Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9408190011
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: from staff and wire reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The annual World Hunger Auction sponsored by Franklin County Churches of the Brethren is scheduled Aug. 13 at Antioch Church on Virginia 641 four miles west of Virginia 919.
Bidding will begin at 9:30 a.m. for quilts, homecrafted furniture, farm produce and other products.
In the 10 years since the auction was begun, more than $225,000 has been donated to the needy in the United States and in the Dominican Republic. Heifer Project International coordinates the distribution of money for overseas use.
Ground beef also will be available at bulk rates if orders are placed by Sunday.
The auction has expanded to a hike and bicycle ride held earlier this summer. The bike ride held two weeks ago raised more than $6,000 for hunger relief and included a record number of participants.
All-natural service
Churches have tried all kinds of "cafeteria-style" offerings - Saturday night services, contemporary music, sermons with seafood - in an attempt to provide something for everybody.
But there probably are few like the "fragrance-free" service offered at Boise (Idaho) United Methodist Church.
The wife of the church's assistant pastor is sensitive to chemicals and fragrances, so her husband now leads a 2 p.m. Sunday service for others like her who cannot tolerate "unnatural fragrances and fibers."
The service is held in the 2,400-member church's chapel - itself made of natural wood materials - and participants are asked to wear only natural-fiber clothing and refrain from using perfume, cologne, after-shave, hair spray, scented soaps and chemical-based deodorants.
So far, the church reports, the service has attracted only a small congregation, so there is no need for an unscented choir - though there is a fragrance-free organist.
Baldwin named to post
Evangelist Howard A. Baldwin Jr. has been named Interim Executive Director of Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.
Baldwin, 59 has been active in the conservative movement among Virginia Baptists. He is based in Richmond.
The SBCV group was established last year by those upset with the moderate-controlled Baptist General Association of Virginia, the official state organization recognized by the national Southern Baptist Convention. Members of the conservative group remain members of the Baptist General Association.
Bust of the boom
Watch out, churches. Those baby-boomers who have been refilling your pews in recent years may be headed back out the doors.
So says a new study from the Hartford (Conn.) Seminary Center for Social and Religious Research.
Sociologist David Roozen warns in a new study called "Empty Nest, Empty Pew" that "older boomers" - those born between 1946 and 1955 - may be attending church less often as their children reach adulthood.
"One of the major contributing factors in boomers' return to active religious participation during the 1980s," Roozen said, "was their movement into parenting roles."
As their children become teen-agers, the percentage of boomers who attend worship regularly drops significantly - from 52.9 percent to 45.2 percent. Roozen speculates that even more of the parents will drop out of church as their children leave home.
Selling funerals and books
The Rev. Joel Gregory - once considered the most sought-after preacher in the Southern Baptist Convention - says he is now selling pre-arranged funerals door-to-door in Fort Worth, Texas, - and he's writing a book about his brief and apparently stormy tenure as pastor at the denomination's largest church, First Baptist of Dallas.
Gregory abruptly resigned the Dallas post in 1992 citing frustration that its senior pastor - the Rev. W.A. Criswell - hadn't allowed him full leadership responsibilities. Criswell told a Fort Worth newspaper he's heard the book is a "blistering indictment of me and the church," a charge Gregory has denied.
Gregory, 44, said the book would detail the story of why he left the church and his views on the 15-year controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Last October Gregory and his wife filed for divorce, citing the stresses of the Dallas pastorate in part for their breakup.
New seminary president
A former Virginia pastor, the Rev. Ken Hemphill, has been named new president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
Hemphill, whose Norfolk church grew from 975 members to 6,529 during his decade in the pastorate, is currently director of the Southern Baptist Center for Church Growth.
He is taking the reins at a seminary that has been split by controversy over the rancorous dismissal of former president Russell Dilday in March. But even Dilday has called Hemphill, 46, a good choice for the job, "a supportive friend through the years."
Sexuality issues
Conflicts over sexuality issues continue to plague several U.S. denominations, with studies and resolutions and broadsides being fired at national and regional meetings.
There is evidence, however, that many are growing weary of the debate.
The Church of the Brethren, for instance, at its annual meeting in Wichita, Kan., last month, heard a report from the Standing Committee on Homosexual Concerns urging congregations "to refrain from requesting additional policy statements at the Annual Conference on the homosexual issue for the next five years."
The committee did recommend the appointment of a subcommittee to "facilitate dialogue" on the subject, however.
A committee of the Evangelical Church in America this month expressed its "dis-ease" with a mandate to produce a social statement on human sexuality for a vote in 1995 by the Churchwide Assembly. The committee cited "great differences among our people in how we interpret Scripture" and a lack of preparation time for its bid to delay the vote.
Aid for children
A primary concern for United Methodists working with refugees in Zaire is the establishment of homes and hospitals for children. Bishop Felton C. May, who is leading a church delegation to refugee camps in early August, said news stories about children who have lost their parents through disease, violence or starvation points up a critical need. The bishop envisions expansion of facilities the church already maintains in the area and the possible importing of western medical personnel who would volunteer in short-term projects.
Feminism position
In Irving, Texas, recently those attending a convention of Good News, a conservative United Methodist coalition often critical of the church's national leadership, heard that Christians must support feminism as fair treatment of women but must reject non-Biblical ideology. The group continues to complain about a "re-imaging conference" held nine months ago in Minneapolis, which critics said held the "goddess of Wisdom" above God.
The Rev. Edmund W. Robb Jr., who has been associated with Good News for the 27 years of its existence, presented "an evangelical response to biblical faith and radical feminism." Robb, a United Methodist clergyman who runs an evangelistic association based in Marshall, Texas, also is chairman of the conservative Institute for Religion and Democracy. Before his presentation the Good News governing board honored him for 30 years as an evangelist.
by CNB