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The sanctuary is gone, but the congregation never stopped gathering. At Lahaina United Methodist Church, faith, volunteers and a vision for the future are helping a community rebuild.

Through a small immigrant congregation and an unmarked guest house for women in crisis, the Rev. Misook Park has quietly built a ministry that extends beyond Sunday worship.

Rev. Canon Dr Carlton Turner of the Church in the Province of the West Indies serves with the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education Birmingham, UK, and is a member of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission. He took time to reflect on an international colloquium, "Decolonizing Ecumenical Hermeneutics,” held in June.

In this World Cup, we took home an invisible trophy. Outrage spread online, flowing parallel to the real-time streaming of the game.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost The Parable of the Costly Pearl Jesus emphasizes the value of the kingdom of God in a parable about a wholesale pearl dealer on a trip looking for fine pearls for his business. “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” […]

(Bishop Michael Johnson speaking at the 2024 Eastern District Synod) The watchword for the week:  God, turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your custom toward those who love your name. Psalm 119:132 Gracious God, we adore your saving name. We give thanks that grace is at the center of your way. […]

As an ecumenical solidarity visit to Zimbabwe drew to a close, a delegation led by World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay reiterated the importance of human rights, Christian unity, and the work and witness of churches. 

Materials for the North America-Turtle Island Regional Ecumenical Theological Institute are ready for the gathering, which will convene in Detroit and Toronto 3-16 August under the theme “Where Now for Visible Justice?”

[Religion News Service] A group of religious leaders gathered July 22 at the Texas State Capitol to condemn recent immigration enforcement-related deaths in Texas, Maine and Florida and to demand that federal immigration agents end what one pastor called a “terror campaign” against migrants. “We grieve every death, every act of violence and every enforcement practice that unnecessarily endangers human life or diminishes the God-given dignity of our immigrant neighbors,” said Bishop Sue Briner of the Southwestern Texas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “When fear begins to shape the daily lives of our neighbors, it is time for the church to show up.” The news conference inside the capitol brought together about two dozen leaders from the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, the South Central Conference of the United Church of Christ, the National Council of Jewish Women and other faith-related groups. Texas Impact, an interfaith grassroots advocacy network, organized the event in response to the July 7 fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Houston. The religious leaders condemned deportations, detention centers and enforcement-related deaths involving ICE amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. Federal agents who determine that their actions have been immoral should “resign and find other work,” said the Rev. Jim Harrington of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Austin, where he works with immigrants, and who is also a lawyer who founded the Texas Civil Rights Project. “Following orders is never a justification in the Christian tradition — nor in international law — to perpetuate evil,” Harrington said. Read the full story here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] Indigenous Anglicans from four provinces of the Anglican Communion, including The Episcopal Church, have issued a joint statement of support for the Episcopal Church in Navajoland, after the missionary diocese’s postponement of the election of its first bishop diocesan. The postponement was announced on 11 June. The statement is signed by the Most Rev. Don Tamihere, archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia; the Most Rev. Marinez Rosa dos Santos Bassotto, archbishop and primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil and bishop of Amazonia; the Most Rev. Chris Harper, national Indigenous Anglican archbishop and presiding elder of Sacred Circle in the Anglican Church of Canada; and the Rt. Rev. Daniel Gutiérrez, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The signatories write that they have followed Navajoland’s journey towards self-determination with “prayer, aroha and thanksgiving” and that they walk with their Diné family “not as distant observers, but as relatives” bound “by faith, by kinship and by a shared history of colonization.” They share “the surprise and disappointment expressed by many at the postponement, for a second time, of the election of Navajoland’s first bishop diocesan. We know this must have been a deeply sacrificial and difficult decision.” Read the full story here. More on the Navajoland leadership transition can be found here.