Kay Warren, Executive Director of the HIV initiative at Saddleback Church, California, is adding her support to a Tearfund programme to raise awareness of HIV and Aids within UK churches.
Mrs Warren, the wife of best-selling Purpose Driven author Rick Warren, says there will be no end to Aids unless the church responds, describing this as "the greatest opportunity for the church to be the church".
Tearfund has produced a resource for churches seeking to understand the HIV and Aids pandemic, and showing them how they can respond practically. It also supports a HIV conference for churches, part of a wider awareness programme by the Christian development agency, co-hosted with The Kerith Centre, Bracknell.
Mrs Warren will be the main speaker at the event on Saturday 15 March.
Tearfund believes the church has a crucial role to play in addressing the need within the local church community in the UK and engaging with the issues globally through partnerships with church programmes in the developing world.
"As you learn about HIV and engage your church, people living with HIV will be touched and changed," said Mrs Warren. "You will be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.
"This practical resource is biblically based and refreshingly practical. It will guide you and your church through a life-changing endeavour that will leave you seriously disturbed and gloriously ruined. It will require a response to God's call to care."
