Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005040369
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Rev. Dr. Joe Lindsoe of Melrose Christian Church is excited about the project of an organization called Biblical Literacy Today. It is headed by a retired Disciples college president, Roger N. Carstensen of Athens, Ga.
For more than a decade, Carstensen's non-profit agency has been producing manuals and programs to help laity in America understand the Bible in terms of 20th century scholarship. A quarterly journal from the Athens office contains articles that tell of archaeological findings and how they can provide enlightenment for obscure passages of Scripture.
Carstensen also regularly leads tours of Israel, one of which Lindsoe joined in January.
Now, Carstensen's group is sponsoring tours of the Soviet Union to distribute biblical literature there.
An Atlanta Disciples pastor already has led his congregation in raising enough money to bring 3,500 New Testaments and 3,000 study manuals to Soviet citizens and made the trip to distribute them.
Carstensen is now recruiting participants for additional tours this year. To help with them, the Melrose congregation recently sent a donation of $150 and plans to contribute regularly, Lindsoe said. Belmont Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has sent $140. Other churches, said Lindsoe, are likely to follow.
The Carstensen tours to the Soviet Union will include stops at ecumenical communities in at least the major cities of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev.
According to Carstensen, study books for the scripturally illiterate are especially desired in Russia because all open religious expression has been prohibited for 70 years and little literature is available for education.
For the past three years, Virginia United Methodists have been trying to fight a massive loss of members, part of a national trend that has severely reduced the numbers of America's second-largest Protestant denomination.
The major effort among Methodists in the counties east of New River has been support of a Revealing Christ campaign in which about $20 million is being raised.
Most of the money is being used to help start new congregations in fast-growing Tidewater and Northern Virginia. In some neighborhoods, where land costs are exorbitant, large new communities exist with no United Methodist church.
That's hardly the problem in areas west of the Blue Ridge where tiny, rural congregations dot the landscape and old buildings in the cities have rows of empty pews each Sunday because young adults are not replacing the declining numbers of elderly parishioners. Nevertheless, Western Virginia Methodists supported the conference campaign with the understanding that some money would be available for renewal of old churches.
So far, Greene Memorial in downtown Roanoke appears to have been the major beneficiary of the renewal promise. It was one of 10 pilot parishes to try an "Isn't It Time to be Neighbors Again? " public relations campaign.
The Rev. Dr. Jerry Campbell, pastor, called the results of a drive held six months ago "extremely good." That campaign had three phases.
The first was a kickoff Sunday in September with refreshments on the parking lot . That was followed by a series of coffee fellowships in the homes of active members. Aimed especially at those who had fallen away from church involvement, it resulted in seven families returning to activity, Campbell said.
The most enthusiasm came from a late autumn family night in which more than 150 showed up. It had a light touch with a magician and pantomime, music by children and youth, a fashion show, creative activities and a meal to which newcomers and guests were invited.
Campbell said Greene Memorial was one of the first churches to carry through its plans.
The spring Revealing Christ efforts for the Roanoke, Lynchburg, Danville and Staunton districts now are concentrated on spending money for advertising in the broadcast and print media. The "neighbors" theme is meant to call active Methodists to their traditional reputation of being a friendly people with warm hearts and enjoyment of music.
The strategy is to bring the best features of small-town life to the impersonality of cities to which many Methodists have moved.
Three Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia are experimenting with the use of supplemental texts for the Holy Communion service. At Christ and St. James parishes in Roanoke and Christ of Pearisburg the newly composed eucharistic rite is being tried under guidelines issued by the 1988 General Convention.
Bishop A. Heath Light emphasized that use of some words such as creator in place of God the Father does not mean the Episcopal church is planning a new revision of its worship book, as some critics of liturgical change have suggested.
A service leaflet for the contemporary language Communion states that "the intent of this rite is to enrich our liturgical prayer by making available a fuller array of images of God."
In one new prayer, God is described as creator of a world where everyone is included in his love.
A second image has God giving birth to and nourishing his whole creation.
by CNB