| All churches should support missionaries A recent letter from Randy Day, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministry, and Bishop Joel N. Martinez, the boards president, said. The loss of regular missionaries in 2003 will be even smaller than projected late last year. They further stated that 93 of the 144 missionaries whose terms expire this year will be reassigned. Fifteen missionaries are naturally retiring, 18 have asked not to be reassigned, and 18 contracts cannot be renewed for financial reasons That still leaves us with the loss of 51 standard support missionaries. Many more missionaries in other categories are also being cut. Is this because there is no longer a need for missionaries? Quite the contrary. It is because less than 15 percent of the churches in our denomination are in covenant relationships with our missionaries. When the bull market predominated, stock returns could fund our denominations mission work. This is no longer the case. Instead of minimizing the loss, the mission board should be sounding the alarm that it is time for every good United Methodist to come to the aid of the denominations missionaries. I am issuing such a call to our conferences churches. I want to see every missionary from our conference fully supported and every church in our conference in a covenant relationship with at least one missionary. That is not too much to expect from the Baltimore-Washington Conference. The Rev. Richard Brown-Whale Shiloh-Mt. Zion UMC Charge, Hampstead, and the conferences global missions secretary
Speak out against gambling The General Conference of The United Methodist Church is on record in opposition to all kinds of gambling, whether for sport, benevolent causes or as a source of revenue for governmental funding. Gov. Robert Ehrlich, the newly elected chief executive of the state of Maryland, has announced his plan to instigate casino gambling at four race tracks, and slot machines at a few hundred other sportive locations to help cover the $1.3 billion short-fall for the operation of the state government. Visitors to the new Marriott Hotel at Baltimores Inner Harbor have seen the huge open space that has been built to become a great casino gambling hall for hundreds of slot machines and gaming tables as soon as the governors proposal becomes law. It was the influence of the Christian churches of many denominations, especially the persistent testimony of the Rev. Andrew Leigh Gunn, that finally rid the state of slot machines before. So what is the duty of a United Methodist right now? Can we do less than to let the governor and our elected senators and delegates know that we affirm our United Methodist traditional abhorrence of gambling and slot machines? Gambling is a destructive social evil that is already eroding our society through lotteries and numbers games that have been legalized in Maryland. That Marylanders are taking their gambling dollars to other jurisdictions is a measure of addiction, not a valid argument for Maryland to make it more convenient for our citizens to be destroyed by their desire to strike it rich. The Rev. Kenneth Jones, retired
Bishop Talbert is wrong about war I was astonished and saddened to read about Bishop Melvin Talberts television commercial regarding U.S. policy concerning war with Iraq. Why is the chief ecumenical officer of The United Methodist Church on an ad with Janeane Garofalo? Janeane Garofalo? Does Bishop Talbert believe he has the right to speak for all United Methodist members in this ad? If so, I strongly disagree. If not, then why is he identified as a Methodist bishop in this ad, and would he have been asked to participate in it without this identification? He certainly has the right to speak his opinion, but not as my representative. Bishop Talbert says that Iraq has not wronged us. That mentality was also prevalent in preventing the United States from entering into war against Germany and Adolf Hitler. How do we need to identify evil? There are innocent people both in the United States and Iraq that will suffer and die if war is realized, but pretending that Hussein is not our enemy is burying our heads in the sand as we did for so long in World War II. How many innocent lives were lost then? Id like to end with a quote from Iraqs UN Ambassador Mohammed Douri, Politics is about interests. Politics is not about morals. What is Bishop Melvin Talbert about? I think I know, and I will be looking for a church of another denomination or no denomination at all as a result of his commercial interests. Pamela Hobbs
Calvary UMC, Gamber | 
Login/Register to leave comment