News in brief

Austin church to celebrate 40 years of ministry Sunday
Boy Scouts present award to pastor of Ozona UMC
Advance lay speaking class set for March in Kerrville
Judicial Council to review ruling on Ivory Coast votes
10,000 sign online petition against Bush library at SMU
Bishops send $2 million to Gulf Coast conferences
Bishops urge new priorities in federal budget debate

Austin church to celebrate 40 years of ministry Sunday
Members of Northwest Hills UMC, Austin, are to celebrate 40 years of ministry Sunday.
The Rev. Jerry Jay Smith, founding pastor, is to preach during the special anniversary worship service. Charter members of the congregation are to be honored.
Worshipers are to receive crosses made of wood from the church’s old sanctuary. Planners are preparing a slide show of historic scenes.

Boy Scouts present award to pastor of Ozona UMC
The Concho Valley Boy Scout Council honored an Ozona pastor Jan. 13.
The Rev. John A. Fluth Jr., pastor of Ozona UMC, received the Silver Beaver Award. That’s the highest Boy Scout honor for an adult leader.
Fluth, an Eagle Scout, has been involved in scouting for nearly 40 years. He is charter organization representative for the Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop at Ozona UMC.

Advance lay speaking class set for March in Kerrville
Lay speakers can receive advanced training next month in Kerrville.
Southwest Texas Conference Lay Speaking Ministries, a unit of the Board of Laity, is sponsoring the advanced course March 16-18 at Mount Wesley Conference Center.
Sam Dubberly, conference director of lay speaking, is coordinating the session. Title is “Creating Disciple-Making Faith Communities.”
Participants are to study Next Church Now by Craig K. Miller, a General Board of Discipleship staff member, and explore the biblical, theological and historic foundations of the Methodist way of making disciples.
Registration fee is $115 per person for people staying at Mount Wesley or $80 per person for people staying off campus. Registration deadline is March 8.
For more information contact Dubberly at (830) 741-3416 or sdubb27@aol.com.

Judicial Council to review ruling on Ivory Coast votes
RICHMOND, Va.—The UMC’s highest court is to reconsider its ruling on General Conference representatives for Ivory Coast in April.
The Judicial Council is to convene April 25-28 in Manila, Philippines, the body’s first meeting outside the United States.
The nine-member council is to revisit its fall 2006 decision regarding the number of delegates that the Methodist Church of Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) can send to the 2008 General Conference.
The court had let stand the 2004 General Conference vote to give Ivory Coast just two delegates. The number deviates from the formula for representation outlined in the 2004 Book of Discipline. That formula would entitle the new African conference to as many as 70 delegates, making it the largest delegation at General Conference.

10,000 sign online petition against Bush library at SMU
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Two weeks after a UM pastor started an online petition against locating the George W. Bush presidential library at Southern Methodist University, the drive has garnered almost 10,000 entries.
The total includes 14 bishops and more than 600 clergy members.
“We’ve had an outpouring of support so far,” said the Rev. Andrew Weaver, an alumnus of the UM-related school in Dallas. He said he thinks linking Bush with a university bearing the Methodist name “is utterly inappropriate.”

Bishops send $2 million to Gulf Coast conferences
NEW YORK—Bishops are distributing $2 million this month to assist Gulf Coast churches and pastors affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The allocations include $1 million to the Louisiana Conference, $900,000 to the Mississippi Conference and $100,000 to the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
Approved by the executive committee of the Council of Bishops, the distributions come from the council’s Katrina Church Recovery Appeal.

Bishops urge new priorities in federal budget debate
WASHINGTON—Three bishops are asking President Bush and the Congress to place the needs of children and the poor at the heart of the budget debate.
Those concerns were shared in a Feb. 15 letter signed by Bishops Janice Riggle Huie, president of the Council of Bishops; Gregory Vaughn Palmer, the council’s president-designate; and Beverly Shamana, president of the General Board of Church and Society.
“The debate among elected leaders over the federal budget is at its core a debate over how the nation’s abundance is shared,” the bishops said in their letter.

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