new church life: november/december 2014
the opportunity to take its ideas as new gifts into the world. (Page 526)
Introducing Our Ministers focuses on the Rev. Göran R. Appelgren, our
most senior pastor in Europe, who was well launched on a promising lay
career when he felt called to a higher use. The seed was planted, he remembers,
during a Christmas service at his father’s farm in Sweden when he was just 8
years old. (Page 531) In a sermon the Rev. Appelgren offers a gift from the
Writings: Seeing Life on Three Levels. (Page 535)
In the first of two book reviews, Kathy Grant Schrock, a primary grades
teacher in the Kempton (Pennsylvania) New Church School, conveys her
delight with a new book by the Rev. Robert S. Jungé: Feeding His Flock:
Parenting Preschoolers. Karin A. Childs of Fountain Publishing in Rochester,
Michigan, offers a review of a book by Dr. Soni S. Werner, which is based on a
course she teaches in Bryn Athyn College of the New Church: Altruism: Many
Kinds of Kindness. (Page 541)
What do Dr. Werner’s students learn in her course on Altruism? More
importantly, what do they do with what they learn? Her current students
describe all of the various ways they are experiencing and applying service to
the neighbor in an article: Helping Hands. (Page 544)
Church News includes: the good news that Theta Alpha is continuing
and that the Theta Alpha Journal will be revived with a new editor; a report
by the Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss Jr. on a retreat held by General Church school
administrators in Glenview, Illinois, in September; a report on this year’s
Charter Day celebration, including Distinguished Alumni of the Secondary
Schools and Bryn Athyn College, reunion class gifts, and elections to the
Academy Corporation; an upbeat report from President Kristin King on
the new academic year at Bryn Athyn College, including the dedication of
a new athletic field and the planting of a symbolic cedar tree; news from the
General Church Board of Directors, including a new Membership Committee
and a projected balanced budget after several years of deficits; a decision in
Kempton, Pennsylvania, to add 11th and 12th grades to its school; and two new
books – The Joy of Spiritual Living by the Rev. Frank S. Rose and Bob Maginel,
and Spiritual Law: The Essence of Swedenborg’s Divine Providence, by Joanna
Hill. (Page 552)
This year-end issue also includes: the Annual Report of the Secretary of
the General Church, page 580; the Directory of the General Church Clergy,
page 585, and the Index for 2014, page 604. Cover: The two students pictured
on the cover are Ashley Walsh and Asher Odhner.
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