Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 12, 1994                   TAG: 9403120040
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRIEFS

Cerullo heads a California-based organization called World Evangelism. He teaches a Pentecostal message based on the biblically described gifts of the Holy Spirit - including healing, prophecy and speaking in tongues.

Admission is free, but those planning to attend are asked to call 362-1214 so local planners can make seating arrangments. The meeting is being held in the hotel's Grand Ballroom and seating is limited.

Walk for hunger

Bedford's annual CROP Walk to raise funds for the relief of world hunger will be held on Palm Sunday afternoon, March 27.

It will begin at Bedford Baptist Church and cover 6.2 miles in a loop around the town. Volunteers are being sought to make the walk and find donors who will pledge a certain amount to the effort. Call 586-8765 for sponsorship forms or more information.

CROP distributes its funds both in the community of the walk and on a wider scope. Bedford Christian Ministries, an ecumenical service agency for the city and county, will receive 25 percent of funds raised with the rest going to national and international relief of the poorly fed and the starving.

Joins church staff

Bedford Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has added Gail St. Clair to its staff as director of Christian education.

She is a Lynchburg College graduate with a degree in Christian education and a former member of the Bedford church. She now lives in Thaxton and is a United Methodist.

Sunrise service

Boones Mill churches will cooperate in sponsoring an Easter Sunrise Service on April 3 at 6:30. It will be held in Mountain View Cemetery with the speaker being the Rev. Keith Simmons of Bethlehem Church of the Brethren.

Music program

Two guest musicians will perform Sunday at 7 p.m. at Bethlehem United Methodist Church on Virginia 122 in Moneta. Earl Goodwin, organist, will perform works by J.S. Bach, Dillon, LeMure and Franck.. He will be joined by Rodney Overstreet, assistant principal horn with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, in "Sonata in E. Flat," by Mozart.

Goodwin is choirmaster and organist at Grace Memorial Episcopal Church in Lynchburg and director of the Bedford Choral Society.

The program is free.

Cuts are opposed

Objections are being raised and adjustments made to a recent decision of the Episcopal Church on the national level to cutting out its foreign mission program and instead encouraging support for ecumenical mission agencies or individual parish support of overseas projects.

The action was taken when a $5 million cut was made in the budget of the church with headquarters in New York. Also eliminated -- with the reduction of 35 jobs -- was the national AIDS program, the liturgical and music consultation program, direct grants to minority group for social justice projects and allocations to three historic black colleges, among them St. Paul's in Lawrenceville.

Among the responses to the announcement is one by Bishop William Frey of Pittsburgh of a missionary conference to be held at Ridgecrest, N.C. starting April 27. It will bring together mission workers from several parts of the world who will offer ways that individual churches and dioceses can put ordained and lay ministers into overseas and home sites where specific needs are addressed.

Grants available

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which makes grants to interfaith volunteer caregiver programs throughout the nation, has announced that $23 million is now available to community church groups in its Faith in Action project.

The foundation offers seed money of $25,000 to approved projects which must obtain matching funds. More information is available from the Virginia coordinator, Elizabeth Liska, 9326 Battle St., Manassas, Va. 22110, 703-369-5063.