Calvin Synod Herald, 1979 (79. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1979-09-01 / 9-10. szám

REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

7

eral Synod is dollars. It will be interesting to discover at which Synod we will become as worldly about economic realities and the dollar requirements for mission as we are about other important matters. There’s something ambiguous about the fact that we have finetuned our policy mechanisms but have comparatively little drive in funding for mission.”

A.D. July-August 1979

FIGHT HUNGER NOW!

Just a year ago, the World Food Council noted that “up to one-third of all children bom alive die from malnutrition or [malnutrition-induced] diseases before the age of five. Many of the rest have their mental development irreversibly impaired by poor nutrition. Many others suffer the consequences of specific dietary deficiencies. Every year at least 100,000 children go blind as a result of severe vitamin A deficiency.”

Whether in overseas nations that are just beginning their development for in the already-developed nations of the .world, including the United States, nutrition is a life-or-death matter today. The word “hunger” connotes not only starving but also malnourished persons.

“Fight Hunger Now” is the theme of our current promotion of the Hunger Action Fund of the United Church of Christ. Many congregations will be using the time between the annual Neighbors in Need all-church offering on October 7 and Thanksgiving Day, November 22, to inform their members about world hunger and how hunger-related problems may be met through giving to the Hunger Action Fund.

The U.C.C. response to world hunger is multi-faceted. We gave almost $150,- 000 last year to the Hunger Action Fund to support ecumenical hunger fightingefforts, systemic approaches to the hunger issue, and some 30 individual hunger-fighting projects, many of them in the U.S.A. In addition, we gave nearly $10 million to National Basic Support for Our Christian World Mission, $2 million of which was spent by our national agencies for ongoing work at home and abroad that relates to helping hungry people. And we gave, through the annual One Great Hour of Sharing all-church offering, another $1.8 million for emergency needs at home and abroad and for agricultural development overseas.

However, despite all these efforts, we in the United Church of Christ could

be doing even more to fight hunger if the funds were made available. The continuation of projects grants to important hunger-fighting efforts in the United States and the institution of hunger-related programs that also will strengthen life in rural America depend upon our increased support of the Hunger Action Fund.

Will you:

— Watch carefully for material from your own congregation describing how you can contribute to the Hunger Action Fund of the United Church of Christ.

■— Give generously, sometime between now and Thanksgiving or at another time specified by your congregation to the Hunger Action Fund.

— Remember that the needs of hungry people depend in part upon your personal response.

— Join the effort of the United Church of Christ to “Fight Hunger Now”!

Ed’s Clipsheet, Oct. 1979

REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA

SYNOD CALLS CHURCHES TO ACT

The following resolutions passed by the General Synod called for specific actions by churches or church members.

The 1979 General Synod:

— Urged all classes and churches to examine the activity of cults within their boundaries in order to be able to provide adequate pastoral guidance.

— Commended and encouraged those RCA churches and church-related organizations in which RCA members participate which are providing shelter and “safe homes” for battered wives.

— Encouraged RCA consistors, classes, and agencies to establish shelters which provide for the circumstantial needs of the battered wife.

— Recommended that RCA members support legislation which effectively addresses the offense of wife-battering and similar forms of domestic violence.

— Called upon members, individually, and church agencies, as potential employers, to do all within their power to extend employment opportunities to racial minority group members.

— Commended Illusion of Black Progress to the churches for further study.

— Designated the Sunday after Thanksgiving, November 25, 1979, as RCA College Sunday, so that the colleges and individual congregations may

be encouraged to use this day to bring greater awareness of the opportunities which the RCA colleges offer to young people of the denomination and to encourage the support of these colleges.

— Urged each congregation to cooperate in providing the names of high school graduates and other prospective students to our RCA colleges.

— Urged upon the congregations continued financial support for RCA colleges.

— Called upon the churches of the denomination to offer special prayers for China and the Muslim world.

— Affirmed the Vision in Mission challenge of the General Program Council and recommended that each congregation in the RCA renew and increase its commitment to the mission of the RCA as expressed through the General Program Council.

— Urged each minister in the Reformed Church to make arrangements with another pastor for personal and family pastoral care.

— Urged leaders of worship to be sensitive to the needs of male and female membership in preaching and in choice of hymns and to make appropriate pronoun changes in liturgical texts (excluding Scripture and historic documents).

The Church Herald

WARC PRESIDENT AND GENERAL SECRETARY IN ROUMANIA

Bucarest — On July 24, 1979, the President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Dr. James I. McCord, and its General Secretary, Dr. Edmond Perret, paid a visit to Bucarest where they met the Director of the Ministry of Cults, Mr. Popescu, and the Patriarch of the Roumanian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Justin.

The discussions during the visit — in which participated also Bishop Antonye on behalf of the Orthodox and Bishop Nagy from the Reformed Church of Roumania — were led in a spirit of mutual understanding and proved to be very useful. They included, among other business, questions related to the preparation of the European Area Council of the Alliance which will take place in September 1980 in Poiana-Brasov.

The Reformed Church of Roumania — a Hungarian speaking minority in the country — has a membership of about 800,000 souls and its congregations are mainly found in Transylvania.

RPS, July-August ’79