“Welcoming all in the name of Christ” might be easy to write into a church’s mission statement, but the challenge comes when faced with living it out and extending a hand to those in the transgender community. An inclusive, loving welcome is possible, though, with education and courage to open up those sanctuary doors. Read more »
January 17, 2023
PC(USA) churches in New York provide a genuine welcome to all God’s children
“Welcoming all in the name of Christ” might be easy to write into a church’s mission statement, but the challenge comes when faced with living it out and extending a hand to those in the transgender community. An inclusive, loving welcome is possible, though, with education and courage to open up those sanctuary doors. Read more »
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II noted that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his final birthday on Jan. 15, 1968, helping to plan the Poor People’s March that he would not live to see. Meeting in the basement of the historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King’s staff presented the civil rights leader with a birthday cake and a few gag gifts. “They cut his birthday cake and they laughed for a while,” said Nelson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “and then he said, ‘Let’s get back to work.’ On his last birthday he reminded us there is still work to be done.” 
The Office of Public Witness and some of its partners will hold a webinar Jan. 18 to raise awareness about a health and environmental crisis stemming from depleted uranium in Iraq. 
On Nov. 13, leaders from Presbytery of San Fernando gathered at Kirk o’ the Valley Presbyterian Church in Reseda, California, to ordain and install elders to Cultivate Church, a new congregation comprised of leaders of that presbytery’s new worshiping communities. San Fernando’s Executive Presbyter, the Rev. Juan Sarmiento, sees the chartering of Cultivate Church as an expression of the presbytery’s strategic direction passed in 2018 that “we will seek to pass on a faith that is Reformed in theology, Presbyterian in governance and multicultural in scope.” 
It was standing room only in mid-November at Orchard Path, a Presbyterian Homes & Services senior living community located in Apple Valley, Minnesota. On that fall afternoon, the community gathered to hear a piano concert entitled “Four Ladies in their Eighties.” The concert was performed by Orchard Path resident Vicki Hall and her sisters Jan Goris, Val Duininck and Carol Hall. 
By extending an invitation to love everyone no matter what, as Jesus did, Pamela Atkinson, who grew up in the slums of London, has helped shape the life of First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. It has even earned her the nickname “the Mother Teresa of Utah.” 
The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Militarism Working Group is kicking off 2023 with its newest in a series of Connecting the Dots webinars at noon Eastern Time on Jan. 25. 
“Are you in deep relationship? Do you notice the multitude of relationships that are happening right beneath our feet, and how they are interacting and cooperating in this complex web of life?” These are the questions that the Rev. Chantilly Mers asks of herself and others looking to reconnect to the land in Brooklyn, New York. 
A shared ministry pilot project involving both the Board of Pensions and Pittsburgh Presbytery was among the cutting-edge items of discussion Wednesday when the Rev. Dr. Frank Clark Spencer, President of the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), spoke to the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty of the Presbyterian Foundation during the Leading Theologically podcast. Listen to their wide-ranging half-hour conversation here or here. 
The First Presbyterian Church of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa — believing where there’s God’s will, there is always a way — envisioned a way to care for God’s beloved creatures.