Fine, inspiring examples here from
www.crosswalk.com today
Illinois Christians Issue Friendly Challenge to U.S. Churches: 'Increase Missions and We'll Match It!'
Church members and congregations in Champaign County, Illinois, are issuing a friendly challenge to churches across the U.S.: 'Increase Missions and We'll Match It!'
According to a Religion News Service release, these folks are putting their money where their challenge is. Individuals and congregations have been building a fund to match new missions spending by congregations nationally. Mission Match®, a project of empty tomb®, inc., currently has $63,000 available to match new mission spending by congregations.
The first match was in 2002. As of 2006, Mission Match has distributed a total of $62,000 to match $106,609 in 'new mission money' raised for 47 congregational projects. Now Christians in Champaign County, IL, want to step up the pace.
Funds have been contributed by individuals and congregations have also contributed to the fund. To date, congregations have received Mission Match funds for a variety of projects including: the building of a pastor-training center in Cambodia; a water system for a village in Haiti (sponsored by a youth group); a self-esteem program for low-income youth in Ohio; and educating women in Tanzania. Projects have been located in 21 countries, in addition to eight projects in the U.S.
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Champaign famously hosts the world's biggest annual missions conference - Urbana - each Dec
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Reform of German Churches at Point of No Return
Wolfgang Polzer
Congress Launches Steps to Make Protestant Churches Fit for 21 st Century
WITTENBERG -- The mainline Protestant Churches in Germany have launched a process of radical renovation and renewal which they hope will make them fit for the 21st century.
The process has reached a “point of no return,†said the Protestant leader, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, at the close of a three-day congress on the future in Wittenberg, January 27.
In the East German town where Martin Luther started the reformation in 1517 roughly 300 representatives from the churches and public life
discussed prospects and perspectives for a more agile and missionary minded church in the coming decades.
The former “people’s church†in Martin Luther’s home country has suffered continuous membership losses since the seventies. This decline is likely to continue, mainly for demographic reasons: Germany is suffering from a severe lack of children.
If nothing changes, the total membership of the mainline Protestant churches will drop from 25.6 million to 17 million by the year 2030. The annual income from church tax – currently four billion Euros (US-Dollars 5.2 billion) – will be halved.
Church attendance is also low. Less than four percent of all church members worship on an average Sunday. The aim is to stop membership losses and raise the average worship attendance to ten percent.
Summing up the congress in Wittenberg Bishop Huber said the deliberations had not focused on statistics but on the need to strengthen the faith and the quality of spiritual life within the 23 regional churches.
Huber rejected allegations in the media that the Protestant churches are too inward looking. In a modern pluralistic society it is of utmost importance to discuss the role of religion, he said.
The churches would continue to challenge social and political problems like unemployment, globalization and education, but their primary competence was in the field of religion. The intention is to position the Protestant Churches as a “church of freedomâ€Â, said Huber.
During a reception Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called for “strong, courageous and forward looking churchesâ€Â. It would be a great encouragement for society as a whole, if churches tried to find the way into the future without moaning about the need for radical and sometimes painful reforms.
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No good premillenial, pre-Great-Tribulation Rapture believer can avoid saying that Jesus' Matthew 24 promise to
'cut short' this 'fig tree' climax generation of all history means if you want to do anything for God, the intensifying, accelerating 'birthpains' serve to bring on that Great Delivery
Israel was reborn 'in a day' - as Malachi prophesied - in the year I was born: 1948
My Bible College grad mum always said, "Ian, you'll never reach a decrepit 70 on Earth - you'll receive the same kind of Resurrection body as is promised in 1 Corinthians 15:51-58"
Plan to 'encourage each other with these words'
Plan to complete our Great Commission & hasten our Lord's return, OK?
I'm sure that talk @ firstfruits principles @
http://www.paulawhite.org will be repeated tonight
God bless!
Ian