Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408100046
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Nineteen workshops for Christian educators will be offered Sept. 17 in an ecumenical training conference at First United Methodist Church in downtown Salem.
The Rev. Dr. Howard Hanchey, author, conference leader and professor at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, will be the keynote speaker. The conference will last from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Registration is available by sending a form - obtainable by calling Jean Butler at 342-6797 or Mary Lea Hartman at 343-0377 - and a check for $6 to Creative Education Workshops, P.O. Box 2279, Roanoke 24009. Registration, due by Sept. 1, is limited to 250 people.
Workshop topics include teaching the Bible to people of every age level, spirituality for teachers, helping volunteers to greater efficiency, planning creative activities, building an after-school program, teaching the musical heritage, developing a ministry to senior adults and integrating religion with physical health.
New superintendent
The Rev. Kenneth J. Jackson, formerly pastor of Franconia United Methodist Church near Alexandria, has begun his work as superintendent of the Lynchburg District of Virginia United Methodism.
He and his wife, Gail, and three children will be honored at a reception Aug. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall of Main Street United Methodist Church in Bedford.
Pastoral letter
The nation's Episcopal bishops will recommend that the church bless "chaste, faithful and committed lifelong unions between mature adults" - including homosexual couples - in a pastoral letter to be presented to the denomination's General Convention on Aug. 24 in Indianapolis.
The pastoral letter - which the bishops had voted to keep confidential until the convention - was leaked to the Associated Press last week.
The communication does not endorse ordination of "practicing" homosexuals, concluding that ordination should only be for "persons we believe to be a wholesome example to their people, according to the standards and norms set forth by the church's teaching."
Dancing incident
The coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Cecil Sherman, says a couple who resigned as foreign missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention did so because they would not "recant of the sin of dancing."
Butch and Nell Green hosted a wedding reception in their home in Senegal, West Africa, last fall at which the bride and groom wanted dancing, they said. They were later reprimanded by denominational officials who oppose dancing as morally objectionable.
Convention spokesmen said the Greens' decision to leave was based on other factors besides the dancing incident. A Richmond official of the Foreign Mission Board confirmed, however, that the Greens had refused to promise they would not allow dancing at their home in the future. Betty Kay Yamaoka, assistant area director for West Africa, told Associated Baptist Press she believes "the majority of Baptists" would find the Green's behavior "offensive."
Sherman likened the the treatment of the Greens to the Salem witch trials.
Abstinence pledged
The Southern Baptist "True Love Waits" campaign promoting sexual abstinence among the nation's teens was celebrated at the end of a weeklong evangelism conference in Washington at the end of July.
Some 203,335 pledge cards signed by teens from around the country were displayed on the National Mall. Though it was started in Southern Baptist churches, the campaign was adopted by 26 denominations and parachurch organizations around the world.
The goal of the program, organizers said, is to spread the message of abstinence among the teens' peers and let adults know they've made the commitment.
In other news among Southern Baptists:
Russell Dilday, fired as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, on March 9, has been hired as a professor at Baylor University's new seminary.
Dilday joined the Waco, Texas, school's faculty last week. The university's George W. Truett Theological Seminary was started by moderate Baptists opposed to the denomination's conservative leadership.
And former Texas pastor Joel Gregory - once a darling of the denomination's conservative leaders and briefly pastor of the famous First Baptist Church of Dallas - has married a former parishioner.
Gregory, 46, married Sherry Elaine Lemon, 41, who was a member at Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Forth Worth when Gregory was pastor there. Gregory and his first wife of 26 years were divorced a little more than a year after he left the Dallas church in September 1992. Lemon also is divorced and is the mother of three. Gregory has two children by his first marriage.
Gregory and Lemon were married in a private ceremony at what Associated Baptist Press described as a "historic Forth Worth mansion." Security guards were hired to protect the proceedings.
Membership slides
The United Methodist Church continues its steady drain of United States members according to unofficial figures for 1993.
The denomination reports that about 60,000 were lost last year, about the same as the 62,137 who left in 1992. U.S. membership in the church totals 8.6 million.
Hostages held
A seven-member emergency medical services team from the Boone, N.C.,-based Samaritan's Purse relief and evangelism organization were held hostage for 21 hours July 28 while attempting to aid villagers in Southern Sudan.
Team members said Sudanese "bandit soldiers" held the seven hostage and stole their medical equipment and supplies. Eventually a team member was allowed to radio United Nations forces for help and the team was airlifted to Kenya.
Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, said "You never know what's going to happen in a country where civil war is going on all around you."
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