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Palmberg: 'Good Things Are Happening, More is Possible'
ROSEMONT, IL (June 26, 2003) - The approval of 22 churches for membership at
Thursday morning's business meeting started the 118th Annual Meeting of the
Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) off to an energetic start, setting the
stage for ECC President Glenn R. Palmberg to express appreciation for a
joyful year of ministry.
"I am honored to be president of the Covenant at this point in its history
because I'm privileged to serve a healthy denomination," said Palmberg to
delegates as he recalled the five years of his presidency. "We're not the
only healthy denomination, but we're one of the healthy denominations - and
not everyone can say that."
Palmberg said he is excited about the breath of energy that new churches
bring to the denomination (more about the new churches can be found in
another article on this Covenant news report). He stressed that the
Covenant's health is based on two factors - its tradition and heritage and
its focus on both the Great Commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves
and the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations. He said
that the work from the Department of Christian Formation with its focus on
"turning believers into disciples" and the efforts in discipleship from
congregations have made him proud to serve the denomination. He lauded the
work of Ravenswood Evangelical Covenant Church in Chicago and its new
daycare center as one example.
Shortly after Thursday's morning business meeting opened, Palmberg
introduced Gbuda Luyada, president of the Congo Evangelical Covenant Church
(CEUM) to delegates, stating, "I welcome him with the promise that they are
not and will not be forgotten."
After President Luyada prayed for the ECC, Jerome Nelson, who serves as
director of church and society for the Central Conference, presented the
CEUM president with a check to be used for Christian education materials
for the children of the CEUM. The check (and monies still being collected)
came as the result of a cooperative fundraising effort between the
Department of World Mission, Covenant World Relief, the Department of
Christian Formation and the African American Ministers Association.
In his president's report, Palmberg announced that a focus in the upcoming
year will be to assist Congo, especially in the area of medical missions.
An arrangement with a Portland, Oregon, hospital is being made to send
short-term medical mission teams to needed areas. And a 40th anniversary
celebration honoring Paul Carlson, a martyred missionary in Congo, will
highlight the 2004 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis next June and bring more
exposure to the needs in Congo.
He noted that Ted Koppel, host of ABC's Nightline program, recently
apologized for ignoring the needs of Congo and for acting as if "no one
cared" for the plight of people there. "I wanted to call Ted Koppel and say
that we care," Palmberg said. He added that he hoped to raise the
equivalent of $10 per Covenanter to aid Covenant's clinics and hospitals in
Congo. "I know there are needs in other parts of the world," said Palmberg,
"but these are our hospitals, and our brothers and sisters, and our church
and we must
stand by them."
Another highlight of the meeting was an update on the Keystone Challenge,
an initiative launched at the 2002 Annual Meeting (in Keystone, Colorado)
to increase funding for World Mission by $500,000. Executive Vice President
Donn Engebretson reported that
$569,000 has been pledged as a result of the Keystone Challenge. Of that
projected total, $312,000 has already been collected. Some of the funds
were one-time gifts, Engebretson said, but more than $200,000 came from
churches that have made the Keystone Challenge part of their annual
budgets. That means that the Keystone Challenge can continue to bolster
World Mission in the future. "I think that is an enormous item of praise,"
Engebretson said.
In other news:
- The ECC's credentialing committee announced that a total of 538
credentialed
delegates from 242 churches represented the denomination at Thursday
morning's business session.
- Along with approving new Covenant churches, delegates approved two
churches
that had merged along with the closure of eight Covenant churches (more
about
the closed churches can be found in a separate article).
- Elliott Johnson represented the Covenant and gave the treasurer's
report, noting that giving by local congregations to the ECC totaled
$8,183,547 and that giving to Covenant World Relief totaled $1,063,840.
- Also noted were the Covenant's increase in average worship attendance
to 140,617 and its increase in membership (up 2.3 percent) to 107,379.
- Charles Walles and David Dwight gave reports on Covenant Trust Company
and Covenant Ministries of Benevolence respectively.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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