I’m pleased to announce the North Carolina Council of Churches has a new curriculum in the works! “Eating Well: For Ourselves, For Our Neighbors, For Our Planet” is an introduction to the issues surrounding the way we grow, harvest, and eat our food. Designed for groups of all ages, “Eating Well” uses games, activities, prayer and discussion to make us aware of our food over a six-week study.
I have worked with my colleagues on this [...]
Continue reading Announcing the “Eating Well” Curriculum!
Back in November, I told you about the political battle that was ensuing over school lunches in our country. More specifically, the Obama Administration was calling for healthier meals made with less fat and sodium as well as more fruits and vegetables, while the spending bill passed by Congress recognized tomato paste as a vegetable and called for more research on long-term sodium reduction.
Well, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and First Lady, Michelle Obama, [...]
Continue reading New Nutritional Standards for School Lunches
Francis Jones is organizing a district wide health conference to be held on February 25 from 10am-12:30pm at St. Marks AME Zion Church in Durham (531 S. Roxboro Street). Representatives of Partners in Health and Wholeness (PHW) will speak about the Being Healthy, Being Faithful 2012 initiative for all churches. This is an opportunity to hear more about PHW and how your church can get involved. The six districts served include Cumberland, Richmond, and Scotland counties. [...]
Continue reading Upcoming AME Zion Church Health Conference on Feb. 25
On January 21, during the 196th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, the delegation resolved to receive with thanks the “Teaching of the House of Bishops on Environment” issued from their meeting in Quito, Ecuador in September 2011. The delegation strongly recommended that all clergy and congregants in the Diocese, “read, mark and inwardly digest” its contents and heed its suggestions.
Embedded within the Pastoral Teaching, the Bishops state clearly and powerfully the [...]
Continue reading Episcopal Diocese of NC: Take Action on Climate Change
Anyone who has attended an Earth Sabbath Celebration knows how special they are. Over the past year, Earth Sabbath Celebrations have occurred monthly at Community United Church of Christ in Raleigh. As NCIPL and partners prepare to launch them in Asheville, Chapel Hill, and hopefully Durham too, I recall the first Earth Sabbath Celebration that I ever attended.
As a “twenty-something,” the first thing that struck me was age. Recently graduating from school, I found [...]
Continue reading Earth Sabbath Celebrations Spread to Asheville, Chapel Hill and Durham
I am very excited to share with you an online storytelling initiative that has just launched, called Inspired. A program of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) Foundation, Inspired is telling the stories of select individuals and organizations from across the state that are making a positive impact in their communities. And the NC Council of Churches’ Partners in Health and Wholeness Initiative is among them!
Perhaps even more exciting is [...]
Continue reading Get Inspired (…and Help Us Raise Money in the Process)!
The NC Council of Churches is co-sponsor of a town hall meeting, Bring Our War Dollars Home and Restore Our Communities, which takes place Feb. 20 at 11 a.m. in the Legislative Building Auditorium, 16 W. Jones St., Raleigh.
Since 2001, North Carolina taxpayers have spent $14 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The meeting will shed light on the cost to the state’s communities in terms of jobs lost and other economic issues.
Other [...]
Continue reading Town Hall Meeting: Bring Our War Dollars Home!
By denying a federal permit to the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration has taken a vital step in the ongoing effort to protect the environment. NC Interfaith Power and Light and other like-minded organizations have vehemently opposed the pipeline, which would run from Canada to Texas carrying dirty tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf coast. Many members of the faith community, including Dr. Kathy Shea our Co-Director, joined thousands in protests in Washington [...]
Continue reading Permit for Canada to Texas Pipeline Denied
Since 2004, the NC Council of Churches has officially opposed a constitutional amendment defining marriage. Put simply, the Council’s board does not believe discrimination has a place in our state or federal constitution. For that reason, we are working with other organizations in the Coalition to Protect All NC Families to oppose the amendment that will be on the state ballot on May 8.
A toolbox will soon be available for people of faith who [...]
Continue reading Council Working with Coalition to Defeat Marriage Amendment
Thanks to Mary McKeithan for being a key instrumental player in uniting churches in Bladen County on Monday November 28, 2011 at Elizabethtown Presbyterian Church on 800 Broad St. Ms. McKeithan and Joy Williams of Partners in Health and Wholeness collaborated with Bladen churches to set a health focus 2012 calendar for willing congregant members. Each month features a health topic with supporting health materials and ideas. There are even guest speakers who are available [...]
Continue reading Churches Set a Unity Plan: Being Healthy, Being Faithful 2012
Governor Perdue has called on the General Assembly to restore three-quarters of a cent of sales tax which the General Assembly allowed to expire last year and to use the money to reduce cuts to education.
In a statement, the Governor noted that “The North Carolina Association of School Administrators pointed out recently that North Carolinahas fallen to 49th in the nation in per-pupil funding. The legislature’s budget has hurt education at all levels – from pre-k [...]
Continue reading Governor Proposes Adding Back Emergency Sales Tax
There’s still time to get FREE hard copies of the 2012 Preach-In on Global Warming materials sent to you, but the deadline is close of business on January 17, 2012. What you get for registering through the NC IPL website is a package from national Interfaith Power & Light with a DVD (Preaching for the Planet), Valentine’s Day postcards for people to fill out and send to their senators urging them to “love the Earth”, [...]
Continue reading Stand Up and Be Counted — Register for the Preach-In on Global Warming
Richmond County has answered the call to Being Healthy, Being Faithful 2012. Mary Swann and Yvonne McGraw of the Pee Dee Baptist Association have both been instrumental in rallying Baptist churches together to learn more about health as a faith issue. The first 2012 event is scheduled for January 29th from 3-5 p.m. at the Pee Dee Baptist Association, 119 Channie McManus Dr. in Hamlet. The Sunday Health Series that they are following can be [...]
Continue reading Richmond County Kicks Off Being Healthy, Being Faithful 2012 on Jan. 29
Carrying excess weight poses a number of health and other problems, but who knew such problems could extend past death? According to a recent report by MSNBC, many donation programs are refusing corpses that weigh more than 200 to 300 pounds because they simply do not have the equipment or manpower to handle them. East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine in Greenville, NC has even stricter weight requirements – they will not accept a [...]
Continue reading Obese Corpses Rejected for Medical Research
Everyone eats.
How and from where we get that food, how much is available to us, how it is grown, and what happens when there isn’t enough all have implications for our world and its inhabitants. We need to consider this very fundamental part of our lives as a faith issue. So we hope you’ll join us for the 2012 Critical Issues Seminar, Eating Well: For Ourselves, For Our Neighbors, For Our Planet as we explore [...]
Continue reading 2012 Critical Issues Seminar — Eating Well for Ourselves, For Our Neighbors, For Our Planet
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