When the Rev. Stacy Cavanaugh was talking with the session of Union Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Wisconsin, about becoming their pastor, she asked ruling elders, “What’s the one thing I can change?”
The only answer they could come up with was, “Just don’t tell us we can’t do mission.” Read more »
November 13, 2019
Are we doing enough?
When the Rev. Stacy Cavanaugh was talking with the session of Union Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Wisconsin, about becoming their pastor, she asked ruling elders, “What’s the one thing I can change?”
The only answer they could come up with was, “Just don’t tell us we can’t do mission.” Read more »
The Rev. Edwin Gonzalez Gertz says Light of Hope Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Georgia, didn’t hesitate to become a Matthew 25 church. It provided them the language to articulate who they are. 
A “narrative of hate and rejection” is spreading across Mexico in response to the caravans of migrants from Central America and elsewhere, a Mexican lawyer and human rights defender told the 150 or so people attending the “Responding to an Exodus: Gospel Hospitality and Empire” celebration of 35 years of Presbyterian border ministry last week. 
Realizing that its closure was a real possibility, First Presbyterian Church in Winneconne, Wisconsin, called the Rev. Rose McCurdy as pastor to help the congregation find new life. One of its strengths was generosity toward local mission, but McCurdy sensed the congregation needed to extend its involvement beyond its community. When McCurdy picked up the Presbyterian Giving Catalog, she saw a resource that could help her struggling congregation in its quest for renewal. She saw the catalog as an avenue for increased mission participation, and the congregation’s mission committee agreed with her. 
Living in Honduras this past spring and summer felt especially difficult and intense. What started as a labor dispute between teachers’ and doctors’ unions and the government became agitation against government corruption and economic desperation. Classrooms from elementary to university closed at various times, and taxi and bus drivers sometimes blocked streets and shut down cities. The U.S. Embassy was vandalized and partially closed. 
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and World Mission organized a gathering with ecumenical representatives from around the world last week in Bangkok, Thailand. The purpose was to have deeper conversations about worldwide crises such as climate, weakened democracy within nations and increasingly divisive practices among nations. 
The postlude played. I stood at the sanctuary door, greeting congregants as they made their way to coffee hour. On this day, though, I wasn’t sharing pleasantries as I shook hands, I was anointing with oil a hand of each person exiting the sanctuary, As I made the sign of a cross on each palm, I gave a blessing: Be the beautiful you God sees you to be. 
There’s a growing cultural understanding that mental health is an integral part of one’s whole health, and the church can play a vital role in it, said the Rev. Rose McCurdy, vice moderator of the new Presbyterian Mental Health Network. 
The Rev. David Worth has lived in Southern California for 43 years and can recall wildfires as an occasional, fairly contained occurrence. 
Shannon Schmidt is currently designing an ethics curriculum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a class she will be teaching in the spring of 2020. The course will be split between MIT students and incarcerated students who are working toward their bachelor’s degrees and will be taught in a prison-based setting. In addition to this work, Schmidt serves as a facilitator for a support group for formerly incarcerated men in Boston.