Displaying items by tag: Christianity

New Salem pastor looks to continue church’s legacy

Wednesday, 20 February 2013 16:32

New Salem Lutheran Church senior pastor Tim Niekerk poses for a family picture with his wife Kristen, daughter Gabrielle and son Josiah. Niekerk took over the reins from longtime Salem senior pastor Wayne Graumann last month, upon Graumann's retirement.

Taking the reins of a large church is never easy, but it's something that Salem Lutheran Church's new senior pastor, Tim Niekerk has spent the last two years preparing for.

Two years ago, Niekerk was promoted to executive pastor in an effort to learn the ropes and to ensure a smooth transition once longtime senior pastor Wayne Graumann retired.

"The history here is amazing," Niekerk said. "I feel humbled and honored to be on the shoulders of giants like Wayne."

That effort paid off, as Graumann officially handed the reins over to Niekerk on Jan. 20 of this year, the same day that Presidential inaugurations are traditionally held. Still, despite the preparation, Niekerk admitted the moment was bittersweet.

"It was a little bit weird to come in and realize that Wayne was no longer in the office next to me," he said. "To know that the mantle of leadership passed weighed a bit heavy."

Niekerk came to Salem in 2006 and has served in numerous capacities at the church. He started his pastoral career in 1997, after graduating from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo. His route to the pulpit didn't come automatically, however.

Niekerk said he had a bit of a rebellious streak in him following high school and when friends and family tried guiding him towards a career in the ministry, he didn't listen at first.

"I had determined at one point that I wasn't going into the ministry and I was going to go into business," he said. "It was about halfway through college that I started to get pulled back towards the ministry and I had friends asking me if I had ever considered becoming a pastor."

By that time he was a couple of years behind others his age who had already chosen that course.

"I started taking different biblical language courses and I asked God to help me catch up if this is really what he wanted me to do," Niekerk said. "He helped me to excel and catch up and the decision was made."

A few years after graduating seminary school, Niekerk ended up starting a church that shared its space with a funeral home in Milwaukee.

"It was a challenge and I almost decided to quit the ministry altogether then," he said. "I had it lined up where I was going to work in my father-in-law's business. I came home and my wife was sitting at the table and said to me 'I firmly believe you were meant to be in the ministry'."

A decade-and-a-half later, as Niekerk sits in his new office, he says he knows the decision that God, his family and friends guided him towards was the right one.

"I absolutely love what I do," he said. "Sure, there can be some days where it is extremely challenging like in any job, but it's so rewarding."
Niekerk said he has some very specific and lofty goals for himself.

"My own personal mission in life is to do whatever it takes to make Jesus real for people," he said. "Part of that includes wanting to encourage men and fathers to be the true spiritual leaders they were called by God to be."

Niekerk also said he hopes to build on the 160-plus year legacy of Salem Lutheran Church.

"I take very seriously what this church means to the community," he said. "We want to have a compelling message of grace – not by just talking about it, but we want to live it. Any way this congregation can leverage what we have been blessed with to help the community, we will do."

Published in Top News

Pakistan Christian girl held, accused of blasphemy

Monday, 20 August 2012 17:32

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities have arrested a young Christian girl after hundreds of furious neighbors gathered outside her house and accused her of violating the country's strict blasphemy laws by burning pages of the Muslim holy book, police and neighbors said Monday. The girl's age was not immediately clear, with reports ranging from 11 to 16, and some have raised the possibility she might be mentally handicapped.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad or defiling the holy book, or Quran, can face life in prison or even execution. The laws have been an ongoing source of controversy even though those convicted are rarely executed. Rising extremism in the country often means religious minorities live in fear of persecution and accusations of blasphemy.

The latest case exploded on Thursday, when neighbors angry over rumors a Christian girl had allegedly burned a Quran gathered outside her house in a poor outlying district of the capital, Islamabad, said police officer Zabi Ullah. He said the police took the girl to the police station and she is being held for 14 days while authorities investigate the allegations. Several police officers suggested she may also be being held for her own protection.

"About 500 to 600 people had gathered outside her house in Islamabad and they were very emotional, angry and they might have harmed her if we had not quickly reacted," he said. The crowd demanded that the police take action against the girl. Another police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran among the papers.

Muslim residents of the neighborhood insisted they treat their Christian neighbors with respect, and that while some Christians had left out of fear immediately following the incident on Thursday, most had returned. Christians in the neighborhood were reluctant to talk, but many said their landlords had told them they had to leave their rented houses by the end of the month.

Much of the case has been clouded by confusion. And in a sign of how easily rumor can trump truth in Pakistan, almost everyone in her neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran — either at the local mosque or at the girl's house — and their statements were picked up in the Pakistani media.

One police officer familiar with the girl's case said the matter would likely be dropped once the investigation is completed and the atmosphere is defused, saying there was "nothing much to the case." He did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case.

Some human rights officials and media reports said the girl was mentally handicapped.

A spokesperson for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, said the president has taken "serious note" of reports of the girl's arrest and has asked the Interior Ministry to look into the case.

The arrest of the girl and outrage among the local community demonstrates the deep emotion that suspected blasphemy cases can evoke in this conservative Muslim country. But many critics say the blasphemy laws are also sometimes used to settle scores and exact revenge.

Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out.

Angry mobs have been known to sometimes take the law into their own hands and beat or kill people accused of violating the blasphemy laws. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.

Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that further raised concerns about the rise of religious extremism in the country.

In the neighborhood where the incident happened, all the residents were convinced the girl had desecrated the holy book. One possible explanation for the confusion is that few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic so anything with Arabic script on it is often believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have ever seen.

Some Muslims gathered Monday at the local mosque less than a hundred yards (meters) from the grey concrete house where neighbors said the Christian girl and her family live. They said the Christians in this mixed neighborhood needed to respect the Islamic traditions and culture.

"Their priest should tell them that they should respect the call for prayer. They should respect the mosque and the Quran. This is what should have happened. We are standing in the house of God. This incident has happened and it is true. It was not good," said one Muslim man, Haji Pervez.

Though no one knew the girl's exact age, the possibility that she could be as young as 11 did not faze the angry neighbors.

"Even a 3-year-old, 4-year-old child knows: "This is Muslim. This is Christian. This is our religion," said Mohammed Ilyas, a shopkeeper in the neighborhood.

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.

Published in U.S and World News