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Youth Jam brings life-changing experience
By Kay Panovec and Matthew Laferty

Amid the stage lights, smoke machine and thumping bass, lives were changed. And that was the point at Youth Jam, which drew 3,000 youth and youth leaders to the John S. Knight Center in Akron, Ohio, Nov. 15-17.

Sponsored by the East Ohio Conference on Youth Ministries, Youth Jam is a yearly event that began in 1991 as a way to bring young people together for workshops and Christian entertainment. The first event drew about 300 participants. In 2002, the event was sold out.  

“The East Ohio Conference really does an outstanding job,” said Kara Lassen Oliver, an executive with the United Methodist Youth Organization in Nashville, Tennessee. Only a handful of conferences hold such events, and East Ohio’s is one of the biggest. The Youth Jam is “a model of what youth events can be,” she said, noting that it has been used as an example for national-level youth gatherings.

Another large conference event is Resurrection, held each January in the Holston Conference. Last year, that event brought together more than 4,000 youth each at two separate weekends, for a total of almost 10,000.

Powerful preaching by the Rev. Stephen Handy culminated in an altar call that drew hundreds of youth to the front of the stage at Youth Jam. Handy, a staff member of the United Methodist Publishing House and assistant pastor of Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church in Nashville, was the keynote speaker for the weekend.

Handy challenged the youth to make their commitment to Christ “not a memory but a lifestyle.”

The weekend was filled with concerts, workshops and worship. Participants could choose from nearly 40 workshops with such topics as dance, signing, prayer, choir, Bible study and leadership development.

“God is here with us. It is an amazing feeling. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” said Katie Starling of Kinsman, Ohio.

The event also featured the Western Samoan R&B gospel group the Katinas, the comedy of CPR, drama team Wildest Dreams, musical guests Aurora and Candle Rain, and motivational speakers Laurie Polich and Josh Weidmann. C.J. Jenkins served as worship leader.

“This is the kind of event that can give you hope for the present and the future,’’ said Bishop Jonathan D. Keaton, Ohio East Area.

Kay Panovec is the director of communications for the East Ohio Annual Conference. Matthew Laferty, age 16, is a member of the East Ohio Conference Council on Youth Ministries.

 

Attorney fights for religious liberty—
and the gospel
By Steve Beard

Imagine being publicly scolded by your local zoning commission for the way in which your congregation worships. Even though it sounds like North Korea or a scene from a Left Behind book, this kind of blatant bigotry may be happening more often than you think.

Attorney David French should know. He was standing before the Board of Adjustment in Georgetown, Kentucky, representing his church when it happened to him.

One of the board members told French, “I know you have a federal judge on this case, but I don’t care. I don’t care what any court says, your church is going to have to do what we say.”

She went on to say, “You know, what burns me is that you people pretend to be godly, but I think maybe you need to spend more time on your knees and less time making music. If you had, none of this would have happened.”

A stunned French replied, “With all due respect, this board cannot define how we worship God.”

Without missing a beat, she responded, “We can and will define how you worship.”

This was one of the defining moments for French’s recruitment into the culture war. He and his wife Nancy had moved from New York City to his hometown in March 1997 when the legal fireworks began to fly. In his book A Season for Justice (Broadman & Holman), French describes the surreal scenes of sheriff officers showing up at youth revival meetings threatening to padlock the doors. Trinity Assembly of God was a 300-member church that was experiencing a powerful revival among the youth of the congregation—growing from 30 teens to more than 80.

The blue-collar church had built a multipurpose building called the Spirit Life Center to serve the needs of the growing youth ministry on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Problems sprang to life when the church’s lone set of neighbors complained that the worship music was too loud.

The church hired an engineering firm to run tests and discovered that the “sound level of the music at the property line was lower than the levels of crickets chirping and the wind blowing through the trees,” (add to this that the county didn’t even have noise ordinance regulations). Nevertheless, the hearing at the Board of Adjustment did not go well. The church was ordered to adjust its use of the Spirit Life Center so that “no sound whatsoever” could escape. The county building inspector was charged with monitoring the activities and ordered to padlock the doors shut if the conditions were violated.

The church worked to soundproof the building as best as it could—but it also filed a lawsuit with a United States District Court against the Board of Adjustments. Through French’s legal argumentation, Trinity Assembly of God won the case, but they all realized that this was a brand new day of open hostility to the practice of faith in local communities.

As French writes, the undue pressure is “not from the Supreme Court, Congress, or the president, but from your friends, neighbors, and employers, your local school boards, zoning boards, and colleges. It is persecution at the grass roots.”

French has gone on to represent several other embattled Christian ministries, congregations, and individuals in order to protect religious liberty in public schools, the university, and the workplace.

“The culture war should be fought,” writes French, “not to impose our will or to protect our turf, but to ensure that this generation and the next can hear the words of Jesus and receive his grace. The legal culture war is not about legislating a Christian nation into existence. It is not about commandments on school walls, slogans on courthouses, deistic graduation prayers, or nativity scenes in public parks. It is about preserving, for every person in this country, access to the gospel message.”

Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.

 

UM agency announces cuts in missionary force
by James V. Heidinger II

In a move that has stunned and angered mission-minded United Methodists, the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) announced at its fall meeting that it will reduce its commissioned mission personnel by 25 percent when their current term ends in 2003. The cuts were announced as the agency struggles to handle a $10 million reduction in GBGM programs next year.

The reason for the cuts were explained at the board’s annual meeting in October, as General Treasurer Stephen Feerrar reported a continuing decline in assets and cash flow due to the decline in the stock market. With the market’s downturn, Feerrar reported, GBGM’s expenses are far beyond the regular income from the church.

Statistics released at the October board meeting showed a total of 949 commissioned mission personnel, including 344 traditional missionaries. It is this category that will see a 25 percent reduction next year. (As we go to press, Bishop Joel Martinez, president of GBGM, issued the following statement, “Despite what you may have heard, one-quarter of the regular—“StandardSupport”—missionaries are not being terminated with the expiration of contracts next year.”)

Additionally, the Mission Resource Center will be closed during 2003 with no new missionaries in training for the year. This will mean a savings of $885,000 for the year. It will reopen in 2004.

A news release from the United Methodist Missionary Association (UMMA) said its members “were shocked to learn that the Mission Personnel Unit of the GBGM has been told to absorb three-quarters of a projected $10 million reduction in GBGM programs next year.”

The UMMA was formed in 1996 out of a growing feeling of disfranchisement of the mission personnel community. Howard Heiner, a retired missionary who has led the association for several years, told United Methodist News Service (UMNS) that the association had presented six requests for immediate action to the mission personnel committee of the board during its annual meeting in October. The requests were referred to the agency’s policy and legislation committee and tabled for review in the spring, he said.

The distress over the severe cuts in mission personnel was intensified by the board’s approval at the same meeting of a two-year mission lectureship contract with outgoing General Secretary, Rev. Randolph Nugent, totaling $400,000 for two years. Up to $200,000 of funds designated for missions education will be put aside each year for Nugent’s lectureship, including his compensation, travel, travel-related costs, and administrative assistance, according to the proposal that was adopted. The Women’s Division added $25,000 to help with the costs.

UMMA members were less than enthusiastic, however. Gilbert Bascom, of Tacoma, Washington, coordinator of the UMMA, told the United Methodist Reporter (UMR), “In light of the financial mess, this particular move is certainly unwise. It is a strange type of priority, although I am in favor of better mission education in the seminaries.” Bascom indicated that missionaries are angry and feel betrayed over the lack of communication with the New York-based agency. They feel the financial problems come from poor planning of already stretched resources.

Deputy General Secretary Edith Gleaves announced the missionary reductions in her report to the directors of the Mission Personnel Unit at the October meeting. According to the UMMA release, “Gleaves explained that of the 293 mission personnel due for extension of their term of service in the year 2003, 244 will not have their contracts renewed. Of the 293, 144 are standard support missionaries serving in dozens of countries around the world who would have expected to have their services continued as commissioned missionaries of The United Methodist Church.”

UMMA went on to say it was “shocked to learn that these drastic cutbacks were recommended without consulting the annual conferences.…No effort has been made to alert the church of this severe financial crisis, nor has the GBGM leadership appealed for increased support that would allow the mission programs of the church to continue unabated.”

In deeply sobering words, the missionary association release concluded, saying, “It is clear that men and women of The United Methodist Church will continue to answer God’s call to mission. It is increasingly doubtful, however, that they will be able to do that through the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.”

All of this presents an enormous challenge to the Rev. R. Randy Day, who was elected at the fall meeting as GBGM’s new general secretary. He takes over January 1.

James V. Heidinger II is the publisher of Good News.

 

Bono launches AIDS awareness tour from a UM church
By Steve Beard

When rock star Bono wanted to tour the American Midwest to draw attention to the devastating plague of AIDS in Africa, he turned to the Church. On Sunday, December 1, the Irish singer found himself sitting on the front row through two infant baptisms and a traditional lighting of the Advent Wreath before he had his turn to speak at Saint Paul United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Launched on World AIDS Day, the week-long, seven-city “Heart of America Tour: Africa’s Future and Ours” was sponsored by DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), a political advocacy organization that Bono helped found (www.datadata.org).

An estimated 42 million people worldwide live with HIV, with 75 percent of them living in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS kills 6,500 Africans every day and a projected 2.5 million Africans will die next year because they lack the medicine to fight the virus.

The situation in Africa is near to the hearts of United Methodists in Nebraska. They are in partnership with fellow United Methodists in Nigeria, actively involved in various projects including raising money for an orphanage there. Margery Ambrosius, one of the leaders of the denominational partnership, is a member at Saint Paul and was enthusiastic to have Bono at her church. “He is willing to use his celebrity to have an impact on the world, instead of just building more mansions, like others might do,” she told the Lincoln Journal Star.

The Sunday morning program included an energetic youth choir from Ghana called the Gateway Ambassadors and the sobering testimony of Agnes Nyamayarwo, an HIV-positive Ugandan nurse who lost her husband and 6-year-old son to AIDS.

Saint Paul pastor, the Rev. David Lux, offered Bono (donning his blue sunglasses) the pulpit but the singer jokingly responded, “I don’t know about a rock star in the pulpit.” Later, however, when his lapel microphone failed, Bono jumped at the chance to use it. “I’ve always wanted to get into one of these,” he said.

Bono used Scripture to explain why he was investing his time in the fight against AIDS in Africa. He told the congregation that he stopped asking God to bless his own work and started to do the work that God already has blessed.

During his presentation, one of the newly-baptized babies began to cry. As the father was taking the child out of the sanctuary, Bono recalled the child’s name and said, “Where are you going Alexander?”

The Rev. Lux told Good News that there were no ruffled feathers about a rock star in the pulpit. Instead, he has heard “several positive comments from people who had children or grandchildren who hadn’t been going to church but wanted to make sure to be in church when Bono was there.”

He described Bono as “personable, friendly, compassionate, and articulate. He challenges Christians to live out the teachings of Christ in specific ways, like responding to the horrific AIDS crisis in Africa which is ravaging families and children.” The congregation raised nearly $4,200 in a special offering on that Sunday toward the building of an orphanage in Nigeria.

Lux vowed that the congregation will be “responding in many other ways. Bono’s message, faith commitment, and passion will inspire us for a long time to come.”

As the lead singer of the group U2, Bono has long used Christian imagery in his songs. Additionally, he has also been candid about his fascination with Jesus and his simultaneous disillusionment with organized religion.

While at the Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, Good News asked Bono how his Christian faith inspired his activism.

“Well, you know, I am not a very good advertisement for God. So, I generally don’t wear that badge on my lapel. But it is certainly written on the inside. I am a believer,” he said.

“There are 2,103 verses of Scripture pertaining to the poor. Jesus Christ only speaks of judgement once. It is not all about the things that the church bangs on about. It is not about sexual immorality, and it is not about megalomania, or vanity,” he said jokingly referring to his rock star status.

“It is about the poor. ‘I was naked and you clothed me. I was a stranger and you let me in.’ This is at the heart of the gospel. Why is it that we have seemed to have forgotten this? Why isn’t the Church leading this movement? The Church ought to be ready to do that.”

Throughout the Midwest tour, Bono was outspoken about his faith. “That there’s a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it,” he told Cathleen Falsoni of the Chicago Sun Times. “But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in straw and poverty, is genius. And brings me to my knees, literally.

“Christ’s example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here,” he said. “If it wakes up to what’s really going on in the rest of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn’t, it will be irrelevant.”

While at the University of Iowa, Bono said, “We don’t have to guess what is on God’s mind here. It bewilders me that anyone can call themselves followers of Christ and not see that AIDS is the leprosy spoken about in the New Testament. God is at work here.…It is why I am here, I suppose.”

Bono also spoke openly of his faith while he was a guest on CNN’s Larry King Live on World AIDS Day, differentiating between his belief in God and mere religion. “My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually.…Religion is the artifice—you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people’s hearts, and that’s hard enough.”

He continued, “The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we’re small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.…

“I don’t doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God. It’s religion I’m doubting,” he said.

The singer emphasized the vital implications of battling AIDS in Africa. “This moment in time will be remembered for…how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to let people die because they can’t get the drugs that you and I take for granted.”

Throughout the week-long tour, Bono was accompanied by actress Ashley Judd and actor Chris Tucker, who visited Africa four times in 2002. The group spoke in schools, truck stops, and churches along the way. The unique nature of the tour sometimes created surreal images such as comedian Tucker instructing the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune to hold hands as he closed the meeting in prayer—a first in the newspaper’s history.

While in Chicago, the group met with Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church—the largest church in the United States—to discuss ways to get the message of AIDS in Africa out to the churches.

The group also visited the Apostolic Faith Church, a predominantly African-American congregation on the south side of Chicago. Tucker broke down in tears as he spoke of travelling companion Agnes Nyamayarwo’s strength in living with HIV.

“I don’t know how Agnes has overcome this. Her strength is overwhelming to me. I don’t think I could do it. I just don’t. God is inside her. God is inside this house. Look around.…We are all connected in this AIDS crisis. Pray for us, all of us, that we are guided the right way and doing the thing of the Holy Spirit.”

Spirits were lifted when the tour was greeted with a rousing reception from the students at Wheaton College later that evening. “I am blown away by your joy,” actress Ashley Judd told the evangelical college students.

A welcoming telegram from Billy Graham—the school’s most influential alumnus—was read to Bono. “We want to stand in solidarity with what this tour is about,” said college President Duane Liftin.

“So this is Wheaton College,” said Bono. “It gave the world Billy Graham and [horror film maker] Wes Craven. Get them frightened and then you know where to send them.”

Recognizing the volatility of the AIDS issue, he told the students: “Our discussion may divide some of us tonight. Why? Because I believe that if the Church doesn’t respond that it will become a largely irrelevant body that preaches, ‘Love thy neighbor,’ and does nothing. It will be the salt left on the side of a plate.”

“‘Love thy neighbor’ is not advice,” he said. “It is a command.”

Quoting C.S. Lewis, Bono reminded the students, “All that is not eternal, is eternally out of date.” He told the students that they have a moral obligation to battle the AIDS crisis. “You didn’t start it,” he said. “But you can end it. We need your help. Let’s rock and roll.”

Bono spent his final day on the tour meeting with religious and civic leaders at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and stopping off at a Krispy-Kreme donut shop for a snack. The program that evening was held at the suburban Northeast Christian Church.

“Politicians think people in the Midwest, working people who have their own problems, care less about what’s going on in the rest of the world,” he said at a new conference. The politicians tell him there are no votes this issue. He believes they are wrong.

When asked by Good News if he or his organization, DATA, supported or endorsed any specific legislation, Bono said, “I think we are keeping it broad. We are just saying, ‘Call your congressman, call the president. Let’s grow a movement.’ It is fertile soil around here. This is Kentucky. I am absolutely sure that if we start banging the dustbin lids and telling the politicians that there is a vote here, they will switch on it.”

Bono emphasized that “I’m not here as a do-gooder. This is not a cause; it’s an emergency.” The tour was not a fund-raising effort; instead, it was a consciousness raising educational event—that very often doubled as a revival meeting with the Gateway Ambassadors youth choir singing, praying, and dancing with fervor and zeal.

After Agnes shared her testimony, Bono said: “Let me say this in the House of God: If there is anybody here who wants to pass judgment on a woman like Agnes and her children—and indeed the man who gave her the virus, her husband—maybe they should leave now. God will be the judge—not anyone in this church.”

The congregation applauded.

“Let he without sin throw the first stone,” he remarked soberly. “I guess that would clear the place. I’ll be out of here,” Bono said with a smile.

Serving as a benediction, Bono said, “I am normally not too comfortable in churches. I find them often pious places and the Christ that I hear preached doesn’t feel like the one I read about in the gospels. But tonight, God is in the house.”

Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.



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