Calvin Synod Herald, 1973 (73. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1973-11-01 / 11. szám
8 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD Christian Enlistment The second Sunday in November is widely observed among Protestant churches of North America as Stewardship Sunday. In the United Church of Christ it has been often untilized as an appropriate time to hold the annual Christian Enlistment. Whether or not your congregation plans to engage in a Christian Enlistment this month, you will be interested in a number of the phases included. For several years, the Stewardship Council has published a Christian Enlistment Guide which lifts up five phases of the Enlistment process: Directing the Enlistment, Analyzing the Situation, Designing the Budget, Promoting the Enlistment, and Securing the Commitments. Each phase is the subject of an attractively printed folder which details the way in which a congregation can successfully carry out the activity and which also provides space for a variety of related resource documents. A Christian Enlistment is an effort to raise funds for the church’s work for the coming year. But this is not all it is. Just as importantly, a Christian Enlistment is a way of strengthening your entire church both financially and spiritually. By an Enlistment you can explain the importance of your church’s work to the members of your congregation and thereby increase both their financial and personal support of this work. The truth is that in these days the church needs the Christian commitment of each of its members. The Christian Enlistment process is a tried and true method of securing such commitment. The theme for 1973 is “You Have Response-Ability.” Surely this will speak to each of us in terms of the responsibility placed upon us by our Christian commitment and also our ability to respond to the challenges such commitment places before us. For further information about the Christian Enlistment, contact your local pastor or write: Secretary for Christian Enlistment, Stewardship Council, 1505 Race Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19102. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Look inside this year’s church-envelope box. If you see me there, I’ll tell you a story. Some of my brothers may be there too. They will repeat all I say. I’ll tell you the Sunday you missed church. Just check the date written on me. I can’t tell you why you missed. You’ll have to think back to remember. Was it a good reason — a reason, not an excuse! I was designed to hold any amount you want to give. I look much better made fat with a love offering than I do flat, unsealed, and useless. I have no power over myself. I am your servant. I had counted so much on going to the Lord’s treasury on my day. Now I never shall go. I can tell you about your spiritual life, too. When I am used I speak of an honest heart. I could have been filled and taken to church later, even though you missed attending on my Sunday. Because I am still unused I speak of limits placed on God’s work. Do you hear the cry of children without parents, do you see the sick without care, the ignorant untaught, the church not built, the Bibles not sent, the gospel not preached, the lost without hope? I could have helped to meet these needs if I had been used. I wanted to. You didn’t fail me, you failed God; but you did make me share in the misery of the world. I am empty and heartbroken. Look at me! Let me touch your conscience and stir your heart. Use us for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Truthfully, Your Unused Envelope Christ U.C.C. Bulletin Bethlehem, Pa. UNITED PRESBYTERIAN IN U.S.A. REJOIN UNION CONSULTATION Omaha, USA — With an unexpected majority vote, the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, meeting here, decided to return to the Consultation on Church Union from which, in a surprise move, it had withdrawn twelve months before, and which it had helped to launch in 1960/61. The origin of COCU, a nine-denomination organization, is generally traced to a sermon, preached in 1960 by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, the then stated clerk (general secretary) of the UPCUSA, in which he proposed the Consultation to seek “a united church, truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed.” At last year’s Denver assembly, United Presbyterians voted to withdraw by 411 to 310 votes; this year’s vote to re-enter was 453 to 259. Dr. Blake, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, was one of four nominees for the post of moderator of the United Presbyterian Church for 1973/74. He came fourth in the assembly ballots; the election was won by a 57-year old black pastor, Dr. Clinton M. Marsh, an executive with the Omaha Presbytery. Dr. Marsh is the second black moderator (president) of the Church; the first was Dr. Edler G. Hawkins who served in 1964. Membership in the Church during 1972 is reported to have fallen by 104.000 to 2,917.000. Financial giving at the local level over the year is up considerably, but contributions to national and international programs are down. In restructuring moves, currently under way, the Church is selling its Philadelphia headquarters, the Witherspoon Building, and moving its offices to the Interchurch Center in New York. National headquarter staff is being reduced from just over 1,000 to about 750. BPS 200,000th REFUGEE ARRIVES HERE WITH C.W.S. HELP A milestone was reached by Church World Service’s Refugee and Resettlement Program on May 9, when church refugee officers welcomed the 200,000th CWS-sponsored refugee on arrival at Kennedy Airport, New York City. The unit’s operations committee held its regularly scheduled monthly session at Kennedy Airport’s chapel, to be on hand when Mr. and Mrs. Sándor Kiss, escapees from Hungary, arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Kiss will be living in Baltimore, Maryland. Arrangements for their resettlement were made by the United Presbyterian Resettlement Committee, directed by Mrs. Margaret Shackford. CWS has been assisting refugees eligible to come to the U.S. since World War II. For the most part they have been displaced persons from Europe, displaced persons from Dutch Indonesia, Chinese parolees, Cuban refugees and currently, Asian expellees from Uganda. For purposes of the record, Mrs. Kiss was designated to be the 200,000th arrival under the Church World Service program, thus leaving it up to her husband to begin the next 100,000 segment as 200,001. Tempo, May 1973
