Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991 TAG: 9104200319
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Two Roanoke Valley United Methodist ministers will be elevated to district superintendents when annual appointments to churches are made in June.
The Rev. Louis E. Carson, pastor of Cave Spring United Methodist for four years, will move to the Danville District.
The current senior minister at First Methodist in Salem, the Rev. James G. Hollomon, is being transferred to the Staunton District. He has been in Salem since 1988. Hollomon also served Thrasher Memorial Church of Vinton and was superintendent of the Portsmouth District.
The promotions to the 18-member "cabinet" of Bishop Thomas B. Stockton leave vacant two of the larger United Methodist appointments. They will be filled in June when Stockton makes the formal announcement of ministers to churches throughout the Virginia Conference.
That will occur in Roanoke this year on the closing day of the denomination's annual convention at the Roanoke Civic Center.
Current United Methodist practice is for pastors to be assigned annually to churches although most stay for two or more years. District superintendents and the conference bishop work during the spring from a pool of available pastors and make tentative appointments before the annual meeting.
Blessing of the fields
A "blessing of the fields" service and open house at the Phoebe Needles Retreat Center south of Callaway is scheduled May 11 beginning at 10 a.m. The Rev. Christine Payden-Travers, director of the center, will conduct the traditional service based on an old English Christian practice and rarely used near urban areas today. Family activities, including a hayride, will be included. Participants may bring a picnic lunch.
Methodists study union
Bishops from four Methodist denominations have authorized a joint commission to study possible union.
Meeting in Georgia last month, leaders of United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, and Christian Methodist Episcopal denominations agreed to ask their national law-making bodies to approve study for action by 1996.
All four groups are represented in Western Virginia. The memberships of the AME, AME Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal are predominantly black, while the United Methodist membership is largely white.
No hard feelings
WASHINGTON - President Bush recently told a group of religion reporters that he feels no resentment toward church leaders who opposed use of military force to oust Iraq from Kuwait.
He said their statements came "from the heart. I just disagreed with them." He was quoted in the Dallas-based United Methodist Reporter as adding, "We have to have a tolerance for diversity.
"I have no feeling that someone is less of an American or less patriotic than I am. But they're wrong and I was right." - Associated Press
Death penalty stand
CHICAGO - Synod meetings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are reviewing a proposal that their denomination take a stand against the death penalty and work to abolish it.
The 5.2 million-member denomination's social concerns commission has recommended that the churchwide assembly in August adopt such a policy. - Associated Press
by CNB