Denomination

Church planting will gain much spotlight at the annual pastors' conference of the Southern Baptist Convention in June.

"This year's conference we are going to have a major emphasis on church planting. There is a renewed sense of urgency to take the gospel to the ends of the earth," said Vance Pitman, President of the 2011 Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference.

The June 12-13 conference in Phoenix, Ariz., will be held under the theme, "Aspire: Yearning to join God's kingdom activity," taken from Romans 15:20. more >>

Members of the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country are currently aflutter with talks of a desperate need for change for the aging and shrinking body.

A group of them – 175 to be exact – believes the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is "deathly ill" and will not survive without "drastic intervention."

"Is it time to acknowledge that traditional denominations like the PC(USA) have served in their day but now must be radically transformed?" the group of pastors, lay leaders and elders pose. more >>

United Methodists are weighing in on the debate over an Appleton, Wis., minister who faces a church trial for her homosexual lifestyle.

The Rev. Amy DeLong is scheduled to go to trial on April 11. Two charges were brought against her – one for conducting a ceremony for the union of a lesbian couple and another for being a self-avowed practicing homosexual.

"This sort of thing goes on regularly," the Rev. Tim Berlew of Memorial United Methodist Church in Greenfield, Wis., who supports DeLong, said recently. "But Amy made it public because she feels the church needs to deal with this." more >>

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s high court ruled this week in favor of a minister who married two women, reversing a lower court's guilty verdict.

According to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly, the lower court erred when it determined that Jean K. Southard violated the PC(USA) constitution.

Southard had officiated at a marriage ceremony between Jennifer Irene Duhamel and Sara Jane Herwig in 2008. The ceremony took place at First Presbyterian Church in Waltham, Mass., after she concluded that the two were well suited for marriage. more >>

The heads of the National Association of Evangelicals and The Episcopal Church are among those newly named to President Barack Obama's faith advisory council.

Obama announced on Friday his intent to appoint a dozen religious and secular leaders, including NAE president Leith Anderson and Episcopal Presiding Bishop the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service to the larger community in this way," Jefferts Schori said in a statement. "The ability to build partnerships between civic and religious bodies can only expand our capacity to heal a broken world." more >>

The reality of sexual misconduct and abuse within the church has prompted United Methodists to come together this week to confront the problem and discuss ways to make the church a safe place.

Though the denomination has already taken steps to address the issue, more has to be done to help heal those hurt by the church, said M. Garlinda Burton, the top executive of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women, according to the denomination's news service.

"I estimate that at least one-third to one-half of the dozens of victim-survivors I’ve counseled during the past eight years have left the church, either in shame or frustration, because they found no justice or healing," she told hundreds of lay and clergy leaders during the Do No Harm 2011 sexual ethics summit in Houston this week. more >>