Labor Day Sunday

Labor Day Sunday
EAST PALESTINE -- Grace Lutheran Church, at Grant and Walnut streets, will celebrate Labor Day Sunday at 10:45 a.m. Sunday. Those attending are invited to wear their work clothes. Communion will be celebrated.
Teen Challenge banquet
AUSTINTOWN -- Teen Challenge, a faith-based nonprofit crisis and referral center dealing with men, women and teenagers who have problems with drugs and alcohol, will be having its 17th annual fund-raising banquet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, at Highway Tabernacle's Family Life Center on Raccoon Road. Featured speaker will be Jimmy Jack, executive director of Long Island Teen Challenge and a graduate of Brooklyn Teen Challenge. The banquet is free; an offering will be taken. Please call (330) 779-0099 for reservations or fax (330) 799-0088.
Rally day scheduled
BRISTOLVILLE -- Bristolville United Methodist Church, at the corner of routes 45 and 88, will have a rally day Sept. 12 at 9:30 a.m. Activities will include a balloon launch, Bible trivia and Sunday school awards. Five families will join the church and a baptism will be at the 11 a.m. service. A luncheon will follow the services.
Anniversary celebration
YOUNGSTOWN -- Third Baptist Church, 1177 Park Hill Drive, will have a church and pastoral anniversary celebration at 6 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Maronite Center on Meridian Road. The Rev. Dr. Morris W. Lee is celebrating 44 years as pastor. The church is celebrating its 130th anniversary.
Events in Hubbard
HUBBARD -- Sacred Heart St. Padre Pio Prayer Group will have a Family Holy Hour at 3 p.m. Sept. 26 at St. Patrick Church, 367 N. Main St., Hubbard. Events at the Great Command, 486 S. Main St., Hubbard, include videos Sept. 19 of Pope John Paul II "Witness to Hope" at noon; St. Maria Faustina "Time for Mercy" at 3 p.m.; and Mother Teresa "In the name of God's Poor" at 5 p.m. There is a 20th Century Prophets display from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays.
Fall Kick Off planned
WARREN -- The Christian Education Committee of Central Christian Church, 2051 E. Market St., will have its Fall Kick Off starting with Sunday school, at 9 a.m. for all ages, and church service at 10 a.m. on Sept. 12. Activities will include a picnic, barbecue, games, clown, music, snacks and watching football until 4 p.m.
Missionaries to speak
ASHTABULA -- First Assembly of God Church, 2300 Austinburg Road, will present guest speakers Gary and Jan Dickinson, missionaries to the Republic of Congo, at 7 p.m. Sept. 15. Child care will be provided. For information, call (440) 275-7720. The Dickinsons have been missionaries in the Congo since 1990. Their first church plant in 1991 was in the city of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire. Today, this church numbers more than 3,000 people. In 1993, the Dickinsons pastored a church in the city of Pointe-Noire. In 1996, they planted Airport Assembly of God under a crusade tent. This church, which they still pastor, has planted three churches. In 1998, Dickinson founded the Assemblies of God Bible Institute, for which he is director. His wife is developing a ministry for young girls to help them avoid the prostitution trap in underdeveloped countries.
Congregation's ownership
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A Fresno congregation that quit the United Methodist Church has been granted ownership of its property under a unanimous state appeals court ruling that overturned a lower court. Secular courts usually side with control by denominations when, like the Methodists, they have "connectional" rather than "congregational" governments. If the Methodist ruling stands, that could conceivably affect an ongoing dispute over three California congregations that left the Episcopal Church last month, largely over the gay issue, and joined the Anglican Church of Uganda. The Episcopal congregations, in Long Beach, Newport Beach and North Hollywood, rejected a demand from the Los Angeles Diocese to surrender by this week their buildings, financial records and membership lists. The former United Methodist congregation, named St. Luke's Community Church, walked out in 2000 after the California-Nevada Annual Conference took no action against 68 pastors who defied church law and conducted a union service to bless a same-sex couple.
Communion proposal
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Leaders of the Anglican Church of Australia's large Sydney Diocese recommended against formal authorization for Communion services without priests but said no disciplinary action should be taken if nonpriests lead the sacrament. The proposal, sent to an October diocesan meeting, says there is no doctrinal or biblical basis for refusing to let deacons and lay members preside at Communion. Anglican church tradition worldwide has always limited celebrations to priests. The Sydney Diocese has discussed changing that practice since 1977. England's Church Times interpreted the new proposal as a way to allow so-called "lay presidency" without exposing Sydney's Archbishop Peter Jensen to challenge in church courts.