UMNS Daily Digest - March 14, 2011 (Japan, labor issues, church mergers, New Jersey flooding, United

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Date Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:18:05 -0700

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       UMNS Daily Digest - Produced by United Methodist News Service
                           Monday, March 14, 2011
               [5]Missionaries in Japan cope with quake's toll
                    [6]Mission agency in prayer for Japan
               [7]Church leaders defend collective bargaining
                  [8]Church mergers take time, energy, work
             [9]Cleanup kits offer relief for N.J. flood victims
                       [10]UM Men support clergywomen


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   "Please pray that God will give protection to us and this area and give the
   ability to the engineers to get the (nuclear) situation under control." -
   Jonathan McCurley, a United Methodist missionary in Japan.

Missionaries in Japan cope with quake's toll

   NASUSHIOBARA, Japan (UMNS) - The Sunday after the biggest earthquake in
   Japan's history was a time of fellowship and thanksgiving for the staff at
   the Asian Rural Institute. All United Methodist missionaries and volunteers
   in Japan are safe, according to the United Methodist Board of Global
   Ministries. But, along with everyone else in Japan, they are feeling the
   aftereffects of the March 11 disaster. The United Methodist Committee on
   Relief is [21]collecting donations for Japanese earthquake relief.

   [22]Read full story and post a comment»



Mission agency in prayer for Japan

   NEW YORK (GBGM) - The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries works with
   the United Church of Christ in Japan (Kyodan) and several ecumenical
   organizations and mission institutions. The agency continues many historical
   relations in Japan begun in the 19th century, primarily through ecumenical
   affiliations. The Kyodan is the largest Protestant church in Japan, formed
   in the World War II era by a merger of 33 denominations, including the
   Methodists.

   [23]Read full story»



Church leaders defend collective bargaining

   MADISON, Wis. (UMNS) - As states struggle with budget shortfalls and high
   unemployment, legislative fights over the benefits and rights of
   public-sector unions rage across the country, most famously in Wisconsin.
   Many United Methodist leaders, including bishops, are speaking out against
   efforts to sharply curtail collective-bargaining rights. These church
   leaders are following a longstanding Methodist concern for workers' rights
   going back to John Wesley.

   [24]Read full story and post a comment»



Church mergers take time, energy, work

   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Mergers are one way some churches are
   addressing declining membership, but they also can help create rebirth and
   begin new, vital mission work. When faced with declining membership and grim
   futures, six congregations - in Minnesota, Georgia and Iowa - became three
   new churches, with new ideas and a commitment to revitalizing their
   ministries. Part two of a four-part series on churches in transition.

   [25]Read full story and post a comment»



Cleanup kits offer relief for N.J. flood victims

   WARETOWN, N.J. (UMNS) - The Greater New Jersey Annual (regional) Conference
   is coordinating efforts to provide cleanup kits to those affected by weekend
   floods in the northern part of the state. The conference also is working
   with the Baltimore-Washington Conference to organize early-response teams
   for flood recovery, said the Rev. Derrick Doherty, the conference's
   disaster-response coordinator.

   As of Monday, many towns and communities remained underwater after heavy
   rains pushed the Passaic River over its banks. Doherty said that at least
   one United Methodist church, St. Philip's Ministry in Paterson, has
   sustained flood damage. Doherty, pastor of Waretown United Methodist Church,
   said the best thing United Methodists outside the state can do to help is
   assemble cleanup kits for the United Methodist Committee on Relief. "It's
   just a wonderful example of our connectionalism," he said. "The cleanup kits
   we're using could have been made down in Mississippi or some other state."



UM Men support clergywomen

   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The National Association of Conference Presidents
   of United Methodist Men confessed that some churches have not always been
   supportive of women clergy. Meeting March 3-6 in Nashville, the men sent a
   resolution to the 2012 General Conference, the denomination's top lawmaking
   body, urging men to welcome women to the pulpits of their churches, and
   asked local chapters of United Methodist Men to invite clergywomen to share
   in their studies and activities.



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