Conference Will Look At Legislative Challenges

(From For the Record, Tuesday, January 30, 1996): For more information about the 1996 Eastern Washington Legislative Conference on Friday and Saturday, “I Am My Sisters’ and Brothers’ Keeper,” call 624-5156 or 535-1813. One of the phone numbers was wrong in Saturday’s IN Life section.

Learning to create a unified voice for peace and justice through the legislative process will be the focus of the 1996 Eastern Washington Legislative Conference, “I Am My Sisters’ and Brothers’ Keeper.”

The event next Friday and Saturday, co-sponsored by the Washington Association of Churches, Washington State Catholic Conference, the Lutheran Public Policy Office and 20-plus other organizations, will be in the Jewett House of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

Participants will discuss issues facing the Washington Legislature and specific ways to make a difference while “articulating the moral dimensions of the problems and defending the interests of the poor and vulnerable,” a spokesman said.

The Most Rev. William Skylstad, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, will deliver the keynote address.

Tony Lee, former legislative director for the Washington Association of Churches, will discuss “The Federal and State Budget Dilemma.”

Three simultaneous Fridayevening sessions will focus on “Organizing for Faith-Based Advocacy” and will include a session on the ecumenical computer network that links denominational networks and the churches’ legislative agenda.

The conference will be 6:30-9 p.m. on Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. next Saturday.

Registration, $18, includes lunch.

For more information, call 535-5156 or 535-1813.

New pastor at Sunrise

The Rev. David G. Vigna Jr. became senior pastor at Sunrise Church of Christ, 4718 N. Ash, on Jan. 1.

From 1990 until his move to Spokane, Vigna served as evangelist at the Minnehaha Church of Christ in Vancouver, Wash., where attendance grew by more than 90 percent.

A native of Tacoma, he graduated from Northwest College of the Bible in Portland in 1990 and received his master’s degree from Warner Pacific College in Portland in 1995.

Vigna, 37, and his wife, Lori, have a son and two daughters.

Sunrise, a non-denominational, Bible-teaching church formed 31 years ago, has about 130 members.

Breakfast with prayer

Whitworth College will host a prayer breakfast for area clergy as well as church and ministerial professionals from 7-8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The event in the Seeley G. Mudd Chapel on campus is to be a “time of fellowship, (and) community and spiritual renewal” for religious professionals of all denominations, said Terry McConigal, dean of the chapel.

The free continental breakfast and discussion will be followed by a devotional led by Dale Bruner, a Whitworth professor of religion.

Additional prayer breakfasts will be Feb. 27, March 26 and April 30.

For more information, call the college chapel at 466-3275.

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