A CHURCH which is set to build a new 3 million home will hold its final service at its current venue later this month.

Hope Community Church in Newtown is relocating while its current Dolfor Road site is demolished and its ambitious replacement is built.

Construction of the 3 million church is expected to take 12 months although a date has not yet been set for demolition work to begin, with the church still finalising arrangements for the relocation of its Hope Day Nursery.

While construction work is carried out the churchs congregation will be worshipping at the Pryce Jones building as of May 4.

A final service to celebrate the congregations time in its current building will be held at 10.30am on Sunday, April 27.

The event will feature a look back at the history of the building and a look ahead to the future home.

Following the service there will be refreshments and food and a chance for people to take a final look around the building.

When completed the new church will feature a 600 seat auditorium, which will allow space to double the congregation.

It will also include a cafe area, seminar rooms, a play gym, baby room, pre-school area, an outdoor activity area, an office suite and a boardroom with lift access to all floors.

The church currently provides a number of community services, including a toddler group, childrens clubs, after school clubs, a holiday club and Christmas services.

Continued here:
Last service as 3M church work starts

Source: B92, Tanjug

PRITINA -- A recent statement by a member of the government in Pritina concerning plans to demolish a Serbian Orthodox church in that town has caused reactions.

The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Eparchy of Raka and Prizren called on Tuesday Dardan Gashi's pronouncement "an open provocation."

The Kosovo Albanian official, in charge of spatial planning, was on Monday quoted as saying by the Pritina website Telegrafi that the Church of Christ the Savior that is still under construction was being built illegally. The website ran the article under the headline, "I will demolish the Church of St. Nicholas."

The eparchy said in a statement that it had secured all the necessary paperwork for the construction, and that claims about the structure being built illegally were false. Noting that Gashi "did not even know the name of the church" in question, the eparchy accused him of wanting to damage inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations in Kosovo and Metohija, "and precisely during the greatest Christian holiday, Easter."

It further said that Gashi's statement can only be interpreted as an attempt to commit ethnic and religious discrimination, "in the service of the upcoming elections in Kosovo."

The eparchy stressed that the SPC was recently informed "directly from the very top of the Kosovo government" that they supported the building of the church, and that international representatives in Kosovo had been informed of this.

According to the eparchy, Gashi previously, "due to his inappropriate statements to the media and attempts to politicize issues related to cultural heritage" blocked the work of a mixed commision set up to implement protected zones, and noted that the commission was co-chaired by "EU's special representative for the Serb Orthodox heritage."

The Citizens' Initiative Srpska, a political group gathering Serbs in Kosovo, has condemned in the strongest terms Gashi's statement.

"Such ill-considered and inappropriate statements have been very harmful to the Orthodox cultural heritage in Kosovo in the past, and we urge minister Gashi to tone down his rhetoric and demonstrate his political ambitions through actions that correspond to the age we live in and the right of all people to religious belief," said a statement.

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Pritina official declares he'll "demolish church"

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OSHKOSH Thousands of people attended Sunday Mass at Saint Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Oshkosh.

The church marked the religious holiday with the unveiling of part of its ongoing renovation project.

As parishioners walked into the church, they noticed something new hanging above the altar.

The actual size of the crucifix is 10 foot wide by 17 feet high, said Deacon John Ingala of Saint Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church.

The cross represents what Christians believe to be Jesus death and resurrection.

Our central sign and symbol of the Catholic faith, said Father Doug LeCaptain of of Saint Raphael.

The cross cost about $15,000. Around 200 parishioners donated the money to help pay for it.

That space was always an open space. When it was first built I think there was some thought about what they wanted to put there eventually, Ingala said.

A Milwaukee artist designed it. An Oshkosh construction company donated the wood.

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Oshkosh church unveils 17 foot cross

Soquel Creek Water District board to reconsider church project ahead of moratorium vote

Twin Lakes Church students go to class in four portables church officials want to replace with a proposed new building. (Dan Coyro -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Aptos >> This Easter, as the 5,000-strong congregation of Twin Lakes Church celebrates Holy Week with prayers of gratitude, many also will offer up a plea for their long-delayed school project, one thrown into doubt after a spontaneous and controversial decision by a local water board.

During a special meeting April 29, the Soquel Creek Water District board has agreed to reconsider a narrow vote to defer all conditional requests for new water hookups until after a June discussion on whether to enact a moratorium. The location for the 7 p.m. meeting will be announced this week.

The board's decision on a 3-2 vote April 1 which postponed the church's ability to seek a county building permit for its $10 million project was seen by many as a de facto moratorium.

Twin Lakes Church Pastor Rene Schlaepfer shows four portables housing classrooms that will be replaced if Soquel Creek Water District eventually approves a request for new service. (Dan Coyro -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Church leaders, their county government representative and a top water official say they believe the move was unfair to customers who have pledged to far offset any new water supplied. But a majority of the district's governing body felt it was equally unfair to grant conditional requests when expensive projects may ultimately be denied under a moratorium.

Developers of construction projects or renovations requiring new water service must receive what is called a conditional will-serve letter from the district before beginning work. The district's agreement to provide water service is contingent upon demonstration that developers have offset the new water demand by making improvements, either on site if they have existing service or off site by replacing neighbors' old fixtures with low-flow devices or taking other measures. Developers then return to the district for an unconditional will-serve letter to receive water once their project is ready.

Board Vice President Bruce Daniels who pulled the church's will-serve letter and four others from a consent agenda of supposedly noncontroversial items noted the groundwater basin has been in overdraft for more than 30 years. Without a new source of supply, he said the district is "deficit spending" despite a requirement that developers offset new consumption by at least 160 percent.

Twin Lakes Church wants to build a new 'green' building on this site but building plans are on hold due to Soquel Creek Water District's potential hook-up moratorium. (Dan Coyro -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Continued here:
In Good Faith: Soquel Creek water board to reconsider church project

At St. Stephen of Hungary Church in Allentown, a zucchetto, or skullcap, worn by John XXIII will be on display near the sanctuary

As Christians around the world celebrate Easter the faith's most important holiday, marking the resurrection of Christ Catholics are looking ahead a week to another joyous event.

Next Sunday, two of the most popular and influential popes in church history, John XXIII and John Paul II, will become saints in the first-ever simultaneous canonization of pontiffs.

While the festivities happen in Rome, people in the Lehigh Valley will be able to get close to one of the new saints, theologically speaking. At St. Stephen of Hungary Church in Allentown, a zucchetto, or skullcap, worn by John XXIII will be on display near the sanctuary.

How that came to pass is a story involving naturally Max Hess Jr., the department store king and publicity genius who probably made a bigger impact on Allentown than anyone but Harry Trexler.

Hess was Jewish but had a close relationship to the Diocese of Allentown and its first bishop, Joseph McShea. He also was a major supporter of capital campaigns in the diocese, which had been created in 1961 out of the northern sections of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Hess' contributions helped with construction of a number of Catholic high schools and with Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales, now DeSales University.

McShea was grateful. In 1963, he was in Rome for Vatican II, the council summoned by John XXIII that had opened the year before and would fundamentally change the church's relationship with the modern world.

The bishop bought a zucchetto from the Vatican's tailor and traded it for the one the pope was wearing. It's not an uncommon practice Pope Francis has swapped his zucchetto any number of times while greeting the faithful in St. Peter's Square.

When McShea returned to Pennsylvania, he presented the skullcap as a gift to Hess.

Originally posted here:
An Allentown church plans a saintly display

April 18, 2014|6:08 pm

A Tennessee church has experienced both a financial and attendance boost that began when construction started for a mosque next door.

Grace Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., says it has seen its attendance triple since construction began for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in 2011.

Dan Watts, the interim pastor at Grace Baptist Church, told The Daily News Journalthat since 2011 the numbers for worship and Sunday school attendance have tripled and total giving has doubled, coinciding with the start of construction for the controversial Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, which opened in 2012.

Watts, 42, who previously pastored in Mississippi before joining Grace Baptist three years ago, said that his church has found ways to reach out to the city's Muslim and Christian Arab populations.

Several years ago, he found two Muslims praying on church grounds and invited them to a service at Grace Baptist.

"I said we are going to welcome them," Watts recalled, speaking at the A Call 2 Action weekly lunch. "I preached on marriage."

After the service, one of the men told Watts that his sermon had practical value and it could "help our marriage." His friend gave a donation to the church, leading Watts to joke that his Muslim guests had been more generous than others in his congregation.

Watts credited his friendship with the Egyptian-born Raouf Ghattas, who was raised as a Christian in his home country, as a leading reason why he had decided to initially reach out to the Muslims next door. After immigrating the United States, the a former engineer decided to attend seminary and subsequently had a 23-year career as a missionary to 30 Muslim countries.

At Watts' request, Ghattas leads the Arabic Evangelical Church that meets at Grace Baptist's site and welcomes Arab Christians or curious Muslims, providing a space where "every Arab person can come and be comfortable."

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Church Attendance Triples Following Construction of Controversial Mosque Next Door

THE 157-YEAR-OLD St. Anthony of Padua Church in Camaligan, Camarines Sur JUAN ESCANDOR JR.

The St. Anthony of Padua Church in Camaligan, Camarines Sur, a 157-year-old church built by Franciscan missionaries, has managed to survive through the years to become an enduring cultural and religious legacy of the town.

The church design is still the same as when it was first built in 1857, except for a few interior renovations, while its foundations and walls are still made of the original materials, said parish priest Fr. Balbino B. Gumabao Jr.

Camaligan, whose name was derived from the Bikol root word camalig, which means storehouses for grains that dotted the town during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, was under the ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction of Nueva Caceres, the old name of Naga City, for almost two centuries, from 1578-1775.

In 1775, Camaligan was declared a separate town from Nueva Caceres but it was only in 1795 when a parish priest, in the person of Fray Rafael Benevente, was appointed here by the Franciscan mission which covered the whole territory of the Bicol region at that time.

Gumabao, parish priest of St. Anthony of Padua for six years now, said the people of Camaligan contributed stones, construction materials and labor for the building of the church.

He said the churchs foundation and walls were plastered by thousands of egg whites mixed with lime while the bricks used were a mix of ashes made from freshwater clams, straw and clay that were baked in the village of San Mateo, one of the 13 villages comprising Camaligan town.

The church is influenced by baroque architecture as shown in its arched doors and windows on the front and sides. Inside the church is the retablo, or altar piece, where a statue of St. Anthony of Padua stands in the middle.

THE INTERIOR of the St. Anthony of Padua Church in Camaligan, Camarines Sur as it looks today. JUAN ESCANDOR JR.

Originally, the church had trusses made of local hardwood trees like hamorawon, yakal, barayong and sambulawan while the roof was fashioned from anahaw leaves clipped with bamboo slits.

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157-yr-old church endures in Camarines Sur

It all began with the bizarre sale of a Church rectory in Paraos, a hamlet in the Galician province of Pontevedra, in northwestern Spain.

The villagers learned that this building, which they all helped preserve with their savings, had been sold behind their backs by the Diocese of Tui in 2008. The official sale price was 60,000 and the buyer was a familiar face at the diocese: Carlos Gmez-Gil Aizpura, then a restoration technician with the Galician department of culture who had power over the granting of subsidies to restore Church-owned assets.

The new owner of the rectory, a typical village construction, made extensive renovations to the property, adding a porch and a swimming pool.

The parish priest of Paraos, Juan Sobrino, who was a personal friend of Gmez-Gil and now also a target of a corruption investigation, repeatedly denied local accusations that he had wrongfully disposed of the house. This, despite the fact that the title deed shows he was present at the notarys office where the sale was officially closed.

The people of Paraos were shocked to see the property up for sale for 680,000

The bishop of Tui, Jos Diguez Reboredo (who is also under scrutiny and has since stepped down from the diocese) said the home had been transferred to Gmez-Gil for a period of 23 years in exchange for the restoration work.

But in March 2009, the people of Paraos were shocked to see the property up for sale on a real estate website. Gmez-Gil, who had yet to pay a single penny to the Church, was asking for 680,000.

The villagers filed a complaint with the attorneys office, and investigators found a link with another case underway in a Santiago courthouse in connection with Galician government subsidies to several Catholic dioceses to restore ecclesiastical heritage, and the contracts signed between the Church and restoration companies. Both cases shared a name: Carlos Gmez-Gil Aizpura.

The police eventually found what it believed was a grants-for-contracts corruption ring. Thus, Operation Altarpiece was launched.

Investigators argue that Gmez-Gil awarded subsidies to Church officials who promised to hire the restoration companies he suggested. These companies returned the favor in cash or gifts, or sometimes in the form of free restoration work for Gmez-Gil. A second regional official, Jos Manuel Pichel Pichel, the architect at the public corporation that promotes tourism along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, awarded subsidies to restore pilgrim shelters following similar criteria. Both are being investigated for fraud, bribery of public officials, influence peddling and other crimes between 2003 and 2009. A total of 12 people are under investigation.

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Operation Altarpiece ensnares Galician Church in corruption case

Steve Marcus

A view of the Peace Palace, a Unification Church convention and training center, under construction at 6590 Bermuda Road, on Monday, April 7,2014.

By Eli Segall (contact)

Wednesday, April 16, 2014 | 2 a.m.

Theyre running behind schedule, but a South Korean religious group is still bringing a Peace Palace to Americas gambling mecca.

The Unification Church, known for its mass weddings, extensive business holdings and cult-like founder, plans to finish construction of its three-story, 93,000-square-foot convention and training center on Bermuda Road at Sunset Road by years end, according to general contractor Steven Kwon.

A few years ago, church leaders were slated to finish the project, dubbed the Peace Palace, by early 2013. They wound up starting construction only last April, though.

Kwon, president of GKG Builders, attributed the delay to a project redesign, saying the church scrapped its plans and hired new architects, engineers, interior designers and others.

After church founder the Rev. Sun Myung Moon died in September 2012, there was a need for a refocusing of the vision God had given to him for the Peace Palace, said Michael Jenkins, director of the churchs Office of Business Investment and Asset Development.

Current plans call for a convention and training hall that holds 700 to 800 people, marble flooring and two grand staircases in the main lobby, a cafeteria, a bookstore and roughly 50 rooms for lodging, according to Kwon.

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After refocusing of the vision of God, Peace Palace on track to be finished by years end

WILDWOOD When Olive Watson joined Wildwood United Methodist Church, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the early stages of his first term as president, America was in the throes of the Great Depression and the Lone Ranger was a major hit on the radio.

The year was 1934 and in the 80 years since Watson has been a devoted member of the rural Sumter County church, dedicating her life to serving the congregation wherever and whenever she was needed, including stints as president of the local and state chapters of the United Methodist Women.

At 102, Watson is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, active serving members of the 700 churches in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church.

"Eighty years is a rather long time to be serving," said John Bendall, business administrator of the denomination's North Central Florida District in Ocala, which includes the 323-member Wildwood church.

Recently, Watson received a commendation from the U.S. Senate recognizing the spry centenarian's long service to her beloved church. The congregation celebrated the occasion by having a special salute to Watson during worship services.

A modest Watson said she doesn't know why she was singled out for the recognition she is only doing the Lord's work in serving her church, she said.

"I've only done what was needed," said Watson, a widow who will turn 103 in August. "I never did anything spectacular."

Her fellow church members, including Annie Otto, wife of former church pastor the Rev. Thomas Otto, disagree wholeheartedly.

In her long tenure at the church, founded in 1892, Otto said, Watson has also served as a Sunday school teacher and in other lay positions as well as serving numerous times on the Pastor's Parish Relations Committee.

"She's the most spiritual lady I've ever known she never misses church services," said Otto, who wrote to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Miami., asking him to acknowledge Watson's storied history with the church. "She's been a faithful servant to the Lord."

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Spiritual woman, 102, has attended same Wildwood church for 80 years