wfn.org | [ELD] Presiding Bishop to give closing prayer at National Prayer Service after inauguration/Sudan's

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal Life Daily
>January 16, 2009

Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.

>Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:

* TOP STORY - Presiding Bishop to give closing prayer at National
Prayer Service after inauguration
* TOP STORY - Sudan's Mundri diocese terrorized by Lord's Resistance
Army attacks
* TOP STORY - UTO study committee members named
* WORLD REPORT - SRI LANKA: Churches denounce slaying of editor who
penned own fate
* PEOPLE - Andrew Kronenwetter is appointed associate program officer
for multicultural ministries
* MISSION - Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2009 focuses on Korean
churches
* MISSION - Feeding ministry receives grant to expand services - and hearts
* OPINION - Gift of love: Battling over property takes focus off the gospel
* OPINION - COMMENTARY: An inspired choice, even with his uninspiring
theology
* ARTS - Oases of peace: Foundation creates natural, sacred spaces for
healing
* DAYBOOK - January 19, 2009: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - Prayers for Each and Every Day

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Presiding Bishop to give closing prayer at National Prayer Service
after inauguration

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg, January 16, 2009

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
will offer the closing prayer at a National Prayer Service set for
January 21 at Washington National Cathedral. President Barack Obama
and his family are scheduled to attend the invitation-only service.

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of the Washington National
Cathedral, will welcome attendees to the event, followed by an
invocation from Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane.

The 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee announced on January 16 the
spiritual leaders who will participate in the service, which is a
tradition dating back to the inauguration of George Washington and is
considered the conclusion of the official inaugural events.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_104299_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Sudan's Mundri diocese terrorized by Lord's Resistance Army attacks

>By Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] Several parishes and villages in Sudan's
Episcopal Diocese of Mundri (http://mundri.anglican.org) have fallen
victim to a fresh wave of attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army, a
Ugandan rebel organization whose soldiers are prolonging a
two-decades-long terrorist campaign gruesomely marked by widespread
massacres and child abductions.

At least four people have been confirmed dead and insecurity in the
region is forcing residents to flee the villages of Tore Wandi, Moba,
Bangolo, Ledinwa and Garia for the relative safety of Mundri.

One of the slain is Wilson, a lay reader at a parish in Moba, wrote
the Rt. Rev. Bismark Monday, bishop of Mundri, in a January 15 email
to church partners. Monday explained that one of Wilson's sons and
grandsons -- both about 10 years old -- were abducted.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_104279_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

>UTO study committee members named

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson have named a 10-member
task force that will conduct a three-year study of the United Thank
Offering (UTO), the organization that has helped the Episcopal Church
expand its mission for the last 120 years by making grants to
ministries that address human needs.

The "serious and extensive" study was called for by the church's
Executive Council during its October meeting in Helena, Montana. The
council's resolution (INC055) was the result of a series of
conversations that began in January 2008 and centered on the need to
clarify the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society's legal
relationship with UTO. (The DFMS is the church's corporate legal
entity.)

Sandra McPhee, chair of the Executive Council's International Concerns
(INC) Committee, has said that there is nothing in writing that spells
out the UTO's relationship to the DFMS.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_104280_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

SRI LANKA: Churches denounce slaying of editor who penned own fate

>By Anto Akkara

[Ecumenical News International, Bangalore, India] Churches have joined
in condemning the killing of the editor of a Sri Lanka newspaper who
had written before his death that he would be assassinated by
government-backed forces, and they say it bodes ill for the right of
people to know what is going on.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_104302_ENG_HTM.htm

More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>PEOPLE

Andrew Kronenwetter is appointed associate program officer for
multicultural ministries

[Episcopal News Service] Andrew Kronenwetter, Ph.D., has accepted an
appointment as associate program officer for multicultural ministries
for the Episcopal Church, according to an announcement from the Rev.
Suzanne Watson, director of the Evangelism and Congregational Life
Center.

Kronenwetter, who will be based at the Seattle, Washington, region
office of the Episcopal Church Center, was a communication professor
at Rochester College, Rochester Hills, Michigan, for 18 years,
specializing in intercultural communication and cultural studies.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_104297_ENG_HTM.htm

More People: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>MISSION

Feeding ministry receives grant to expand services - and hearts

>By Lisa B. Hamilton

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Bethlehem in northeastern
Pennsylvania has awarded The Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton a
$200,000 grant to help expand its "Seasons of Love" ministry to the
community's needy.

The funds will be distributed over five years in $40,000 installments.
At the end of five years, said husband and wife parishioners Warren
and Pam Shotto, what began as a monthly feeding ministry will include
a food pantry, a renovated clothing exchange area, showers, restrooms
and an overflow homeless shelter.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_104300_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - - -

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2009 focuses on Korean churches

>By Matthew Davies

[Episcopal News Service] The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2009
is rooted in the experience of the churches in Korea and adopts the
theme "That they may become one in your hand," from Ezekiel 37:17.

Each year, an ecumenical group in a different part of the world
prepares the materials for the annual prayer week.

This year, a group from Korea "found that the text of Ezekiel offered
some compelling parallels to their own situation within a divided
country and for a divided Christendom," the materials note. "Ezekiel's
words give them hope that God will gather God's people again into one,
calling them God's own, and blessing them to make them a mighty people
... Flowing from the central text taken from Ezekiel 37:15-28, our
reflection during the 'eight days' of the Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity brings us to a deeper awareness of how the unity of the church
is also for the sake of the renewal of human community."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_104275_ENG_HTM.htm

More Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>OPINION

>Gift of love

Battling over property takes focus off the gospel

>By George Clifford

[Episcopal News Service] In private conversations, Episcopal Church
leaders from various dioceses tell me that two important reasons for
suing to retain title to assets of parishes and dioceses that wish to
disaffiliate from the denomination are fairness to the faithful
Episcopal remnant and deterring others from leaving. At first blush,
those rationales may appear to justify the lawsuits. However, neither
rationale withstands careful scrutiny from a Christian perspective.

Quite simply, Christianity is about grace and love. For we who seek to
follow Jesus, grace should take precedence over law.

The Episcopal Church operates through democratic processes. When a
majority of a parish (or a diocese) votes to leave, those who leave
should recognize that the property belongs to the denomination and, if
they wish to have the property, offer to purchase it at fair market
value. If those who wish to leave insist on keeping the property,
however, grace demands that we accept that selfish decision rather
than holding to the letter of the law. Although the Episcopal Church
likely may prevail in the courts, it will have further alienated the
disaffected, turned its focus away from the gospel imperative and
wasted precious resources on an issue ultimately of little importance
for God's business.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_104269_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

COMMENTARY: An inspired choice, even with his uninspiring theology

>By Tom Ehrich

[Religion News Service] Whenever I lead a communications workshop, I
show church Web sites that miss the mark: out-of-date designs and
content, a "provider driven" and not "customer driven" focus, too many
photos of buildings and clergy and not much apparent thought to what a
visitor might be seeking.

Then I show the Web site for Saddleback Church, a four-campus
megachurch in southern California whose pastor, Rick Warren, will give
the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20. His
selection has ruffled some feathers because of his conservative
theology.

"This Web site is the 'gold standard'," I say, not because it espouses
a certain theology, but because its methodology is superb. The site
shows people, not buildings, and a broader diversity than most
churches show. It changes constantly to stay fresh.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_104270_ENG_HTM.htm

More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>ARTS

>Oases of peace

Foundation creates natural, sacred spaces for healing

>By Jerry Hames

[Episcopal Life] One is a garden honoring World War I veterans,
another a turf labyrinth that is welcoming to the bare feet of the
recovering mentally ill, a third a children's peace memorial
commemorating the lives of young people lost to inner-city violence.

They are just three of several instances in which Episcopal churches
or schools have partnered with the TKF Foundation, a private,
grant-making organization whose sole purpose is to create open spaces
that become sacred places.

All of the more than 100 gardens or green spaces that TKF has created
over the past 12 years in partnership with faith communities and civic
organizations have one thing in common: They were created on the firm
conviction that nature is a healing and unifying force.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_104271_ENG_HTM.htm

More Arts: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

>On January 19, 2009...

* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

* Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm

* Today in History: On January 19, 1649, England's King Charles I, a
devout Anglican with Catholic sympathies who staunchly defended the
"divine right of kings," was executed after being convicted of treason
under a Puritan-influenced Parliament.

>_____________________

>CATALYST

"Prayers for Each and Every Day" from Paraclete Press, by Sophie
Piper, illustrated by Anne Wilson, 63 pages, hardcover, c. 2008,
$14.95

[Paraclete Press] Every child will enjoy this thoughtful and beautiful
gift of prayer.

This colorful collection has prayers for each day of the week --
morning and evening -- plus prayers for use in the home throughout the
seasons of the year. This very keepable collection includes both
familiar favorites and new writing, including some psalms and prayers
taken from other famous Bible passages.

With a theme for each day (Choosing the Right Way; God's Blessing;
Forgiving and Forgiven; Living Wisely; Love One Another; God's World;
A Child of God) the prayers provide a mini-liturgy that can become
part of a child's life.

To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit
your local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org

More Catalyst: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/83842_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

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