He’s only been on the job three months, but the Rev. Alonzo Johnson is already deep into the work of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People. For the past two years, Johnson served as mission associate with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. Read more »
October 17, 2016
New coordinator for Self-Development of People seeks to engage more Presbyterians
He’s only been on the job three months, but the Rev. Alonzo Johnson is already deep into the work of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People. For the past two years, Johnson served as mission associate with the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. Read more »
More than 400 individuals from throughout the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gathered for the DisGrace conference at the Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina to address the issues of embedded and structural racism in the church and culture with the hopes of moving from disgrace toward solidarity. 
For the Rev. Howard Dotson, the decision to become a chaplain and crime victims’ advocate began when two young men he was talking with were gunned down within a half hour of his meeting. The two were on a street corner raising money for a friend that had been shot and killed two days before. 
After 18 days of travel, hundreds of miles and dozens of experiences, six Egyptian Presbyterian leaders left the U.S. with a new understanding, appreciation and sense of solidarity with what they refer to as “the mother church.” 
A compilation of news from Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminaries and other pertinent seminary news. 
Rebuilding continues for thousands of people in South Louisiana whose homes were damaged or destroyed by flooding when the Amite River crested at 46.2 feet near Denham Springs in mid-August, breaking the previous record of 41.5 feet set in 1983. 
Over two mornings at the 2016 ARMSS/POAMN conference the Rev. Dr. John T. Carroll shared his wisdom in a comprehensive, two-part keynote address with broad implications for his audience of pastors, educators, and others engaged in ministry with older adults. 
For five years Westminster Presbyterian Church in Middletown, New Jersey has assembled a memorable display on its Great Lawn each fall. Beginning in 2012, the church’s “Field of Flags” display has contained one American flag for every service member killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. 
The Rev. Dr. José Irizarry says he was a pew child. “I learned how to crawl and walk in the pews of the church,” he said. “It was home for me.” Becoming a minister, he said, was just one step in his development, which began in those pews in his small church in Puerto Rico. “I feel called by that community,” said Irizarry, who was recently named Vice President, Education at The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). “That community nurtured me into leadership.” 
There was at least one elephant in the room at Chris Pomfret’s workshop at the 2016 ARMSS/POAMN conference. But an elephant could scarcely have fit into the packed meeting space, which nearly exceeded the room’s seating capacity as extra chairs were carried in to accommodate conference-goers eager to engage the workshop’s theme, “Making Our Third Thirty a Great Thirty: How to Make the Difficult Decisions.”