Current US immigration policy is complicated and governmental departments face a backlog of applications upwards of 5 to 7 years. If a foreign born person wishes to come to the US to work and live there are only a few ways he/she can obtain the necessary visa: obtain refugee/asylum status; win one of only 50,000 visas available each year in the US sponsored "lottery" (in 2009 9.1 million qualified applications were received for the lottery); or have a sponsor that is either employment or family based. While this sounds reasonable the parameters around these options are quite restricted. Since the …
According to a 2007 report from the Center for Housing Policy, American households, whether renting or owning, are under increased pressure to maintain housing. Between 1997 and 2005, the number of working families paying more than half their income for housing increased 87 percent, from 2.4 million to 4.5 million. When families living in severely inadequate or dilapidated housing are included, the total of working families with critical housing needs rises to 5.2 million nationally. Housing needs exist across “the housing landscape” from large to small metropolitan areas, in urban and suburban counties alike.
The biblical theme of “exile” guides this policy statement. After offering a working definition and an account of the historical context, the report focuses on two major themes. The first theme is “The Land of Exile,” which explores the difficulties and injustices endured by people with serious mental illness. The experience of mental illness disorders people’s lives in ways that exile them from themselves, their families, and their community. The second theme, “God’s Call to Comfort,” focuses on appropriate ways congregations can minister with and to people with a serious mental illness. Throughout this report, people are understood from …
Guidelines for Congregations Considering A Request to Presbytery to be Dismissed
2005–2008 Summary of Receipts and Expenditures
PC(USA) Churches Reported by Presbyteries in 2008 that were Dismissed to Other Denominations.
The median presbytery has a membership of 10,081 persons. The average presbytery consists of 124 ministers, 62 churches, and 9 candidates. The ten presbyteries with the largest membership arranged in descending order.
The Office of the General Assembly has released the 2008 statistics of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Presbytery of Northern New England
The Book of Order has little to say about the merger of churches (G-11.0103h), thus the presbytery has great flexibility in how it is done and the process can be tailored to each specific instance.
The goal of realizing equity in the church and the world for all of God’s children is sealed in Scripture, rooted in the Reformed tradition, and consistently mandated in Presbyterian policy statements. From its founding, God’s church has been called to provide a prophetic witness wherever and whenever equity remains unrealized. Whenever there are patterns of inequality that profoundly distort what is equitable—what people deserve and need to sustain themselves—not necessarily strict equality, then both the witness and the unity of the church are at stake. In the church and in the world today there is a disturbing …