Appointments of United Methodist pastors will be announced today at the closing of the Annual Conference that was held in Greenville this past week. Several changes will affect churches in Durham.

The Rev. Jim Bell at Duke Memorial on West Chapel Hill Street is leaving after four years as pastor. His new appointment is to Rosemary United Methodist in Roanoke Rapids. Bell said this week that Rosemary is the church he grew up in and is a bit larger than Duke Memorial with more people in Sunday worship.

His replacement at Duke Memorial will be a married couple who now serve a church outside Louisburg. They are the Rev. Roger Owen and the Rev. Ginger Thomas, both of whom are Duke Divinity School graduates. He is an adjunct professor in theology at the divinity school, and she is a former associate pastor at Epworth United Methodist.

The Rev. Holt Clarke will leave Resurrection, 4705 Old Chapel Hill Road, after a year in Durham. He will be going on leave. Coming to Resurrection is the Rev. Robert Simpson from Front Street Church in Burlington, where he has been an associate for four years.

A graduate of Duke Divinity, Simpson, 40, has been in ministry for 15 years. He recently earned a doctorate in ministry with an emphasis on the Eucharist at Sewanee University. He wrote his dissertation on a more frequent Communion, an idea he plans to explore with his new congregation at Resurrection.

Simpson said this about his new church: "I appreciate the congregation's concern for the local community, food shelters, Interfaith Hospitality Network and ministry to the homeless."

The pastor's family includes his wife Christy and a 7-year-old son, Alexander. They will be moving to Durham on June 24 and have bought a house off Guess Road.

The Rev. Susan White, who's now the interim pastor at Mt. Bethel in Bahama, will be the new pastor at Bethesda on S. Miami Boulevard. White, previously an associate at Trinity in downtown, will replace the Rev. Sara Webb Phillips, who has been appointed to Brookhaven United Methodist in Atlanta.

Phillips' husband, Dr. Ed Phillips, associate professor of the practice of Christian worship at Duke Divinity, was wooed away by the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where he will become associate professor of worship and liturgical theology.

The Phillips are both graduates of Candler.

Two other significant changes will be announced:

* Lakewood Church on Chapel Hill Road will become a mission church to be served on a part-time basis by the Rev. Patrice Cheasty-Miller, a former pastor at both Duke's Chapel and St. Paul's. The Rev. Gail Myers, who's been the pastor at Lakewood for four years, is leaving to take a full-time church appointment in Johnston County.

* The most unusual and impressive change on the United Methodist scene this year, however, involves Carr United Methodist, which is relocating after giving its church building and parsonage to the congregation of Shepherd's House United Methodist. The transfer will be effective July 7.

On Saturday, June 28, The Durham News will feature the dramatic story of this inner-city church, organized in East Durham in 1886.

UNC professor to speak at Covenant Men's Day

Dr. John Hatch, noted humanitarian and retired UNC professor of public health, will deliver the message at Covenant Presbyterian Church's annual Men's Day service at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

Hatch currently serves as senior program development officer of the General Baptist State Convention of the N.C. Center for Health and Healing.

The program is sponsored by the Boulware-Colclough Council of Presbyterian Men and will recognize several men who have distinguished themselves in Christian service.

The church is located at 2620 Weaver St., and the public is invited.

Domestic violence the focus of DCIA meeting

Durham Congregations in Action will meet Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. at Duke Memorial United Methodist Church, 504 W. Chapel Hill St.

The program topic will be "Domestic Violence and Our Congregations: Stopping Violence at Home." The speaker will be Aurelia Sands Belle, executive director of the Durham Crisis Response Network.

Lunch is served and all are welcome.

Prayer group targets violence-afflicted area

Bulls Eye Prayer, a short service of public prayer held every other Saturday from 5 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., is on tap today at the corner of Angier Avenue and Driver Street.

Participants pray for peace and healing in neighborhoods suffering from violent injuries and deaths. The Bulls Eye is the area of the city identified by the Durham Police Department as the place where most violent crimes occur.

These events are sponsored by the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham and are coordinated by Antonio Wood and Anna Lee Mosley.

"All are invited to join in public prayer to affirm God's presence and purpose of peace in Durham," said Wood, an associate minister at Orange Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

Father's Day gifts that keep on giving

On gift-giving days like Father's Day, Mary Catherine Hinds of Church World Service suggests such things as garden tools and seeds for fathers in developing countries who are struggling to feed their families. With help from CWS, a father and his family in the Guatemalan highlands are now growing peppers and tomatoes in a greenhouse, Hinds said this week.

Among CWS' gift suggestions are shelter kits(ranging from $50 to $172) for families displaced by disaster.

See other gift options through Church World Service at www.cwsbestgifts.org.