Former hostage visits Upper Room
By Jeanette Pinkston*
"While I was kidnapped, you were in captivity here praying for me until my release. Because of your tears and prayers, the Lord has brought me back," the Rev. Tongkhojang Lunkim told worshipers in the Upper Room Chapel Dec. 13.
Lunkim, publications coordinator for four editions of the Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide in northeast India, was captured Jan. 16 by a group of rebels called the Kuki Liberation Army. Held in solitary confinement for 61 days, he was released in mid-March.
"I am alive. It is me," Lunkim, 87, told the staff of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship during the weekly chapel service. Gesturing toward the carved picture of The Last Supper in the front of the Upper Room chapel, Lunkim recalled first seeing it when he spoke there in 1980. As a captive, "I prayed to God to let me see it one more time, and here I am, standing before you today."
The Upper Room is a ministry of the Board of Discipleship. Lunkim came to Nashville to visit the Upper Room staff and to thank personally those who prayed for him while he was a hostage.
While in captivity, Lunkim said there was nothing to do but read the Bible and meditate. When he became downhearted, he read Psalm 27. "I was reading the letters, but I heard a sound in my ear. The Lord spoke to me," he said. "Those verses kept coming to me."
Lunkim compared his capture to that of the apostle Paul. He said the boy who arrested him was one of his own people. "They sent him to kill me, but he could not pull the trigger," he said.
Lunkim was kept in a tiny cabin about the size of his small-frame body. The building was covered with tarp he had donated when his village was burned. He thought his captivity was the end of his ministry. "Mentally I was preparing to be with the Lord," he said.
Lunkim suspects he was kidnapped because of his work either as a human rights activist or as a Christian. He has led a ministry in northeast India, where Christians are a small minority among a predominantly Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim population. He is a leader in the Kuki Christian Church, which publishes the Upper Room in four indigenous languages. The Kuki Church is a collective of hundreds of Christian churches in northeast India, Myanmar (Burma) and Bhutan.
Lunkim is convinced that for two months he was kept silent so God could do what he could not do. Many people spoke on his behalf. Christians and non-Christians prayed for him.
"I cannot deny that I [was] afraid," he says. "They [had] guns. I prayed to God, 'I am ready. My life is in your hands.'''
*Pinkston is media relations coordinator for the General Board of Discipleship, Nashville, Tenn..
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Music directors seek gifted United Methodists for '08 assembly
MADISON, N.J. (UMNS) - Local church choirs, ensembles and bands, instrumentalists, singers, dancers and dance groups, as well as visual, video, textile and performing artists from around the world, are invited to send audition tapes for a chance to perform at worship services at the 2008 General Conference.
Mark Miller, a co-music director for the 2008 conference, is seeking United Methodists interested in sharing their gifts in worship to submit a recording (DVD, CD, VHS, cassette, mpeg, mp3) plus a brief bio and other supporting materials by postal mail by March 30, 2007. Address them to Mark A. Miller, director of music, Drew Theological School, 36 Madison Ave., Madison, N.J., 07940, or send them by e-mail to mamiller@drew.edu.
The United Methodist Church's top legislative assembly will meet April 23-May 2, 2008, in Fort Worth, Texas. The 1,000-member international body meets every four years to decide issues of church law and polity.
Miller, of Plainfield, N.J., and Marcia McFee of Truckee, Calif., were selected by the Commission on the General Conference as co-music directors.
Miller is well known throughout the United Methodist connection as a worship leader, teacher and performer of sacred music. He is director of music and instructor of church music at the Drew Theological School, Madison, N.J. He also serves as the director of contemporary worship at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City and is a lecturer at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, New Haven, Conn. He has directed music for numerous United Methodist annual conferences and youth events. He has composed a number of hymns, including a collection, Amazing Abundance, Hymns for a Growing Church, published by Abingdon Press.
He received a master's of music degree in organ performance from the Juilliard School in New York and a bachelor's degree in music from Yale University.
McFee is the principal of Peace by Peace Productions, where she serves as a consultant on worship, arts and preaching. She has preached, taught and led worship at numerous United Methodist gatherings in the United States, Europe and Asia.
In addition to consulting on worship, music and dance, McFee has been a guest lecturer on worship at six United Methodist seminaries and is the author of The Worship Workshop: Creative Ways to Design Worship Together, a book for worship teams and published by Abingdon Press. She earned a doctorate degree in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkley; a master's degree in theological studies from Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Mo.; and a bachelor's degree in dance education from New York University. She is a recipient of the Hoyt Hickman Award for scholarship in the study of liturgy and effective worship leadership.
The music directors will work with the Council of Bishops and staff from the United Methodist Board of Discipleship to plan worship services for the General Conference. They also will lead hymn singing, coordinate additional music performances and venues, and audition and select vocal and instrumental musicians for the conference.
MADISON, N.J. (UMNS) - Local church choirs, ensembles and bands, instrumentalists, singers, dancers and dance groups, as well as visual, video, textile and performing artists from around the world, are invited to send audition tapes for a chance to perform at worship services at the 2008 General Conference.
Mark Miller, a co-music director for the 2008 conference, is seeking United Methodists interested in sharing their gifts in worship to submit a recording (DVD, CD, VHS, cassette, mpeg, mp3) plus a brief bio and other supporting materials by postal mail by March 30, 2007. Address them to Mark A. Miller, director of music, Drew Theological School, 36 Madison Ave., Madison, N.J., 07940, or send them by e-mail to mamiller@drew.edu.
The United Methodist Church's top legislative assembly will meet April 23-May 2, 2008, in Fort Worth, Texas. The 1,000-member international body meets every four years to decide issues of church law and polity.
Miller, of Plainfield, N.J., and Marcia McFee of Truckee, Calif., were selected by the Commission on the General Conference as co-music directors.
Miller is well known throughout the United Methodist connection as a worship leader, teacher and performer of sacred music. He is director of music and instructor of church music at the Drew Theological School, Madison, N.J. He also serves as the director of contemporary worship at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City and is a lecturer at the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, New Haven, Conn. He has directed music for numerous United Methodist annual conferences and youth events. He has composed a number of hymns, including a collection, Amazing Abundance, Hymns for a Growing Church, published by Abingdon Press.
He received a master's of music degree in organ performance from the Juilliard School in New York and a bachelor's degree in music from Yale University.
McFee is the principal of Peace by Peace Productions, where she serves as a consultant on worship, arts and preaching. She has preached, taught and led worship at numerous United Methodist gatherings in the United States, Europe and Asia.
In addition to consulting on worship, music and dance, McFee has been a guest lecturer on worship at six United Methodist seminaries and is the author of The Worship Workshop: Creative Ways to Design Worship Together, a book for worship teams and published by Abingdon Press. She earned a doctorate degree in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkley; a master's degree in theological studies from Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Mo.; and a bachelor's degree in dance education from New York University. She is a recipient of the Hoyt Hickman Award for scholarship in the study of liturgy and effective worship leadership.
The music directors will work with the Council of Bishops and staff from the United Methodist Board of Discipleship to plan worship services for the General Conference. They also will lead hymn singing, coordinate additional music performances and venues, and audition and select vocal and instrumental musicians for the conference.
Churches offer ways to keep 'holy' in holidays
An Interpreter/UMNS Feature By Ray Waddle*
Here they come again, the traditions of the late-year holidays - sumptuous party food, families reuniting, brightly wrapped gifts, soaring carols - and head-pounding stress, frayed nerves and overheated spending.
This year, take a breath, and take heart. Within reach is a world of alternative ways to buy gifts and to focus on the multilayered spirituality of Advent, leading to a meaningful Christmas.
At First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, Calif., members are setting up a marketplace of charity - and taking a stand against thoughtless holiday materialism.
The Alternative Christmas Market at First Church is open each weekend during Advent, allowing members to write a check to support a mission project in the name of a friend or loved one, who then receives notification of the donation.
"It's a breath of fresh air," says Nikki Edwards, a member of the church. "People want to do more than spend money on items that aren't necessary."
The Santa Monica church has been doing this for nearly two decades. In 2005, it raised $20,000 for a dozen charities, local and international.
Edwards uses the Alternative Market in shopping for her three boys, ages 10, 14 and 17.
Besides conventional Christmas gifts, each boy receives a card saying his parents have given money to a charity in his name. The practice usually stirs the youngsters' interest in the project, she says.
"It's a way to balance gift-giving," she says. "People in the stores talk about Christmas earlier and earlier. A lot of kids miss the whole point of the holiday: they think it's about gifts, especially receiving gifts."
Other tips for alternatives
In recent years, many churches have made alternative markets an Advent tradition.
They're doing other things, too, as a counterweight to frenzied commercialism:
Sponsoring workshops to help families construct Advent wreaths for home use, and distributing booklets with devotions and prayers for weekly candle-lighting times.
Erecting Angel Trees to provide toys for neighborhood children in need.
Sharing Web sites, such as www.simpleliving.org (Alternatives for Simple Living), that give tips and ideas.
Teaching Advent's countercultural themes of hope and justice.
More churches realize that believers are dissatisfied with aggressive commercialism and holiday stress. They want guidance to reorient their holiday rhythms around the biblical story.
At Resurrection United Methodist Church in Durham, N.C., worship leaders use royal blue as an Advent liturgical color to drive home a biblical idea of the sunrise hope of the coming King.
"If you step outside in December before sunrise, that's the color blue you'll see," says the Rev. Larry Bowden.
Beyond Dec. 25
The word "Advent" itself looms larger as a solution to the stress. Pastors and other church leaders plead with people to enrich their notion of Christmas - and take pressure off the one big day of Dec. 25 - by embracing the December-long Advent season, and the 12 days of Christmas, which end with Epiphany Jan. 6.
"One thing we can learn is to quit thinking it's all over Dec. 26," says writer/educator Blair Meeks, author of Expecting the Unexpected: An Advent Devotional Guide (Upper Room Books, 800-972-0433).
In previous centuries, she notes, the season didn't really end until Feb. 2, called Candlemas, which honors the presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days after his birth.
"Get lay people involved. Encourage home devotions," she urges. "Have celebrations that aren't simply cocktail parties."
One suggestion: Do home prayers around the seven stanzas of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" (The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 211), using each verse to ponder the nature of Jesus.
Important themes
Another layer of Advent deserves attention, say Meeks and others: the themes of justice and mercy. The coming of Christ means the coming Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed when he read from Isaiah.
"Advent is not just about us and our devotions but releasing the captive, feeding the hungry and all those things we should take seriously, and not just the warm and fuzzy side of the holiday," Meeks says.
The simple gospel eloquence of the incarnation story - the news that God took on human form, in a specific small-town Judean scenario - is the great antidote to the overbearing complications of the season, says the Rev. Leicester Longden, who teaches at University of Dubuque Seminary in Iowa. He urges churchgoers to focus on the holiday's themes of simplicity rather than anti-capitalist agendas behind some alternative Christmas campaigns.
"The culture wants us to believe we can have it all," he says. "But the biblical story has associations with suffering, Jesus as a refugee. God doesn't really go out of his way to advertise the Nativity.
"It's off to the side, rather hidden. God presented the good news in the small, the simple."
*Waddle is a religion writer and columnist in Nashville, Tenn. This feature originally appeared in Interpreter magazine, published by United Methodist Communications. Downloadable PDF versions of this and several other articles from the November-December 2006 issue of Interpreter are available at www.interpretermagazine.org. Churches can use them in the bulletins or newsletters or to link to them from their Web sites.
An Interpreter/UMNS Feature By Ray Waddle*
Here they come again, the traditions of the late-year holidays - sumptuous party food, families reuniting, brightly wrapped gifts, soaring carols - and head-pounding stress, frayed nerves and overheated spending.
This year, take a breath, and take heart. Within reach is a world of alternative ways to buy gifts and to focus on the multilayered spirituality of Advent, leading to a meaningful Christmas.
At First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica, Calif., members are setting up a marketplace of charity - and taking a stand against thoughtless holiday materialism.
The Alternative Christmas Market at First Church is open each weekend during Advent, allowing members to write a check to support a mission project in the name of a friend or loved one, who then receives notification of the donation.
"It's a breath of fresh air," says Nikki Edwards, a member of the church. "People want to do more than spend money on items that aren't necessary."
The Santa Monica church has been doing this for nearly two decades. In 2005, it raised $20,000 for a dozen charities, local and international.
Edwards uses the Alternative Market in shopping for her three boys, ages 10, 14 and 17.
Besides conventional Christmas gifts, each boy receives a card saying his parents have given money to a charity in his name. The practice usually stirs the youngsters' interest in the project, she says.
"It's a way to balance gift-giving," she says. "People in the stores talk about Christmas earlier and earlier. A lot of kids miss the whole point of the holiday: they think it's about gifts, especially receiving gifts."
Other tips for alternatives
In recent years, many churches have made alternative markets an Advent tradition.
They're doing other things, too, as a counterweight to frenzied commercialism:
Sponsoring workshops to help families construct Advent wreaths for home use, and distributing booklets with devotions and prayers for weekly candle-lighting times.
Erecting Angel Trees to provide toys for neighborhood children in need.
Sharing Web sites, such as www.simpleliving.org (Alternatives for Simple Living), that give tips and ideas.
Teaching Advent's countercultural themes of hope and justice.
More churches realize that believers are dissatisfied with aggressive commercialism and holiday stress. They want guidance to reorient their holiday rhythms around the biblical story.
At Resurrection United Methodist Church in Durham, N.C., worship leaders use royal blue as an Advent liturgical color to drive home a biblical idea of the sunrise hope of the coming King.
"If you step outside in December before sunrise, that's the color blue you'll see," says the Rev. Larry Bowden.
Beyond Dec. 25
The word "Advent" itself looms larger as a solution to the stress. Pastors and other church leaders plead with people to enrich their notion of Christmas - and take pressure off the one big day of Dec. 25 - by embracing the December-long Advent season, and the 12 days of Christmas, which end with Epiphany Jan. 6.
"One thing we can learn is to quit thinking it's all over Dec. 26," says writer/educator Blair Meeks, author of Expecting the Unexpected: An Advent Devotional Guide (Upper Room Books, 800-972-0433).
In previous centuries, she notes, the season didn't really end until Feb. 2, called Candlemas, which honors the presentation of Jesus in the temple 40 days after his birth.
"Get lay people involved. Encourage home devotions," she urges. "Have celebrations that aren't simply cocktail parties."
One suggestion: Do home prayers around the seven stanzas of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" (The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 211), using each verse to ponder the nature of Jesus.
Important themes
Another layer of Advent deserves attention, say Meeks and others: the themes of justice and mercy. The coming of Christ means the coming Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed when he read from Isaiah.
"Advent is not just about us and our devotions but releasing the captive, feeding the hungry and all those things we should take seriously, and not just the warm and fuzzy side of the holiday," Meeks says.
The simple gospel eloquence of the incarnation story - the news that God took on human form, in a specific small-town Judean scenario - is the great antidote to the overbearing complications of the season, says the Rev. Leicester Longden, who teaches at University of Dubuque Seminary in Iowa. He urges churchgoers to focus on the holiday's themes of simplicity rather than anti-capitalist agendas behind some alternative Christmas campaigns.
"The culture wants us to believe we can have it all," he says. "But the biblical story has associations with suffering, Jesus as a refugee. God doesn't really go out of his way to advertise the Nativity.
"It's off to the side, rather hidden. God presented the good news in the small, the simple."
*Waddle is a religion writer and columnist in Nashville, Tenn. This feature originally appeared in Interpreter magazine, published by United Methodist Communications. Downloadable PDF versions of this and several other articles from the November-December 2006 issue of Interpreter are available at www.interpretermagazine.org. Churches can use them in the bulletins or newsletters or to link to them from their Web sites.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Prayer guide focuses on people with serious illnesses
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - "The cry of my heart is a cure for HIV and AIDS worldwide."
Those are the words of Mathabo L. of South Africa, one of the writers living with HIV/AIDS who has contributed to a special prayer book for people suffering with serious diseases.
Prayers for Encouragement: Hope for Persons Living with HIV & AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Serious Diseases is being printed by Upper Room Ministries in partnership with the Africa Upper Room Office.
The English edition will be available for World AIDS Day, Dec. 1. Editions in French, Portuguese, Kiswahili, IsiZulu and other languages will be available in early 2007.
The idea for the prayer book was born when the Rev. Don Messer, executive director of the Center for the Church and Global AIDS, discovered copies of the Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide in the waiting room of Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya.
There is a large population of Methodists and a "raging epidemic of HIV/AIDS" in the Meru area of Kenya, according to Messer. Many people come to the hospital to be tested, get counseling and be treated with anti-retroviral drugs. "It's a pretty stressful time when people come to be tested and face these issues," he said.
Seeing the battered, 10-year-old copies of the devotional guide in the waiting room prompted Messer to contact Upper Room Ministries about publishing a special collection of prayers for people suffering with HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
He realized that people sitting in the waiting room "must have been worrying and thinking and praying, and they'd turned to these Upper Room magazines for guidance and support," he said.
"Where there is human suffering and crisis, Upper Room Ministries wants to provide openings to God's healing and reconciling grace," said the Rev. Stephen D. Bryant, editor and publisher of The Upper Room Devotional Guide. "When Dr. Don Messer contacted us, we knew this was consistent with who God has called us to be."
Growing crisis
Since 1981, the U.S. AIDS epidemic has been steadily growing, and by the beginning of 2005, more than 1 million people were estimated to be living with HIV and approximately 415,000 were living with AIDS. AIDS is believed to have killed more than half a million Americans, nearly 10 times the number killed in the Vietnam War.
On the African continent, 25 million adults and children - most of them in sub-Saharan countries - are living with HIV/AIDS. Every week, nearly 40,000 Africans die of the disease.
"Governments can bring and must bring needed medicines and programs and the church can participate in those, but the church has a special role in providing spiritual comfort and strength and prayers for encouragement to people in need, " Messer said.
The meditations in Prayers for Encouragement represent the faith journeys of people who live with HIV/AIDS and those involved in HIV/AIDS-related services. Two United Methodist bishops, along with well-known medical and church leaders, are among the writers.
Though this is the first time Upper Room Ministries has specifically published a resource for HIV/AIDS, it has provided booklets of meditations and prayer to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and their families, people in the path of the Asian tsunami, and churches affected by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
Upper Room Ministries, part of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship, compiled the booklet in conjunction with the Center for the Church and Global AIDS. The project is being funded by friends and supporters of Upper Room Ministries and the center.
The booklet will be distributed through Upper Room Ministries' global editorial and distribution network; United Methodist leaders, clergy and lay people who are in ministry with those affected by HIV/AIDS; and community, national and international health and service organizations.
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn. Information for this story was provided by Jeanette Pinkston, director of media relations, United Methodist Board of Discipleship.
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - "The cry of my heart is a cure for HIV and AIDS worldwide."
Those are the words of Mathabo L. of South Africa, one of the writers living with HIV/AIDS who has contributed to a special prayer book for people suffering with serious diseases.
Prayers for Encouragement: Hope for Persons Living with HIV & AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Serious Diseases is being printed by Upper Room Ministries in partnership with the Africa Upper Room Office.
The English edition will be available for World AIDS Day, Dec. 1. Editions in French, Portuguese, Kiswahili, IsiZulu and other languages will be available in early 2007.
The idea for the prayer book was born when the Rev. Don Messer, executive director of the Center for the Church and Global AIDS, discovered copies of the Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide in the waiting room of Maua Methodist Hospital in Kenya.
There is a large population of Methodists and a "raging epidemic of HIV/AIDS" in the Meru area of Kenya, according to Messer. Many people come to the hospital to be tested, get counseling and be treated with anti-retroviral drugs. "It's a pretty stressful time when people come to be tested and face these issues," he said.
Seeing the battered, 10-year-old copies of the devotional guide in the waiting room prompted Messer to contact Upper Room Ministries about publishing a special collection of prayers for people suffering with HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
He realized that people sitting in the waiting room "must have been worrying and thinking and praying, and they'd turned to these Upper Room magazines for guidance and support," he said.
"Where there is human suffering and crisis, Upper Room Ministries wants to provide openings to God's healing and reconciling grace," said the Rev. Stephen D. Bryant, editor and publisher of The Upper Room Devotional Guide. "When Dr. Don Messer contacted us, we knew this was consistent with who God has called us to be."
Growing crisis
Since 1981, the U.S. AIDS epidemic has been steadily growing, and by the beginning of 2005, more than 1 million people were estimated to be living with HIV and approximately 415,000 were living with AIDS. AIDS is believed to have killed more than half a million Americans, nearly 10 times the number killed in the Vietnam War.
On the African continent, 25 million adults and children - most of them in sub-Saharan countries - are living with HIV/AIDS. Every week, nearly 40,000 Africans die of the disease.
"Governments can bring and must bring needed medicines and programs and the church can participate in those, but the church has a special role in providing spiritual comfort and strength and prayers for encouragement to people in need, " Messer said.
The meditations in Prayers for Encouragement represent the faith journeys of people who live with HIV/AIDS and those involved in HIV/AIDS-related services. Two United Methodist bishops, along with well-known medical and church leaders, are among the writers.
Though this is the first time Upper Room Ministries has specifically published a resource for HIV/AIDS, it has provided booklets of meditations and prayer to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and their families, people in the path of the Asian tsunami, and churches affected by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
Upper Room Ministries, part of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship, compiled the booklet in conjunction with the Center for the Church and Global AIDS. The project is being funded by friends and supporters of Upper Room Ministries and the center.
The booklet will be distributed through Upper Room Ministries' global editorial and distribution network; United Methodist leaders, clergy and lay people who are in ministry with those affected by HIV/AIDS; and community, national and international health and service organizations.
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn. Information for this story was provided by Jeanette Pinkston, director of media relations, United Methodist Board of Discipleship.
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