One of the perks of being a PDA volunteer is getting to wear the infamous blue T-shirt. All you must do to earn a shirt is participate in PDA disaster recovery efforts. Whether you’ve been on a PDA work trip or any mission trip at all, you know how God’s Spirit stirs something within you when you when you volunteer. There’s something humbling and sacred about approaching a service opportunity with open hands and a willing heart. For some, a blue T-shirt may not mean much. But, for many, donning a blue PDA T-shirt is a symbol of pride and reminder of community resilience. Read more »
January 29, 2024
Minute for Mission: Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Blue T-Shirt Sunday
One of the perks of being a PDA volunteer is getting to wear the infamous blue T-shirt. All you must do to earn a shirt is participate in PDA disaster recovery efforts. Whether you’ve been on a PDA work trip or any mission trip at all, you know how God’s Spirit stirs something within you when you when you volunteer. There’s something humbling and sacred about approaching a service opportunity with open hands and a willing heart. For some, a blue T-shirt may not mean much. But, for many, donning a blue PDA T-shirt is a symbol of pride and reminder of community resilience. Read more »
A queer psychotherapist who wrote a book about how people can rediscover their faith after a harmful church experience was a recent guest on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to the 35-minute conversation that hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe had with Matthias Roberts, author of “Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion,” by going here. 
When the Apostle Paul wrote about the varieties of God-given abilities conferred by the Spirit, the Rev. Peggy Krong — a gifted former English teacher — would be the first to admit that she likely missed out on the gift of financial expertise. 
First Presbyterian Church of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, saw a need in its community for an animal shelter and heeded God’s command to care for its neighbor, Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility.
It has resulted in a program that engages prisoners at the facility to help train animals cared for by the shelter, All God’s Creatures, and thus make them more adoptable. 
A couple of weeks ago, the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (GACEIR) met via Zoom for our winter meeting. In addition to working to review our work on actions referred to us from GA225, we spent time in worship and devotion. On Thursday, we remembered the church’s commitment to stand in solidarity with our siblings who are experiencing violence by wearing black. We invite you to join us each Thursday to stand with and pray for the end of violence in all areas of our lives. 
Historically, Presbyterians “are used to being on a bigger stage and having what we say mean something,” the Acting Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Rev. Bronwen Boswell, said last week during “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” 
Friday’s next-to-last worship service at the APCE Annual Event featured the Revs. Phil and Stephanie Doeschot and two members of Christ’s Church in St. Peters, Missouri, Carol Jones and Ellen Vellenga. 
APCE Annual Event keynoter Mark Yaconelli concluded his final plenary Friday with a story you just knew came with a happy ending. It did indeed, but the master storyteller drew it out so well that you were afraid it might turn out unexpectedly. More on that later. 
Raquel Willis, a transgender woman who wrote “The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation,” quoted for a crowd recently gathered online and in person for the Westminster Town Hall Forum this snippet from Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”: “I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live.” 
David French, a decorated military veteran and former litigator who’s now a New York Times columnist and the McClendon Scholar at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., borrows from the prophet Micah for his three commandments for Christians in politics.