News Round-Up Churches
across the country are struggling to meet Disability Act
deadline How
many of our local churches will be read to implement the
final part of the Disability Discrimination Act this
month (October)? One
Christian disabilities charity, Through the Roof,
estimates that less than half of the Some
churches have even considered closing down altogether
because of worry about major building works required to
stay open. According
to one expert, every church should at least be expected
to install a loop system, produce large print reading
material, consider access for disabled people and provide
disability awareness training for the congregation. Does
our church have an invisible 'no trespass' sign? Are
people more frightened to come to our church than to go
into hospital? According to a new book, they may
will be. Creating
a Culture of Welcome in the Alison
Gilchrist then points to organisations like McDonald's.
“The whole matter of welcome and hospitality is
taken very seriously by those who are keen to have us
visit, shop/eat at, or join their own organisation.”
She even points to McDonald's whopping 750-page training
manual and the English Tourist Board's 'Welcome Host
Scheme' as useful guides as to how to make 'newcomers'
welcome. Creating
a Culture of Welcome goes on to give examples of best
practice, and includes exercises in how it feels to be
the newcomers. It urges local churches to welcome
the strangers in their midst, and to actively build their
community. Creating
a Culture of Welcome in the English
Baptist for top job The
General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain
has been nominated as the next president of the Baptist
World Alliance. The Red David Coffey, who has
written a book on reconciliation in church life, will
lead an alliance that lost one third of its 48 millions
members this year. 16 million Southern Baptists
withdrew, complaining at 'liberalism'. Mr
Coffey's appointment will be confirmed at the centenary
Baptist World Conference in Mr
Coffey is a co-president of Churches Together in Are
you in debt? Need to get advice about it? The
national debt counselling charity Christians Against
Poverty (CAP) has opened five new centres: in The
charity, which began 8 years ago, works in partnership
with churches to provide money management and debt advice.
It now has more than 70 staff members across the country. “There
is such a massive need for debt counselling,” said
CAP spokeswoman Josie Barlow. “We get lots of
people writing in with desperate needs, and unless they
live close to a centre we can't help them, which is
upsetting.” There
are currently 29 centres up and running across the
country. Please feel free to get in touch with your
nearest one by phoning: 01274 760720. Will
you help victims of the Bangladeshi floods? Following
the disastrous floods that affected at least 60 per cent
of Bangladeshi territory, The Leprosy Mission is hoping
to raise at least £100,000 for emergency relief and
rebuilding. The
first phase of its Bangladeshi Flood Relief Project will
provide emergency food and medical relief to more than 2,000
leprosy-affected families; the second phase will involve
rehabilitation and house rebuilding, or partial
rebuilding, for over 1,300 families. Slum children
in the capital If you
would like to help, please contact The Leprosy Mission by
visiting www.leprosymission.org or by telephoning 020
8326 6767. Iraqi
Christians flee violence Iraqi
Christians are continuing to leave their homeland “at
an alarming rate”, according to the Jubilee Campaign.
The news followed continuing terrorist violence against
the country's indigenous Chaldo Assyrian community. Thousands
of Christian families have now left Eyes
closed, paws folded Do you
pray with your dog? You should, you know, says one
minister. Praying with your pet once a day will
help it learn to behave well during your own private
devotions, and also when you next take it to church,
whenever that may be. The Rev Elizabeth
Lakey, an Ordained Local Minister in the benefice of
Nettlebed with Bix, Highmoor, Pishill and Rotherfield
Greys, wants her parishioners to get their pets used to
religious devotions. Her own dog sits on a kneeler
beside her at the altar for Evensong each day. Christian
charity calls for cloning rethink The
Christian social concern charity CARE has called for a
fundamental rethink on human cloning following the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's recent decision
to grant a research licence to the Newcastle Centre for
Life. The
move means that Commenting
on the HFEA's decision, CARE's Head of Public Policy
Roger Smith, said: “Apart
from what you do with the cloned embryo, there is no
distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning
- the knowledge, expertise and equipment are entirely the
same. The only difference is whether the embryo lives or
dies. This research significantly increases the
chance of a cloned child at some point in the near future.
“We
need a fundamental rethink of the ethics of this science.” The
cloning technique, called 'cell nuclear replacement'
involves removing the nucleus of a human egg cell and
replacing it with the nucleus from a human body cell,
such as a skin cell. The cloned embryo is then stimulated
and begins to grow in the same way as a normal embryo
fertilised by sperm. * The
Evangelical Alliance also “regrets” that the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has granted
the licence. Don Horrocks, Head of Public Affairs
at the Evangelical Alliance and who sits on the board of
The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy says, "While
we understand the need to find cures for a whole range of
diseases and we acknowledge the distress such diseases
can cause the sufferer and those close to them, we are
concerned that destroying an embryo to assist another
person risks 'trading off' one life against another. We
believe that other avenues of research, including the use
of adult stem cell technology, could achieve the same
result. "What
we are seeing is effectively the cheapening of human
life, which has already crossed a critical and ethical
boundary with the granting of this licence. Human life in
all its stages should be respected. Conception is the
first point at which the genes of the potential human
being are fused and development starts. There is no other
point in the developmental process at which we can say,
biologically, 'Before, it is a cell. After, it is a human
being.'" The
Evangelical Alliance makes clear it opposes the taking of
life through the creation, experimentation and
destruction of embryonic stem cells. Christian
Resources Exhibition to be held in The
Midlands Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE) will be
held this autumn at the NEC in Dubbed
the 'ideal church show', CRE, last held at the NEC in
2001, is a unique showcase for innovative resources and
ideas for churches of all denominations. More than 250
exhibitors, from all over the World
Vision celebrates Government's promise to children
affected by AIDS The
Government's pledge of £150
million to help children orphaned and affected
by HIV/AIDS has been welcomed by
leading international aid and development agency,
World Vision. This figure represents a tenth
of the £1.5 billion commitment the UK
Government made in its recent strategy to tackle the HIV/AIDS
crisis that is crippling so many communities across the
world. Last
year alone, 5.2 million children were orphaned by HIV/AIDS
and the prospect for the future is that the worst is
yet to come. Statistic
of the Month: Number of lone parents to triple The
most recent figures from the Government's General
Household Survey show that the proportion of lone-parent
families is set to rise from 12% of all families in 1986
to 33%, almost three times as many, by 2011. That's
a huge increase over just 25 years. Other
figures show that most lone parents become such because
the husband or male partner leaves. 93% of lone
parents are so because of a split with their partner, and
just 9% occur when the two people concerned were never
living together. The
proportion of lone parents attending church is much less
than in the population as a whole (1.8% to 8.0%) but this
still equates to 80,000 lone parents in our churches.
Hopefully they are finding love, affection and
appreciation there. Contributed
by Dr Peter Brierley, Executive Director, Christian
Research. |