’s leadership, Grace United Methodist has grown from one to three sites. More than 2,600 people attend weekly worship.
The board of trustees for United Methodist-related Emory University has approved naming the graduate school in honor of President Emeritus James T. Laney, who led the university from 1977 until 1993. "The naming of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies honors the vision and leadership of Jim Laney, whose ambitious plan for Emory revolved around graduate education," Emory President James W. Wagner said. Laney, a United Methodist pastor, taught at Yonsei University in Korea and Vanderbilt University before becoming dean of Emory's Candler School of Theology, where he served from 1969 to 1977. He also was U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1993 to1997.
The United Methodist 2010 Program Calendar, available from United Methodist Communications, encourages users to “rethink the way The United Methodist Church makes contact with the world.” The calendar invites viewers to see church as an out-of-building experience. The calendar is available in nine designs, ranging from a pocket size that shows a week at a glance to a large deluxe wall calendar with the year at a glance. The increasingly popular electronic calendar introduced by United Methodist Communications in 2009 also is available. Interested persons may call toll free at (888) 346-3862 or visit www.umcom.org/calendars.
Twenty-five United Methodist colleges, universities and seminaries are among the 2010 Military Friendly Schools. The church-related schools are included in the list from G.I. Jobs magazine offering veterans guidance on which schools are doing the most to embrace them as students. Schools on the list also offer additional benefits to student veterans such as on-campus programs, credit for service, military spouse programs and more. The list may be found at http://www.militaryfriendlyschools.com/media/2010_Military_Friendly_Schools_list.pdf. | 
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