CONTACT: Linda Green (Release # 372) July 29, 1996
United Methodists in South Carolina will hold a pastoral care workshop Aug. 28 to promote healing among people affected by the church burnings in the South.
The workshop, sponsored both by the United Methodist Conference's Disaster Relief Committee and the churchwide United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), will be a one-day event held at the White Oak Conference Center in White Oak, S.C. It is hoped that the workshop will raise difficult theological questions and lead to more meetings with people involved.
Within the past 18 months, a wave of arson has burned more than 50 predominately rural African-American Churches in the South. Suspicious fires also have burned at least 23 white churches, mosques and synagogues since January 1995.
The one-day event has been planned to receive 300 people from burned churches as well as officials from across the church, including bishops, pastoral counselors and disaster response/relief experts.
"We want this to be a time of nurturing, healing and enlightenment," said the Rev. Lee Bines, chairman of the South Carolina Conference Disaster Relief Committee and pastor of Emmanuel United Methodist Church, Sumter.
"This crisis has affected people in a very human way," he said. The workshop "is an attempt to look at where they may be hurting internally. Its rebuilding from within."
Bines indicated the workshops will attempt "to address, expose and shed light on hurts so that people first can address the concerns within themselves so that they can receive strategies that will lead to healing."
There will be no charge to participate in the one-day event, but registration is required. For registration information contact Bines at (803) 773-6197.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New York, and Washington.
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United Methodist Response to Church Burnings and Advance Special Information
More About South Carolina United Methodists' Response
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