New Harvest to Participate in ‘Tent City’

OREGON, OHIO (October 26, 2011) – New Harvest Christian Church, a Covenant congregation, is collecting white athletic socks to help the homeless. The church will participate this weekend in a “Tent City” to raises awareness of the plight of the homeless.

People from churches and other organizations will “camp out” alongside the people of Toledo who regularly spend their days and nights on the streets.

The socks are invaluable assets to a person who lives on the streets because dry, warm feet are essential to maintaining good health, one church member says.

An organization called 1Matters has organized the event for 21 years. Supporters have included Toledo city offices as well as United Way, more than 30 restaurants, and a number of local churches. This year’s tent city event will take place Friday through Sunday.

Mosaic Covenant AVA Event Raises Abuse Awareness

SUGAR LAND, TX (October 26, 2011) – Mosaic Community Covenant Church hosted an Advocacy for Victims of Abuse (AVA) training event that drew 30 people from five churches in the Houston area.

As part of the “Awareness Weekend,” Anna Marie Peterson, a Midsouth Conference regional coordinator for AVA, presented information about victims of domestic abuse and shared her own story.

Many of the attendees are in positions of church leadership and said afterwards that they are even more committed to encouraging their congregations to become “places of refuge.” AVA is an outreach of the Department of Women Ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Cardinal George: Society Based On Trust

CHICAGO, IL (October 26, 2011) A vibrant society can be built and maintained only if people can trust each other, Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, said in a recent lecture at North Park University.

“It’s the dissolution of trust that creates the end of society,” George said. “In order to build it up, you have to go back to giving and reciprocity – and therefore, it becomes a matter of who is trustworthy. That is more important than anything else.”

George also addressed issues related to Catholic social teaching. The family is “the basic social unit. On almost any issue that comes along, you ask how this will affect the family. Protection of the family is a primary governing principle of a lot of Catholic social teaching.”

Those teachings, he added, are “proposed as principles and values that can sustain a society worthy of the human person.”

George’s remarks came when he delivered the Kermit Zarley Lecture at the University’s Anderson Chapel on October 13.