New Hope Church

(From RCA Today)

John Muñiz wants the RCA to know that inner-city churches can survive. "The secret has been the preaching of the gospel and welcoming everyone," he says. "And it begins with the leadership."

Muñiz speaks from his experience as pastor at Hudson City Second Reformed Church in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1992, when he came to the church, it was small--about 30 people--and full of first- and second-generation Germans. Jersey City, on the other hand, was rapidly becoming more diverse as an increasing number of Hispanic people and people from India moved into the area.

"The consistory made it clear to [church members] that if the church was going to survive, they needed to do something different to relate to the community," Muñiz says.

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The August/September edition of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought is now available online. This issue features:

• Story-Shaped Lives by Jennifer L. Holberg
• The Ordeal of the Sermon by Daniel Meeter
• Take a Poet to Lunch by Norman Kolenbrander
• Language, Justice, and the Christian Liberal Arts: Why School Isn’t Always Fair by Tom Truesdell
• Coming to the Table: Discussing Food in the Middle of Farm Country by Jason Lief
• To the Child I'll Never Bear, Should I Be Wrong by Wendy Shreffler
• Following Tracks in the Dark by Francis Fike
• Depth and Detail, Affordable and Accessable by Jennifer Soule-Hill
• The Doorway by Jon Brown

(from Earl James)

The three-day WCC consultation began Thursday afternoon. The 27 consultation participants are from all over the world: Bolivia (now living and ministering in New Zealand), Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, England, Fiji Islands, Germany, India, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Romania, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. Only the participant from Palestine could not make it due to difficulty getting a visa. Some of the participants knew each other well before the meeting began; others, like me, knew no one else and are newcomers to the global ecumenical scene. English is our conference language, but it is clear that a few of us struggle with it. For a number of the participants, English is the second (or third or fourth) language, although some are exceptionally fluent.

With all of that said, the conference planners were very wise in making the agenda of our first afternoon and evening together "us." Through various methods--small group, large group, worship, a walking tour, and sharing meals--we got to know wonderful things about each other as persons, about our various national and racial experiences, and about current situations. In addition to sharing some of my story, I asked questions and learned much.

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(From RCA Today)

Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, New York, is celebrating its 325th birthday.

The church, the oldest church building in the state of New York, is part of Reformed Church of the Tarrytowns, which holds summer services there. The church and its burial ground were immortalized in Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a connection that is playing a role in the anniversary celebrations.

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by Wes Granberg-Michaelson

One thousand Pentecostal leaders from 74 countries arrived in Stockholm for the twenty-second World Pentecostal Conference from August 24 to 27, 2010. I was privileged to be present, having been invited by the president of the Pentecostal World Fellowship, Bishop James Leggett, in order to strengthen links within the Global Christian Forum. Bishop Leggett and I have worked closely together through our work with Christian Churches Together in the USA, where we both serve as presidents of our respective denominational families, and we've served together on the steering committee for the Global Christian Forum.

Why Stockholm? It turns out that the Pentecostal churches in Sweden are alive and growing--all 450 of them. Filadelfia Church in Stockholm, which is perhaps the most famous of Sweden's Pentecostal churches, hosted the conference. This church played a vital role in the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Sweden in the early 1900s and still has a thriving ministry today. Its sanctuary barely held the 1,000 official participants plus hundreds of local Christians who attended the evening sessions.

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