Joel C. Hunter Named to Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations

WINCHESTER, Va. – Fifteen members have been named to the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations, ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) has announced.

This commission was formed following a staff report issued in January by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley that focused on the financial practices of high-profile religious organizations. After releasing the findings of his three-year inquiry of six media-based Christian ministries, the senator asked ECFA to spearhead an independent national effort to review and provide input on major accountability and policy issues affecting such organizations.

“These 14 individuals are proven and highly respected leaders with great wisdom and insight,” said Michael Batts, the commission’s chair. “It is our hope and prayer that the tremendous leadership experience they bring will allow us to develop recommendations that are good for the religious sector and good for our country. Robust and meaningful input from a variety of faith groups and others in the nonprofit sector will be critically important in achieving that result.”

Batts, a CPA, is the managing shareholder of Batts, Morrison, Wales & Lee of Orlando, Fla. He is a member of the ECFA board, former board chair and current chair of ECFA’s Standards Committee.

Other commission members are as follows:

Dan Busby, president of ECFA, is a noted author and speaker on church and nonprofit issues.

Rev. Luis Cortes, founder of Esperanza, Philadelphia, Pa., one of the largest Hispanic evangelical networks in the nation. Esperanza has provided technical assistance and training to over 450 Hispanic nonprofits. Cortes is a national leader of Hispanic concerns and community development.

Rev. Mark Davis, chief financial officer of Calvary Chapel, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., one of the 10 largest churches in America. The church has grown to more than 25,000 people worshiping at the main campus in Ft. Lauderdale and satellite locations in Boca Raton, Plantation, Hollywood and the Keys.

Dr. Stephen Douglass, president, Campus Crusade for Christ, Orlando, Fla. Crusade is an evangelism ministry with a presence in 191 countries founded in 1951 by Bill and Vonette Bright on the UCLA campus.

Richard Hammar, attorney and CPA, general counsel for the Assemblies of God, Springfield, Mo., recognized among top church attorneys in the U.S. and is a noted speaker and author.

Mark Holbrook, president and CEO of Evangelical Christian Credit Union (ECCU), Brea, Calif. ECCU serves ministry members across the country from its headquarters and regional office in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Dr. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, Longwood, Fla. Northland is an interdenominational congregation of 12,000 that worships at several physical sites throughout Central Florida and hundreds of virtual sites worldwide via the Internet.

Lauren Libby, president, TWR, Cary, N.C. TWR is the world’s most far-reaching Christian radio network, with broadcasts reaching millions in over 160 countries each day.

Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, general superintendent in The Wesleyan Church, Indianapolis, Ind. She previously was the founder and CEO of World Hope International, Alexandria, Va.

Dr. Mark Rutland, president, Oral Roberts University (ORU), Tulsa, Okla. The third president of ORU, he is a distinguished educator, leader, business man and a nationally recognized figure in Christian higher education.

Rev. William Townes Jr., CPA, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) convention finance executive committee. The SBC executive committee is comprised of representatives chosen from states and regions, and acts on behalf of the SBC between sessions.

Bishop Kenneth Ulmer, senior pastor-teacher of Faithful Central Bible Church, Inglewood, Calif. Faithful Central is a congregation of 13,000 that worships at the Great Western Forum. Ulmer is a nationally recognized speaker and author.

Dr. Dolphus Weary, president of the Rural Education and Leadership (R.E.A.L.) Christian Foundation, Jackson, Miss. A noted author and speaker, the foundation he leads supports rural Christian ministries in Mississippi with technical assistance and capacity-building.

David Wills, president, National Christian Foundation (NCF), Alpharetta, Ga. NCF has helped thousands of givers send more than $2 billion to over 18,000 charities.

Commission work began with a teleconference on April 11. Its first meeting, May 19, will be followed by quarterly meetings for up to three years.

Issues the commission will address include whether churches should file the same highly detailed annual information return that other nonprofits must file (Form 990); whether legislation is needed to curb abuses of the clergy housing allowance exclusion; whether the current prohibition against political campaign intervention by churches and other nonprofits should be repealed or modified; and whether legislation is needed to clarify tax rules covering “love offerings” received by some clergy.

The commission’s members, ECFA staff and retained legal counsel will receive input from Grassley’s staff; the IRS and Treasury Department; panels of legal experts; religious and nonprofit sector representatives; position papers; and an ECFA member survey. The commission, in turn, will give periodic updates to Grassley, the ECFA board and the public.

The panel of religious sector representatives will include individuals who represent various religious faiths, including, but not necessarily limited to, Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. Special emphasis will be placed on engaging leaders who represent large segments of their respective faith groups.

ECFA, founded in 1979, provides accreditation to over 1,500 leading Christian nonprofit organizations with budgets in excess of $15 billion that faithfully demonstrate compliance with the ECFA standards pertaining to financial accountability, fundraising and board governance. For more information about ECFA, including information about accreditation and a listing of ECFA-accredited members, visit www.ecfa.org or call 1-800-323-9473.

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To schedule an interview with Michael Batts or Dan Busby, please contact Ty Mays at 770-256-8710 or tmays@inchristcommunications.com.

PBS Features Northland Church in Piece “Religion and Social Media”

Many religious groups are using social media to connect with their members and reach out to new audiences. Some question what the impact may be on beliefs, practices, and religious leadership, but many say there’s no going back.

GOP Leaders Affirm Obama is Christian, U.S. Citizen

Republican leaders became unlikely defenders of President Barack Obama’s citizenship and religion against skeptics who still question both.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin denounced accusations that Obama is a secret Muslim who was born outside of the United States at a New York forum on Thursday, supporting GOP strategist Karl Rove’s call to rebuff conspiracy theorists within the party.

Palin responded to questions of the president’s birth and religion as “annoying” and a distraction.

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She ended discussion on the questions concluding, “Let’s just stick with what really matters.”

A 2011 Public Policy Polling survey revealed that 51 percent of respondents who said they planned to vote in the Republican primary next year also expressed absolute certainty that the president was born in the United States. Another 21 percent said they were unsure of Obama’s birth place.

Additionally, a 2010 Pew Forum survey showed that the number of Americans who believe that Obama is a Christian decreased from 48 percent the previous year to 34 percent the year of the survey.

Rove denounced the PPP poll’s finding as lousy during a Wednesday appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s television show. He also told conservative viewers to shut down “birthers” who claim that Obama was born outside of the United State and is therefore ineligible to hold the office of president.

“Within our party, we’ve got to be very careful about allowing these people who are the birthers and the 9/11-deniers to get too high a profile and say too much without setting the record straight,” he urged.

Of late, GOP lawmakers have skirted opportunities to set birthers straight.

In a Thursday morning interview with “Good Morning America,” Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) answered questions on the president’s birthplace and religion saying, “That isn’t for me to state.”

Last Sunday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “it’s not my job to tell the American people what to think.”

But Rove contended it was important that party leaders talk to the party about those issues.

“We need the leaders of our party to say, ‘look, stop falling into the trap of the White House and focus on the real issues,’” he related.

Both Bachmann and Boehner conveyed in their interviews a personal belief that Obama is an American and a Christian.

“The State of Hawaii has said he was born there. That’s good enough for me. The president says he’s a Christian, I accept him at his word,” Boehner responded.

Many evangelical leaders are also taking Obama at his word when it comes to his faith.

Florida megachurch Pastor Joel Hunter said of birthers’ doubts, “Those of us who've spent time with him and have had a part of forming his spiritual life can testify with certainty of his commitment to Christ."

Hunter is one of the president's spiritual advisers.

President Obama has expressed his religious beliefs during the 2008 campaign trail. In recent months, he has tried to increased favorable perceptions of his faith by attending church services with his family more frequently and expressing his faith more at speaking events.

During his speech at the Feb. 3 Prayer breakfast, Obama shared stories of a prayer circle created by his daughters’ godmother Kaye Wilson. He also shared his personal prayer routine.

"When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask Him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people. And when I go to bed at night I wait on the Lord, and I ask Him to forgive me my sins, and look after my family and the American people, and make me an instrument of His will,” he testified.

Stephanie Samuel
Christian Post Reporter

http://www.christianpost.com/news/gop-leaders-affirm-obama-is-christian-us-citizen-49057/

President Obama: "I'm Not Alone in My Prayers"

The president spoke about his prayer life during the 2011 National Prayer Breakfast.

“As I travel across the country, folks often ask me, what is it that I pray for? And like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general. Lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. Sometimes they’re specific. Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys.”

Turning more serious, he listed ministers he prays with such as pastor Joel Hunter. Read more...

Obama Calls His Christian Faith 'A Sustaining Force' in Prayer Breakfast Speech

President Obama called his Christian faith "a sustaining force" in his life in an unusual speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, where he acknowledged persistent questions about his religion and offered perhaps his most detailed comments about his spiritual beliefs and practices.

Obama, who has faced a persistent number of Americans who mistakenly believe that he is a Muslim as well as questions about why he only occasionally attends church, described how he "came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and savior."

He acknowledged questions about his faith.

"My Christian faith, then, has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time," he said to a crowd of about 4,000 at the Washington Hilton hotel. "We are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we're being true to our conscience and true to our God. 'Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you, as well.' "

NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), seriously injured during the Tucson shooting rampage last month, also spoke briefly at the breakfast and gave the closing prayer.

The National Prayer Breakfast is a decades-old Washington event attended by members of Congress who are in prayer groups, as well as faith activists and professionals from across the spectrum. Presidents have been addressing the largely evangelical group each year since 1953.

Obama spoke frequently of his Christianity as both a candidate and a senator, but since becoming president his lack of public worship service attendance has become a matter of some attention.

Some high-profile religious conservatives have raised the question, while some religious progressives have criticized Obama for not framing his policy priorities through a religious lens. The president's supporters have noted that President Bush did not attend church regularly while in office either.

It's unclear whether - or how - Obama's handling of the subject affects his political standing, as the last several elections have shown a strong divide on voting regardless of the candidates: people who attend church more frequently, particularly evangelical Christians, tend to back Republicans, while Democrats have more support among voters who rarely attend services.

Meanwhile, many other Americans have bristled at the idea that America's leader needs to have a religious faith, or a faith of a particular kind. They question why the president and Congress would gather at such a high-profile religious event. Obama made clear Thursday he's not in that camp.

"For almost 60 years, going back to President Eisenhower, this gathering has been attended by our president. It's a tradition that I'm proud to uphold, not only as a fellow believer, but as an elected leader whose entry into public service was actually through the church."

The president spoke Thursday about his prayers.

"As I travel across the country, folks often ask me, what is it that I pray for? And like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general. Lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. Sometimes they're specific. Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys."

Turning more serious, he listed ministers he prays with such as Joel Hunter, the pastor of a megachurch in Florida.

Obama had been largely private about his beliefs and religious practices, following controversies during the campaign about his Chicago minister.

He and his wife have been to church services in Washington only a handful of times in the past two years, though they attend the private Evergreen Chapel when they are at Camp David. White House officials have issued statement after statement about the private nature of his Christian faith.

In his speech Thursday, he detailed what he prays for in a way he rarely has as a candidate or as president, and used meatier spiritual language of the type typically heard in evangelical churches

"When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and its people," he said.

"And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord, and I ask him to forgive me my sins and look after my family and the American people and make me an instrument of his will."

He distanced himself from his father - who was born Muslim - saying he "only met him once for a month in my entire life" but said his mother, while skeptical of organized religion, "was one of the most spiritual people I ever knew." The president characterized this spirituality not as one about a personal relationship with God, or about ideas about salvation or the Bible, but rather about basic ethics.

"She was somebody who was instinctively guided by the golden rule and who nagged me constantly about the homespun values of her Kansas upbringing, values like honesty, and hard work, and kindness, and fair play."

The president remains relatively unpopular among white evangelicals, 68 percent of whom in the most recent Post-ABC poll said they disapprove of how he is doing his job. That's about what his rating was on average in 2010 and significantly worse than it was at the start of his term. Seventy-three percent of white evangelicals voted for John McCain in 2008.

However Obama's approval rating among white Catholics - a key swing group - topped 50 percent for the first time in a year in the recent poll. After reading a career low of 39 percent approval among this group in September, he is now at 51 percent positive.

In his brief remarks, Kelly said he used to be someone who didn't believe in fate and just thought the universe was random. Since the shooting, Kelly said, he thinks what happened to his wife was part of some larger spiritual plan.

According to the Associated Press, he said he told his wife that "this event, horrible and tragic, was not merely random, that maybe something good can come from this."

Kelly said his wife's health continues to improve. She was recently moved to a rehabilitation center in Houston.

Unrest in Egypt Stirs Fear and Hope

With attacks on Christians already increasing in the Middle East, the populist uprising in Egypt has triggered fears among some that the region's largest non-Muslim population - Egypt's 7 million Coptic Christians - could be at risk.

Copt leaders in the United States said they are terrified that a new Egyptian government with a strong Islamic fundamentalist bent would persecute Christians. They are quietly lobbying the Obama administration to do more to protect Christians in Muslim countries and are holding prayer vigils and fasts such as one that ends Wednesday evening at Copt churches around the country, including four in the Washington area.

"The current situation for the Copts stinks, but [longtime Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak is the best of the worst for us," said the Rev. Paul Girguis of St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Fairfax County, which has about 3,000 members. "If Muslim extremists take over, the focus will be extreme persecution against Copts. Some people even predict genocide."

Some major U.S. Christian figures, including well-known evangelical leaders and representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, declined to publicly discuss the situation in Egypt, saying they wanted to avoid bringing dangerous attention to the country's Christians by appearing to complain or to advocate for some particular political outcome.

Their trepidation stems from repeated attacks on churches in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled in recent years, and from the New Year's Day bombing of a Coptic church in Egypt that killed almost two dozen worshipers and wounded nearly 100. The Coptic church is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world and is based in Egypt.

"Egypt is the bellwether because its Christian community is so large and is the strongest in the Middle East," said Paul Marshall, a global religious freedom expert and a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. "What happens to Christians in Egypt is very significant. Everyone is watching."

But not all American faith leaders are bracing for the worst. Joel Hunter, an evangelical pastor of a Florida megachurch and a frequent adviser to President Obama, said he's hearing a lot of optimism from Egyptian Christians who believe the uprising will lead to more freedom and religious liberty.

Many younger Christians in the United States also see the protests as something to celebrate, Hunter said, and older, more politically conservative Christians tend to be more skeptical of Islam generally and are worried about how a new Egyptian government will treat Israel.

So far, the protests have focused on jobs, free speech and democratic elections, not religion, so it's unclear what the end of Mubarak's rule would mean for religious minorities. But in recent years, Iraq has lost about half its historical Christian population because of persecution, and Christians have been leaving Iran and Lebanon in lesser numbers.

After last month's bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria, Pope Benedict XVI publicly urged the Egyptian government and other leaders in the region to protect religious minorities. Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman said the pope's comments were "an unacceptable interference" in the country's internal affairs, and Egypt withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican in response.

Some U.S. Christian leaders said the situation in Egypt might put the issue of religious persecution abroad back on the radar of American Christians. A decade ago the freedom of Christians to worship in places such as Sudan was a top agenda item for American Christians, evangelicals in particular. But experts said this week that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have absorbed people's attention.

At a congressional hearing last month about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Christian leaders urged the administration to lean harder on Egypt's leaders to investigate violence against religious minorities and to lay out a clear strategy in Iraq for their protection.

A 2009 survey by the nonprofit Pew Forum measured governmental and societal restrictions on religion and found that a number of the world's least tolerant countries are Muslim-majority. The list included Iran, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as India, which is majority Hindu. Concerns include bans on public preaching and conversion and the lack of prosecution for religion-based violence.

Some advocates for religious freedom note that moderate Muslims and non-majority Muslims also suffer attacks and that the problem is extremism, not Islam.

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: BECOMING COMPLETELY PRO-LIFE

Part 7 in a series of teachings from Dr. Joel C. Hunter about how to approach today’s issues biblically, respectfully and effectively.

FAITH IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: CREATION CARE

Part 6 in a series of teachings from Dr. Joel C. Hunter about how to approach today’s issues biblically, respectfully and effectively.

Obama Consulted Clergy, Scripture in Tragedy's Aftermath

WASHINGTON -- As President Barack Obama and his aides prepared to memorialize the dead in Tucson, they were dealing with death close to home.

Two days after the Tucson mass shooting, Ashley Turton, the wife of Dan Turton, Obama's liaison to the House of Representatives, died when her car struck a wall in their garage, igniting a flash fire.

Several members of Obama's staff went to be with their colleague, and with the couple's twin toddlers and year-old baby.

The White House was already preparing for another funeral later in the week for diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke.

"I think we're all searching for meaning here," said one senior administration official who, like others, described the personal scene on the condition of anonymity.

Obama's search began hours after he heard of the Tucson shootings. Six people were dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. One of the first people he reached out to after calling in his speechwriter was a young clergyman on his staff, Joshua DuBois.

A Pentecostal preacher in his spare time, DuBois set aside the e-mail devotionals he had prepared for Obama for the coming week and delved into new material.

Several clergy members who pray, e-mail and talk with the president also assembled, as they often do, to offer advice by messaging and speaking with Dubois.

Obama moved between biblical teachings from the life of Job and verses of Psalm 46 in what amounted to a personal search for the appropriate message, aides and advisors said, and merged his speechwriters with his spiritual counselors in an unusual collaboration.

It wasn't the first time Obama has meditated on the life of Job, the biblical figure who loses his family, health and money. Like a tree that is cut down, the president told New Orleans residents on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, their city can sprout again.

This time, Obama was focusing on the sorrow of Job. Among the words read by the president, according to his aides: "When I looked for light, then came darkness." And: "Days of suffering confront me."

On Saturday and Sunday, he spent long stretches preparing for and then calling family members of those killed and injured in the shooting.

He also talked to Mark Kelly as Kelly sat by the bedside of his wife, Giffords, target of the apparent assassination attempt.

On Monday morning, the president's interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, e-mailed the West Wing staff, notifying them that Ashley Turton had died that morning. She was pulling out of her garage on her way to work when she struck the building. Fire officials surmised the low-speed crash may have ignited flammable chemicals in the garage.

There was a brief break from work at the White House that morning when the staff spilled onto the frigid South Lawn, joining the president and Michelle Obama in a moment of silence to honor the Tucson shooting victims. Some said they also were thinking of the Turtons.

It was a moment to "connect in grief," said one staffer, with one another and with the Obamas.

Then they returned to their duties, focusing on the midweek memorial set for the University of Arizona sports arena.

Expectations for the president were high. The shooting had set off a national debate about political rhetoric. Political commentators were talking about the presidential moments of Ronald Reagan after the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion and George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Would Obama be up to this moment?

The speechwriting started Monday. Obama summoned Cody Keenan, whose many written remarks for the president include his eulogy for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Keenan listened and wrote as the president dictated what he wanted to say.

Then there was research to do, such as tracking down "Faces of Hope," a book picturing 50 babies born on Sept. 11, 2001. One was Christina-Taylor Green, the third-grader who was killed when she went to the grocery store to meet Giffords.

In the book next to Christina's picture are aspirations for the children of Sept. 11. "I hope you know all the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart," it reads. "I hope you jump in rain puddles."

At the time of her death, Christina, 9, was almost the same age as Barack and Michelle Obama's younger daughter, Sasha.

Meanwhile, the president was moving his focus from the Book of Job toward Psalm 46, a familiar funeral text about how God is "our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."

The president and Keenan were going back and forth with DuBois, by e-mail and in conversations, in a search for the right verses.

In e-mails with the White House, religious advisors alluded to the psalm. Its familiar closing words speak of a divine fortress "exalted among nations."

But in the end, Obama settled on the lesser-noticed, middle part of the psalm: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God," it says in a passage he quoted at the start of his speech. "God will help her at break of day."

"The middle part is about heaven," said Joel Hunter, a Florida pastor who prepared one of the devotionals the president studied in the aftermath of the shootings. "That is exactly where we needed to go as a people ... to know that God is not only waiting for us but in our midst now."

Finally, the two images of water - the stream and the rain puddles - came together in the dramatic close of the speech.

"If there are rain puddles in heaven," Obama said, "Christina is jumping in them today. And here on this Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and we commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit."

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was struck by Obama's unusual show of emotion. As he spoke of Christina, his voice grew choked and hoarse for a moment. Throughout the speech, his face registered grief at some points, resolve at others and, as he announced that Giffords had opened her eyes for the first time, joy.

"He did exactly what the moment called for, in a way that was consistent with him as a cerebral president," Kearns Goodwin said. "It was a completely authentic moment."

There were critics of the memorial, especially of its pep rally quality as the crowd cheered the speakers. But for the most part, Obama did not play into it.

"We've seen the cognitive Obama and the executive Obama and the orator Obama," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, an evangelical pastor who has conferred in the past with the president and his staff. "For the first time in his presidency, we have seen and felt the heart of Obama. And that was an important moment."

On Friday, the White House was still mourning. Obama spoke at the Holbrooke memorial while at the same hour aides and friends gathered for the funeral of Ashley Turton.

President Obama Attends Local Church Service

Since President Obama's arrival in town two years ago, many local religious leaders have wondered when, or if, the country's first African American first family might choose a new church home. On Sunday, as the Obamas worshiped at the storied Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church a few blocks from the White House, a not-so-subtle appeal came direct from the pulpit.

Looking at Michelle Obama, the Rev. Marie Braxton declared: "It would be something if you joined our church, and I got to be your pastor and you got to be my girlfriend. And Mr. President, we would find something for you to do."

The president and his family were full participants for more than two hours, singing, standing, even enduring church announcements and the passing of the collection plates. But it seemed the family remained noncommittal Sunday on the question of joining.

"The First Family has been delighted to visit many Washington area congregations, and will continue to worship with churches around the city," a White House spokesman, Kevin Lewis, wrote in an e-mail Sunday when asked about the status of the family's church search.

"We will be sure to confirm when they have made a decision on a church home," Lewis added.

The Obamas' appearance at Metropolitan helped mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. It was the president's fourth visit over the past two years to a historically black congregation in the District.

A year ago, on the eve of the King holiday, Obama delivered remarks at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, where King preached in the early days of the civil rights movement. Obama reflected on King's legacy and the difficulties facing black Americans.

On Sunday, Obama did not make a speech. Instead, his visit offered a reminder of his complicated relationship with the black church community, a key hub of political and social activism within the president's most loyal base of support.

The question of whether the Obamas might join a new church has been closely watched by District clergy and religious leaders across the country ever since Obama's politically charged break in 2008 from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ amid a controversy over sermons by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Metropolitan AME, founded in 1838, was one of several in the area that had reached out to the White House in the administration's early days in hopes that the country's first black president and his family might become regular members.

The White House said that over the past two years Obama's church attendance included multiple visits to Evergreen Chapel at Camp David and St. John's Church, across Lafayette Square from the White House. He has also visited Allen Chapel AME Church and the 19th Street Baptist Church, both historically black churches.

In addition, the president has prayed in private with aides and a wide assortment of religious leaders, including Joel Hunter, a white evangelical pastor who heads a Florida megachurch.

On Sunday, the Metropolitan congregation clearly tried to make the Obamas feel at home.

At one point, the hundreds of worshipers joined together to sing "Happy birthday'' to the first lady, who turns 47 on Monday.

"I gave the first lady a CD of church hymns for her birthday because in this church we try to make people feel welcomed," said Braxton, whose husband, the Rev. Ronald Braxton, is the church pastor. "The gift came from my heart."

Eugenia Jacobs, a Sunday school teacher at Metropolitan, said she was thinking about the Obama girls during the service. "The White House is so close. It is my hope that he would come bring his kids to Sunday school and be part of our church family."

Ronald Braxton, in an emotional sermon, sought to draw a line between Obama and King. He compared the president's struggles with those that King experienced. Just as King found the divine strength to keep going, Braxton said to Obama, "You will get weak and tired at times, but God has singled you out."