During the first town hall offered Thursday by the Office of the General Assembly ahead of the 226th General Assembly, more than 30 Presbyterians gathered online to, as host Jessica Maudlin said, “engage with each other about your experiences with Creation care and climate change in your context.” Read more »
June 7, 2024
First GA town hall is a how-to for Creation care at the local level
During the first town hall offered Thursday by the Office of the General Assembly ahead of the 226th General Assembly, more than 30 Presbyterians gathered online to, as host Jessica Maudlin said, “engage with each other about your experiences with Creation care and climate change in your context.” Read more »
Preachers ascending the pulpit in a polarized church can turn to the letter of 1 John for, say, inspiration — or even a preaching series. 
A Louisville, Kentucky, pastor summed up the nation’s gun violence crisis with a three-word refrain on Wednesday: “Enough is enough.”
The Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson, pastor of Louisville’s Grace Hope Presbyterian Church, delivered a brief but powerful sermon during a morning chapel service for employees of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 
More than 70 years have passed since an armistice agreement signed by the United States, China, and North Korea formally ceased hostilities between North and South Korea. The agreement provided a definitive end to the fighting, allowed for a drawback of military forces, and established a demilitarized zone to buffer the North and South as a strategy to help prevent incidents which could lead to the resumption of the Korean war. What the armistice did not do was officially end the war, as no peace treaty between the two nations has ever been signed. 
Could fear or busyness be holding you back from reaching out to the community and being a deep listener?
Both of those real-life challenges were raised during a recent online discussion about “Intentional Authentic Evangelism” and what obstacles stand in the way of accomplishing it.
The 90-minute discussion, attended by 34 people, was facilitated by Alicia Demartra-Pressley, Associate for Missional Equipping in the Office of Theology & Worship, a ministry area of Theology, Formation & Evangelism. It’s part of an ongoing series of conversations focused on the 7 Marks of Vital Congregations. 
Following publication of this story by Presbyterian News Service on the LGBTQIA+ Equity Advocacy Committee’s response to a petition opposing POL-1, commonly known as the Olympia Overture, which will first be considered by the Polity Committee during the 226th General Assembly, PNS invited a response by the Rev. Dr. Tony Sundermeier and the Rev. Alan Dyer, who authored this open letter opposing the overture. 
One thing that the 20th-wealthiest county in the United States — a south-central Texas community — and a Boston neighborhood, Roxbury, which is riddled with violence and underemployment and is also the home of the R&B music group New Edition, have in common: both are touched by the epidemic of mental illness. 
This powerful understanding of God’s propensity toward helping and healing the least of these comes from the story of the beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg. A movement of laywomen that arose in the 13th century, the beguines were contemplatives, mystics and healers. Mechthild posited that, “God is never closer than in the longing emptiness of the night.” From that emptiness, she received and shared “prophetic critiques of the religious leaders of her day for their lack of holiness and their hostility toward passionate spirituality.” 
When the call went out to those concerned about gun violence to go to Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center in New Mexico, the first registrants hailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific regions of the country.
Why go to New Mexico? For the James Atwood Institute for Congregational Courage. This new initiative of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship will be held August 22-25 at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. 
In a presentation that featured a Zoom conversation with three people on the ground in Ukraine, the Rev. Dr. Robert Gamble, executive director of This Child Here, spoke on the topic “The Lamentations of Ukraine” with clergy and members of churches in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery last week.