A 1001 new worshiping community is bringing new life into Woodhaven Presbyterian Church in Irving, Texas. The leader of the Ghanaian immigrant community worshiping at Woodhaven is Martin Osae, a bi-vocational pastor who works full time as an educator in Dallas. Osae is heavily involved in the community, ministering to people outside the walls of the church — so much so that he is known as the community’s pastor. Read more »
November 29, 2022
A PC(USA) new worshiping community in Texas is blessed to be served by ‘the community’s pastor’
A 1001 new worshiping community is bringing new life into Woodhaven Presbyterian Church in Irving, Texas. The leader of the Ghanaian immigrant community worshiping at Woodhaven is Martin Osae, a bi-vocational pastor who works full time as an educator in Dallas. Osae is heavily involved in the community, ministering to people outside the walls of the church — so much so that he is known as the community’s pastor. Read more »
In delivering Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s Greenhoe Lecture recently, the Rev. Dr. Duane R. Bidwell — a member of Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery and faculty member at the Center for Health Professions Education, Hebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland — gave both in-person and online attendees a moving preview of a book he’s completing on pediatric hope. 
At St. John’s Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, where the Rev. Dr. Theresa Cho and the Rev. Sam Lundquist serve as pastors, even Dolly Parton — or at least her look-alike — might well show up for worship during a Sunday celebrating Pride Month. 
The Rev. Dr. April Davis Campbell really wanted to cultivate a space for her church where people wouldn’t just associate the fall season with being asked for money. 
Presbyterian pastor and hymn writer the Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette has written a new hymn, “O God of All Creation,” after Hurricane Fiona brought devastation to Puerto Rico and other islands in the Caribbean before turning toward the Maritime provinces in Canada. 
The pandemic taught the Rev. Rachel Penmore to pay closer attention to “the smaller pieces” of campus ministry.
“What makes me come alive is when people feel known, when I’m interacting with students or other folks and they feel seen and heard and known,” said Penmore, the director of campus ministry at UKirk at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Penmore was a recent guest of the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, senior director for Theological Education Funds Development for the Committee on Theological Education of the PC(USA) and the Presbyterian Foundation, during his “Leading Theologically” broadcast, which can be seen here. 
Chapters of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) recently held webinars and in-person gatherings in honor of National Faith Day. The Rev. Brooke A. Scott, pastor of the Church on Main, a worshiping community in Middletown, Delaware, spoke during “Pathways to Hope,” the NAMI Delaware gathering. 
My Christmas ritual is viewing “Black Nativity: A Gospel Christmas Musical Experience.” Adapted from Langston Hughes’ Christmas classic “Black Nativity,” the production is a powerful rendition of the Christmas story. It is filled with thrilling voices, exciting dance, spectacular costumes and glorious gospel music. Hughes originally wrote “Black Nativity” in 1961, at the height of the civil rights movement; it is more moving with every production. 
In the fall of 2010, two years of planning and work were coming to fruition. A group of leaders stood on the cusp of the opening of a new worshiping community. Many in the neighborhood were anticipating the arrival of a new gathering place and spiritual home. I had been shepherding the planning team and overseeing the ways we had been laying the groundwork for this launch. Because there was construction involved, the launch date was much like a birth. We knew roughly when it would happen, but not exactly. And as the days drew close, I felt very much like I did when the time for my children’s births approached. I was beyond excited and so very aware that life would never be the same once they arrived. 
Churches in the Presbytery of Denver are reaching out to their neighbors without homes in traditional and even system-altering ways, including a successful effort to get the Aurora City Council to alter zoning on a tract of land to permit development of much-needed affordable housing in what’s become the seventh most expensive place in the nation to own or rent a home.