Saturday, November 15, 2025
Friday, April 18, 2025
“God Often Uses Migration to Spread the Message”
•16 Apr 2025
Refugee coordinator shares insights, ideas on how to better reach migrant populations.
Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review
“God often uses migration to spread the message,” said Terri Saelee, North American Division Refugee and Immigrant Ministries coordinator, on March 30. Saelee’s words were part of a presentation entitled “Refugees and the New Pentecost,” given during the 2025 Atlantic Union Conference (AUC) SEEDS Festival of the Laity conference in Stamford, Connecticut, United States.
Saelee explained that even though “you won’t find the word ‘refugee’ in the Bible . . . , most of the Bible is about how God mentored, loved, used, and helped a group of refugees,” starting with Abraham. “When people come to our country, there’s a tendency . . . to push back on any new immigrant.
Just a Distraction?
Even though Saelee grew up on a Nebraska farm in the U.S. that had been part of her family for generations, she said that God led her to serve refugees in Thailand. It was a life-changing experience, she shared. There she was not only able to connect with refugees but also to see how it was not uncommon for locals to look down on newcomers, even though they contributed to their economy. “I think it’s human nature,” she said. “When we think of refugees overseas, it happens that if we can choose whom and when to help, we feel good about it. But when we come across refugees or asylum seekers and they don’t fit into our plan, it’s harder to have a proper attitude.”
Saelee said that against that background, she has come to appreciate the Bible story of the good Samaritan more. “I think that nowadays most would praise the priest and the Levite because they didn’t get distracted; they kept on track with their goals for the day. But the Samaritan came by and saw an opportunity in the distraction.” In that sense, she emphasized, “one key to be someone God can use to reach refugees and immigrants is to be prepared to see opportunities in distractions from our schedule.”
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Who's filling America's church pews
In Puritan New England, Protestant and Catholic churches are declining while evangelical and Pentecostal groups are rising. Why the nation's most secular region may hint at the future of religion.
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Correspondent / December 23, 2012
Congregacíon León De Judá, an evangelical church in Boston.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Manhattan Adventist Church Remembers World Trade Center Tragedy
The Seventh-day Adventist Church located nearest ground zero for the “9-11” terrorist attack that brought down the World Trade Center and caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people conducted “A Night of Remembrance” Tuesday evening. “Vocalists, a cellist and other gifted musicians and poets,” ten all together, participated in "an evening of peace … in memory of those who lost their lives,” said Pastor Tony Romeo. Two were actors who work regularly on Broadway.
Located in a historic building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in lower Manhattan, the church is literally a few yards from streets that were filled with police, fire fighters, and emergency medical personnel on that bright, September morning. It was the worst moment in recent American history and Adventist volunteers opened the church to provide respite and refreshments that day.
“Two candles were lit,” Romeo described the evening. “Songs were so(u)ng and [there was] a prayer for peace.” The event was simple, quiet and dignified. Following the concert, there was food and the sharing of stories. The general public from the West Village area was invited and more than 125 people showed up. Catholics, Jews, Hindus, people of all faiths participated, including "many people with no faith," the pastor told Adventist Today. "Many suggested they want to join us for worship on Saturday morning ... some of whom said that they had lived in the village for 20 years and never set foot in our church and loved it."
The Manhattan Adventist Church is located at 232 West 11th Street, just one and a half blocks west of Seventh Avenue South. Romeo is a New York City native who worked on Madison Avenue in the advertising industry before becoming a pastor and church planter.
Source
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Catholic Bishops Oppose Compromise on Birth-Control Insurance
By LOUISE RADNOFSKY
Catholic bishops said Friday night that they would not support the Obama administration's proposed compromise on a controversial rule that requires most employers to fully cover contraception in their workers' health plans.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had led opposition to the regulation, issued a statement saying that they didn't believe their concerns were addressed by a new policy offered by President Barack Obama on Friday morning to allow religious employers who object to the use of birth control to turn over responsibility for covering it to insurance companies.
Under the new policy, religious employers that don't want to offer contraception could exclude it from their policies. Insurance companies instead would be required to provide access to contraception for plan participants who wanted it, without explicitly charging either the religious employer or worker.
Previously
The shift is intended to ensure that women working at religious hospitals, schools and charities who want to use contraception can obtain it in the same way as women who work for secular employers. It also means the cost of providing the coverage for those women is likely to be spread across all policyholders by insurers.
The bishops had earlier expressed cautious optimism about the announcement, saying that it was "a first step in the right direction" but that they would have to study it.
In their later statement, they said they still had "serious moral concerns," noting that the proposal didn't contain provisions for religious employers who self-insure, meaning the employer takes on the underlying risk of covering employees' health care.
The bishops also said that the current structure of the proposal meant that if an employee and insurer agreed to add contraception coverage to a health plan, it would still be financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the employer.
"These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection... is unacceptable and must be corrected," the statement said.
The White House declined to comment.
Under the health-care law passed in March 2010, insurers must cover preventive care at no out-of-pocket cost for consumers. The Institute of Medicine recommended that all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration be included on the list of covered services.
The bishops also said that they were unlikely to be satisfied by changes that affected only religious employers, since they still had "grave" objections to the overall mandate, which includes the morning-after pill and sterilization.
The later statement came after leading members of the conference reviewed the proposal, among them president Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the two men who chair its committees on doctrine and what the church calls "pro-life activities," the cardinals Donald Wuerl and Daniel DiNardo. Archbishop Dolan will be elevated to the rank of cardinal next week.
President Obama telephoned the archbishop to tell him of the announcement Friday morning. The bishops said they hadn't been previously consulted about the proposal.
"We note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions....The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is... to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services," they wrote.
It isn't clear what effect the bishops' objections will have on the Catholic community, which had already been divided in its initial response to the proposal, and to the health-care law as a whole.
Several Catholic organizations praised the administration compromise after it was announced, including the hospitals group the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities USA.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Donald Wuerl is a cardinal. In an earlier version of this article, he was incorrectly identified as a bishop.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Bible study in a bar? Church planters draw followers, criticism
That's an easy one for the Rev. Jeremy Rose to follow.
His startup congregation in Nashville, known as The Axis Church, doesn't have a building or any office space. On Monday night, Rose and five guys from his church sat around a table at J & J's Market & Cafe in Nashville, drinking beer and talking about Jesus.