Member Church News: Supporting, Mourning, Singing

CrossReach care home residents affected by the health crisis will be able to see their families remotely thanks to generous grants from overseas partners, the Evangelical Church of Westphalia and the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.

Bertalan Tamás, known to many in the international-ecumenical arena simply as “Berti,” died in the night of 20 May in Hospital after a short illness, at the age of 80 years. The Reformed Church in Hungary mourns the passing of a generous man of good heart, a faithful minister with great passion for the ecumenical movement.

One of the long-term effects of COVID-19 in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries will be widespread famine. In Madagascar, where the average person lives on less than $250 a year, the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar fruit tree center at Mahatsinjo will help offset the impact of hunger in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Uniting Church in Australia members, through National Reconciliation Week resources, are encouraged to affirm their covenant relationship as First and Second Peoples and to strengthen their actions for justice, healing, and reconciliation.

Lessons from the parable of the good Samaritan weave through a small manual that the Christian Reformed Church in North America’s Timothy Leadership Training Institute developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has sent to people in dozens of countries around the world.

A United Church of Christ pastor and his Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, congregation are proof that the church is not the building. Despite the challenges of online worship and ministry during social distancing, First Congregational Church of Flagstaff is working with community partners to make life a little easier for scores of their undocumented neighbours who are ineligible for federal assistance during this COVID-19 pandemic.

A virtual choir from the Valli Valdesi del Piemonte (Italy) sings the Padre Nostro (Our Father).

The World Council of Churches is mourning the death of Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, a South African pastor and academic who was currently serving as the WCC president from Africa since 2013. She passed away on 19 May.

A unique virtual worship service will be organized by the Christian Conference of Asia on 24 May 2020 from 16:00–17:15, Bangkok, Thailand, time. Ecclesiastical and ecumenical leaders from the CCA’s constituencies across Asia will lead this one-of-a-kind virtual prayer service on “Asia Sunday,” observed annually on the Sunday before Pentecost.
Those who will not be able to obtain an advanced registration can join the service through Facebook live-streaming on the CCA’s Facebook page: