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News (Media Awareness Project) - US TX: Conference's Focus Is Ministry
Title:US TX: Conference's Focus Is Ministry
Published On:2003-01-23
Source:San Antonio Express-News (TX)
Fetched On:2008-08-29 02:24:21
CONFERENCE'S FOCUS IS MINISTRY

About 200 Presbyterian leaders will meet here this weekend to learn more
about the needs of the increasing Hispanic population and new ways to help
people with disabilities, mental illness, AIDS and drug addictions.The
Biennial Social Welfare Ministries Conference, titled "God is about to do a
new thing" (Isaiah 43:19), is designed to help people who believe that
"ministries of justice are integral to the witness of the church,"
conference facilitator Joan Thompson said.

Father Virgilio Elizondo, former rector of San Fernando Cathedral, is to be
the featured speaker at 8:15 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Elizondo is
internationally recognized as an expert in Hispanic Catholicism and
cultural diversity in the church.

Elizondo will speak on liberation theology.

Giving the Reformed view of liberation theology will be the Rev. James
Noel, associate professor of American religion at San Francisco Theological
Seminary.

Noel's specialties include African American Christianity, black religion in
Africa and the Americas, and African American social, cultural and
intellectual history.

Trina Zelle, who heads a border ministry of the Presbytery of Sierra Blanca
in New Mexico, is to serve as worship leader.

There also will be site visits to San Antonio programs such as the
Children's Bereavement Center; La Casa de Maria y Marta, which works with
groups doing service work in a multicultural urban setting; and the
peaceCENTER, Thompson said.

The public is welcome but must pay the daily registration fee.

One local point of interest will be the Westside Community Center in New
Braunfels. It was started by a small, mostly Hispanic Presbyterian church
that decided to turn some open ground into a community service center. It
received a $250,000 grant from the Kronkosky Foundation.

Other conference topics include how the church can speak to a society
undergoing ever-expanding drug addiction; how to get congregations involved
in the various social ministries; and rural-urban-migrant issues.

Registration begins today at 2 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel San Antonio
North, 37 N.E. Loop 410.
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