Culture has many forms and resonances. Even the word carries multiple definitions. In anthropology, it refers to customs, social norms and material traits of certain groups. In science, it means to maintain conditions suitable for growth. In sociology, it simply reflects the characteristics of ordinary relationships between people who share a particular time and place. Culture, like faith, is how people grow. It informs how people care for others and share their daily lives together. It shapes an understanding of the world and how people envision a future beyond themselves. Read more »
August 29, 2024
Cultural sharing leads to growth
Culture has many forms and resonances. Even the word carries multiple definitions. In anthropology, it refers to customs, social norms and material traits of certain groups. In science, it means to maintain conditions suitable for growth. In sociology, it simply reflects the characteristics of ordinary relationships between people who share a particular time and place. Culture, like faith, is how people grow. It informs how people care for others and share their daily lives together. It shapes an understanding of the world and how people envision a future beyond themselves. Read more »
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance led a worship service this week in honor of people all over the world who have been affected by natural disasters or other tragedies, from tornadoes to gun violence. 
Dr. Thelma Cornelia Davidson Adair, the first African American woman to be elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, died Aug. 21 at the age of 103. A private service was scheduled. 
According to the Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick, when you Google “Why are Presbyterians like that?” one of the top five questions asked is, “Why are Presbyterians called the ‘frozen chosen’?” Hardwick, executive for the Synod of the Covenant, preached at a regional gathering of immigrant new worshiping community and church leaders in Cincinnati over the weekend. Hardwick brought greetings on behalf of the synod, which spans most of Ohio and all of Michigan with 650 churches and 85,000 Presbyterians, to a group that included the praise team from Korean Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati and other regional leaders as well as immigrant leaders from California and Georgia. 
“Kairos is an ancient Greek word, describing a time of great change when the old ways of the world are dying and new ones are struggling to be born,” said Pauline Pisano, organizer for the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. “It’s clear we are living through exactly such a time today.” Pisano called this time “full of grave danger and rare opportunity” and described the work of the center in lifting up leaders and activists to take bold, prophetic and imaginative action to break free from the “intolerable conditions of poverty, systemic racism, militarism, ecological devastation and more.” 
Even though she’s 101 years old, Mary Conklin of Winnebago, Minnesota has not attended every edition of Synod School, which debuted in 1954. But she has been a part of most of the past 50 or so versions of the beloved gathering, put on each year by the Synod of Lakes & Prairies and attended by about 540 people this year, ranging in age from 5 months to 101 years. 
In the winter of 2023, a team of archivists at the Presbyterian Historical Society began the process of reparative description on the records of Tucson Indian Training School. Over the next six months, they worked not only to remove outdated and harmful language, but to enhance the descriptions of students so that their full names, tribal affiliations and experiences are better represented in the collection. 
Jesus was asked, “… And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)
America’s history with Indigenous peoples hasn’t always been neighborly. In the past five years, the General Assembly has taken actions to change that legacy, and to be neighbors, not conquerors. 
A longstanding practice at Synod School is to offer a talk-back session with the convocation speaker each evening. At the start of his talk, Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, this year’s convocation speaker, shared some of what he learned during the previous evening’s talk-back. 
Few Synod School convocation speakers can get away with birthing new words on the spot the way Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall did.
The word was “shalomify,” as in the way God asks us to build places of shalom, justice, peace and well-being in the places where we live and work and worship. “You can have projects of shalomification,” Schlosser-Hall, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s deputy executive director of Vision, Innovation and Rebuilding, told those attending Synod School, which is offered each year by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.