c. 2003 Religion News Service
`Best Christian Places to Work’ Survey Results Announced
(RNS) Organizations ranging from the Evangelical Christian Credit Union in Brea, Calif., to Colorado-based Group Publishing have been named some of the “Best Christian Places to Work” in a new survey commissioned by Christianity Today magazine.
The look at Christian workplaces was administered by Best Christian Workplaces Institute, which accepted applications for the designation from organizations with a Christian mission, more than 15 full-time employees and a Christian product or service.
More than 8,500 employees of applicants answered an online survey and their responses were judged by a panel that selected 40 finalists in 10 categories. The results were announced Monday (Feb. 24) at the Christian Management Association’s annual convention in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“Treating employees well is less about offering creative perks and high compensation and more about managers having the right mind-set toward their staff,” concluded Helen Lee, co-founder of the institute in Seattle, writing in an article in the forthcoming April issue of Christianity Today.
The annual revenue of the finalists ranged from $2 million to $33 million. Organizations were credited by employees for having family-friendly mind-sets _ one includes a “pajama day” _ and a focus on nurturing their employees with training and mentoring opportunities.
Winners were:
Large service and product organization: Evangelical Christian Credit Union, Brea, Calif.
Small service and product organization: Christian Medical and Dental Associations, Bristol, Tenn.
Large media organization: Group Publishing, Loveland, Colo.
Small media organization: Howard Publishing, West Monroe, La.
Large missions and parachurch organization: Coalition for Christian Outreach, Pittsburgh
Small missions and parachurch organization: Medical Ambassadors International, Modesto, Calif.
Large college, university or seminary: Whitworth College, Spokane, Wash.
Medium college, university or seminary: Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas and Multnomah Bible College and Seminary in Portland, Ore. (tie).
Small college, university or seminary: Phoenix Seminary, Scottsdale, Ariz.
Private Christian school: Covenant Christian High School, Indianapolis.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Canada’s First L’Abri Fellowship Center Established
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (RNS) The West Coast is where drifters and other searching young Canadians typically head when they want to find themselves, says George Bradford.
That’s why a small island off the shores of Greater Vancouver has been chosen as the site for Canada’s first L’Abri Fellowship, joining an international Christian movement for students and travelers founded by the famed Christian leader Francis Schaeffer.
“In Canada, when young people start really questioning and looking for answers, they don’t go to Nova Scotia or Muskoka, Ontario. They go west. That’s the way it’s been for a long time,” says Bradford, Ontario-based president of the Canadian branch of L’Abri.
Anonymous Canadian Christians last month invested almost $1 million to buy a five-hectare property and a lodge on Bowen Island to set up the Canadian arm of L’Abri Fellowship, which customarily reaches out to students and transients. As a result, L’Abri expects this summer it will be welcoming disparate young religious seekers to Bowen, which is a 20-minute ferry ride from Vancouver, to study the arts, culture and the Bible and to help with cooking and cleaning.
It will be the world’s eighth L’Abri center. A prolific author who established L’Abri in 1955 to reach out to disenfranchised youth, Schaeffer became a big figure during the hippie era as he bemoaned how people had become moral and intellectual relativists.
“Schaeffer identified the false thinking circulating in his time. His real passion was for absolute truth,” Bradford said. He died in 1984 after setting up the first L’Abri center in the Swiss Alps. Others now operate in England, the United States, Sweden, Holland and South Korea. The Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism says, “Schaeffer’s stern rebuke of social and intellectual indolence in the West and his call for a return to a theologically conservative Christianity resonated with many young people, especially those who had wearied of the excesses of the counterculture.”
The Encyclopedia also says Schaeffer “became something of a cult figure among college-age evangelicals in the 1970s. In his later years Schaeffer increasingly turned his attacks on abortion, euthanasia and suicide, all of which stemmed, he believed, from a renunciation of biblical values.”
For more information, log on to http://www.labri.org
_ Douglas Todd
California Church, City Reach Agreement to End Bitter Land Dispute
LOS ANGELES (RNS) After a lengthy battle pitting an expanding California church against a local government eager to carry out its own development plans, the Cottonwood Christian Center and the City of Cypress, near Los Angeles, have reached an agreement that promises to end their widely publicized conflict.
At the heart of the dispute was an 18-acre tract of land the church bought more than three years ago for a building expansion that local officials then blocked by not granting the permits required for the church to execute its construction plans.
Located in Orange County, the City of Cypress preferred to develop the land commercially, with hopes of placing a large discount retailer on the tract, according to a court document. As the conflict escalated, Cottonwood sued the city, which then took steps to seize the congregation’s property by right of eminent domain.
With the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, D.C., the congregation won a preliminary injunction last August barring the city from taking the land.
Cypress officials approved an agreement at the start of this week that will allow the city to buy the property it once threatened to take by legal force. For its part, Cottonwood, a nondenominational church of more than 4,000 members, will buy a nearby tract of land whose zoning is more consistent with the city’s development strategies, city officials said.
Pending satisfactory close of escrow, projected for Aug. 31, the city and church will dismiss their lawsuits against each other.
Cottonwood spokeswoman Mary Urashima expressed satisfaction with the city’s action. “Everyone is thrilled with the resulting agreement,” Urashima said. “It has been an extremely long road.”
Established in 1983, Cottonwood has experienced growth that has dramatically outstripped its current facilities. With a sanctuary seating about 700 people, the congregation holds multiple services to accommodate its large membership.
City officials echoed the church’s delight over the settlement.
“Not only are today’s agreements in line with the city’s land use and redevelopment plans, they are also consistent with Cottonwood’s desire to develop a new church in the City of Cypress to meet the needs of its growing congregation,” said Cypress Mayor Frank McCoy in a statement.
_ Ted Parks
Student Sues Charter School Over Bible Club
FLINT, Mich. (RNS) A Florida law firm on Tuesday (Feb. 25) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a 15-year-old claiming the International Academy of Flint, Mich., refused her request to form and lead an after-school Bible study club.
“I feel I’m being denied my rights,” said Elisha Moore, a sophomore at the charter school. “They have other clubs at the school. But they are not allowing me to have mine just because it’s Christian.”
International Academy attorney Gregory Meihn said the school denied the request twice in the past six months, but not because of an anti-Christian bias.
He said Elisha and her mother, Donelle Moore, were demanding things other clubs didn’t have.
Meihn said school officials first denied the Moores’ request in September because no other clubs were allowed to meet during the school day, as they sought.
In December, they were again denied after asking to get a share of the federal funding the school receives for after-school clubs. Meihn said the money cannot go to clubs with religious purposes.
Donelle Moore said the family never made such requests and only wanted the same things as other after-school clubs, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and 4-H, of which Elisha is a member.
Meihn said last week (Feb. 20) that he’s now working with Elisha’s attorneys and expects the club to be allowed in the school by the end of the month.
“We’ve always extended to them equal access to the school (that any other club gets) and the key word is equal access,” Meihn said. “I don’t think they knew how to ask us for the program.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Flint, claims Elisha and her mother made dozens of requests to form the club since September and met with repeated delays until one school official on Jan. 22 told Elisha that the Bible club “would not happen.”
“This is a no-brainer,” said Mathew Staver, an attorney with the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, which is representing Elisha. “This kind of lawsuit has become less and less common because it’s pretty clear what the law is. But still there are some renegade schools that won’t comply with federal and constitutional law. This is apparently one of them.”
_ Matt Bach
Williams Warns About Religious Language in War on Terrorism
LONDON (RNS) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has warned against bringing religious language into the war on terrorism or the conflict with Iraq.
Emphasizing that the Iraq crisis should not be seen in religious terms, Williams said: “There is no war that is holy and good in itself. It is the last resort, not an end in itself. To bring in heavy artillery of a religious kind, to say that this is the only way to resist evil, is something that has to be watched for.”
Williams made his comments in an interview the weekend before his Thursday (Feb. 27) enthronement as spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican communion.
Williams also expressed concerns that the reactions to terrorism might erode the very values leaders are concerned to defend and uphold.
“There is an element in Christianity which says that the way in which you defend a society can affect the defensibility of that society,” he said. “It can become less morally worthy of defending.”
Asked about the moral case for war being put forward by the British government _ the need to free the people of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein _ the archbishop said the question was whether certain kinds of intervention would actually make the situation worse not only in Iraq but in the region as a whole.
He said the “very clear” message he was getting from Christians in the region was that there is a great fear of a domino effect and a worsening of conditions not only for Iraq but for its neighbors, too. “That is the moral worry,” he added.
Meanwhile those with $192 to spare can have a cuddly archbishop of Canterbury for their very own in the form of “an appropriately wild and fluffy Rowan Bear” manufactured by Madeley Bears of Redditch, Worcestershire.
The Rowan Bear can be seen _ and ordered _ on the Ship of Fools Web site (http://www.shipoffools.com). It is the brainchild of Ship of Fools co-editor Stephen Goddard, who says, “We recommend Prime Minister Tony Blair buys one for comfort because the real thing is unlikely to be quite so cuddly.”
_ Robert Nowell
Quote of the Day: World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser
(RNS) “In the face of the great challenge humanity is facing with the AIDS epidemic, limiting access to treatment in AIDS to a few, whatever the reason, goes against the will of God.”
_ The Rev. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, in a message of solidarity with churches of South Africa that took part in a Feb. 14 march seeking access to affordable treatment for HIV/AIDS.
DEA END RNS
