Presiding Bishop Calls Church to Celebrate October 1 as Church Periodical Club Sunday
Episcopal News Service. September 15, 1989 [89152]
Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning has designated October 1 as "CPC Sunday" and called for parishes to "celebrate" the Church Periodical Club (CPC) and its "service to the church and the world through the printed word."
Browning made these remarks on the heels of his recent visit to Nicaragua, where he was "struck by a new sense of the power of the risen Jesus to give hope in darkness." The Presiding Bishop has affirmed the importance of the CPC, noting that the organization is as relevant today as it was at its founding in 1888: "The need for proclamation of the Gospel of a risen Christ is as true today as it was a hundred years ago."
Volunteers who make up the CPC have sent Bibles, Prayer Books, medical texts, teaching materials, and agricultural manuals to missionaries, teachers, doctors, seminarians, and libraries around the world. According to Eleanor Smith of the CPC, an increasing demand for "more modern materials" has reached the CPC in the past few years. "As a result," says Smith, "we have provided audio-visuals, newspaper subscriptions, devotional materials for the homebound, and large-print texts."
Smith notes that the materials are free to those who request them, and "the labor of collecting and sending materials is provided by the Church Periodical Club's body of 'Christian People Caring."'
Yet, Smith points out that the CPC relies on individual gifts and memberships and the donations given on CPC Sunday to continue its "servanthood ministry."
Coordinating diocesan efforts in parishes and missions for the October 1 celebration are:
- Province I -- Ellin Anderson, Bethel, Connecticut;
- Province II -- Clareice Bennett, Binghamton, New York;
- Province III -- Irene Weigel, Middletown, Delaware;
- Province IV -- Barbara Belik, Louisville, Kentucky;
- Province V -- Jennie Alsgaard, Saginaw, Michigan;
- Province VI -- Marilyn Olson, St. Paul, Minnesota;
- Province VII -- Penny Haas, Overland Park, Kansas;
- Province VIII -- Leona Turner, Sun City, Arizona;
- Province IX -- Ruth de Melo, La Romana, Dominican Republic.