These days the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III has a fancy title — director of Theology, Formation & Evangelism for the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
But at one time he was a young pastor embarking on his first call at a church in a town in Mississippi. Read more »
May 26, 2020
A peace that surpasses all understanding
These days the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III has a fancy title — director of Theology, Formation & Evangelism for the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
But at one time he was a young pastor embarking on his first call at a church in a town in Mississippi. Read more »
A recent New York Times story tells of a Catholic priest in Queens who decided not to let the coronavirus-mandated closure of his church keep him from worshiping with, and ministering to, his parish. 
The COVID-19 pandemic has exploited wounds we never healed. 
When the second grader Susan Byrne is assigned to tutor at Willow Brook Elementary School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, goes through his reading lesson, he holds onto Byrne’s hand the whole time. 
The Office of Vital Congregations will resume weekly Wednesday Zoom conversations at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on May 27. 
Bintou Jalloh’s father was clear — education was a priority. “Your first husband is your degree,” he told her. “You get your degree first.” He wanted Bintou to have the educational opportunity of America, so she left her home in Bamako, Mali’s capital, to study accounting at Temple University, in Philadelphia. 
On May 27, 1970, fasting commissioners at the 182nd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., meeting in Chicago, assigned their meal money —$5,178.60 — to the newly-created Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People. 
Nebraska Presbyterian Foundation’s Board of Directors awarded grants totaling $137,211 to nine Nebraska churches or organizations in April to partially fund projects which support outreach activities to enhance or expand some aspect of their ministry. 
Saying he’d been dreading preaching as part of the Festival of Homiletics, the Rev. Lenny Duncan nonetheless did just that with precision and panache during a sermon broadcast Thursday — even though “I wasn’t sure what God wanted from me this time,” as he put it. 
These ideas are offered for congregations as they navigate the return to public worship and seek to bridge online and in-person gatherings. These suggestions may need to be adapted for a particular context of ministry. They should be undertaken only insofar as local resources and current conditions allow.