Member Church News: Shelter, Gender, Frontier

A California United Church of Christ congregation threw a “Green Card” party Saturday afternoon, May 14, celebrating the promise of citizenship for a woman the church sheltered, in sanctuary, from the threat of deportation for nearly three years.

Colleen Geyerspeech, assembly general secretary of the Uniting Church in Australia, delivered a speech called Partnering Women for Change at the Bridging the Gap: Gender Equality, Human Rights and Churches Learning and Sharing Fourm in Suva, Fiji.

Rev. Dr. Gretchen Schoon Tanis—author of Making Jesus Attractive: The Ministry and Message of Young Life and the pastor of the English language congregation of the Reformed Church in Hannover, Germany, writes A Letter from the Frontier.

How can we begin building peace in an era of religious extremism and acts of terror? Start by reaching out in your own neighborhood, suggests Rev. Arshad Gill, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.

The Evangelical Church of Greece has been helping immigrants for more than 20 years, but has grown its effort to unprecedented levels in the past few years, months and even every day.

Chaplains in Fort McMurray reach out to fire victimes.

Chris Ferguson, WCRC general secretary, was awarded a medal of friendship by the Cuban government during last week’s executive committee meeting.

The 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 should be a profoundly ecumenical, as well as European and international celebration, according to Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).