(RNS1-FEB08) Pastor Barry Diamond, bottom, and Ryan Lezinski of The Village church in Las Vegas work on bathroom improvements at Casa Hogar Sion Orphanage during a mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico. The Village takes risks, such as bringing members to Tijuana despite drug-related violence there, but also carries insurance. For use with RNS-CHURCH-ADMIN, transmitted Feb. 8, 2010. Religion News Service photo courtesy of The Village church. | Download/Purchase this photo
For churches, how much risk is too much?
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
(RNS) For Travis Hutchinson, the life of a pastor in a small-town Georgia church is about preaching the gospel, ministering to the needy and, increasingly, figuring out how to handle an ever-growing list of risks.
Some new risks are real and demand vigilance, says Hutchinson, pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church in LaFayette, Ga. For example, conducting a criminal background check on everyone who works with children has become a necessity.
Other risks are more remote, he says. Still, vendors stoke anxiety about everything from shooting sprees to federal audits.
“I get lots and lots …
Monday, February 08, 2010
Monday’s roundup
As houses of worship throughout the Mid-Atlantic region were closed yesterday because of the nearly three feet of snow dumped on us over the weekend, about 100 people joined an unusual telephone worship service organized by an AME pastor in Washington.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced a Maryland-based Catholic group that works for gay rights, saying it "has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and ... cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States." The group's leader said he was "astonished" at …
RNS HAITI MIRACLE c (RNS3-JAN19) Churchgoers , including Marie Rose Alcius (center) attend Sunday morning services at the Second Baptist Church in Delmas Two, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The church, which was damaged in the earthquake has lost over one thousand parishoners to the disaster. Clergy, afraid for the church's stability hold services in the yard nearby. For use with RNS-HAITI-MIRACLE, transmitted Jan. 19, 2010. Religion News Service photo by Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger.
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(RNS) The Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson is one of the founders of Christian Churches Together in the USA. Religion News Service file photo courtesy of the Reformed Church in America. | Download/Purchase this photo
10 minutes with … Wes Granberg-Michaelson
By Kevin Eckstrom
WASHINGTON (RNS) Weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a group of U.S. church leaders convened in Baltimore to gauge support for a new kind of Christian umbrella group that would bring together churches that not only had never talked together, but were often openly suspicious of one another.
The group quickly morphed into Christian Churches Together in the USA, which now brings together more than 40 churches groups in the broadest and most diverse ecumenical “table” that’s ever been assembled in the U.S.
The group, composed of five church “families”—Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical/Pentecostal, mainline Protestant, and racial/ethnic …