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. Read more »
August 30, 2019
Giving to others renews congregations
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. Read more »
“When King David wrote Psalm 23, did he somehow know that it would help my dad help me become a prophet?” asked the guest “preacher.” 
In a sermon that made you wonder whether you were at a retreat or a revival, the Rev. Dr. Alice Ridgill, founding pastor of New Faith Presbyterian Church, the first African American Presbyterian Church in Greenwood County, South Carolina, and a Presbyterian Mission Agency board member, reminded the women attending the African American Clergywomen Retreat sponsored by the Racial Equity & Women’s Ministries of the PMA, that they were phenomenal women. 
Cameroon has been in turmoil since 2016, as a result of the Anglophone crisis. This discord followed complaints by English-speaking Cameroonians of their marginalization within the Republic of Cameroon. 
This isn’t a story about how a small church runs a big program. It’s not a story about how a small church grows into a bigger church. It’s a story about the lessons a group of adults learned from a handful of children as God challenged the adults to try something new. 
A travel study seminar to the Philippines and Hong Kong — May 1–15, 2020 — will focus on the root causes and current challenges of forced migration and labor trafficking. The trip includes two days of travel, seven days in the Philippines and five days in Hong Kong. 
Last summer, I received a call to join Olympia Presbytery in planting a new worshiping community, Hagar’s Community Church, at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) — the largest women’s prison in Washington state. 
“We are learning what we’re capable of,” said Selenia Ordóñez. She and I share an anniversary: Ordóñez and her Presbyterian Women’s team began running a retreat center ministry the same week I was installed as a mission co-worker with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. For the past year, we have both been learning what we’re capable of. 
Mabuchi N. Dokowe has 6,204 children.
Four of them are her own she is raising with her husband in Lusaka, the capital and largest city in Zambia. The other 6,200 are students in 32 community schools in the southern African nation that she oversees at the director of community schools for vulnerable and marginalized children for the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), Synod of Zambia. 
The Scripture so eloquently phrased in Psalm 150 graced the bulletin cover as we celebrated the 38th anniversary of New Life Presbyterian Church (Iglesia Presbiteriana Nueva Vida) in Miami on the last Sunday in April. The church, located on Coral Way, is served by the Rev. Heidi Arencibia. I was honored to be the guest speaker for the service celebrating “Thirty-eight years of life by the grace of God!” (1981–2019).