Beechmont Presbyterian Church welcomes the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board

A brief service shows board members what intercultural worship looks like

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

The Peace Garden at Beechmont Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, has been appreciated by groups that nest inside the church and by its neighbors. (Photo courtesy of Beechmont Presbyterian Church)

LOUISVILLE — Thursday was mostly a teach-in day for the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board as members took in Matthew 25 presentations on militarism from mission co-workers in Colombia and Guatemala and climate change from Jessica Maudlin, Associate for Sustainable Living and Earth Care concerns in the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

Along the way board members heard from leaders at Beechmont Presbyterian Church in Louisville, an intercultural 58-member Matthew 25 church that’s taking decisive strides in the three original foci of the Matthew 25 invitation: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty. Board members worshiped at the church and gleefully accompanied themselves on rhythm instruments given them.

Militarism

The Rev. Sarah Henken

The Rev. Sarah Henken, mission co-worker in Colombia and site coordinator for the Young Adult Volunteer program in that country, took to Zoom to join with the Rev. Leslie Vogel, mission co-worker in Guatemala and the regional liaison for Mexico and Guatemala, to discuss the work of the PC(USA)’s Militarism Working Group, which includes representation from World Mission, Compassion, Peace & Justice and Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

In small groups, board members and staff discussed militarism in both the local and global context, then reported back to Henken and Vogel.

The Rev. Leslie Vogel

Comments were wide-ranging. Some noted the “institutional brutality” of police forces around the world, while another reminded colleagues “there are people doing their work in the military and in police departments who care” and asked them to remember to advocate for the needs of veterans.

Matthew 25 and the climate crisis

Maudlin announced the PC(USA) is now home to 305 certified Earth Care Congregations. For more than half a century, the General Assembly has been issuing calls to take better care of God’s Creation. The 1990 document “Restoring Creation” includes these words: “God’s work in Creation is too wonderful, too ancient, too beautiful, too good to be desecrated … Restoring Creation is God’s own work in our time.”

Last year the 225^th General Assembly took several actions to answer that call, agreeing to establish the Presbyterian Tree Fund as a carbon offset match, approving a report from the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy celebrating 30 years of strong policies and divesting from five fossil fuel companies. Commissioners also added an emphasis on climate change to the PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 invitation.

Jessica Maudlin

“If you care about any of these,” Maudlin said, listing water, migration, poverty, gender, health, hunger, peace, race, children and the economy, “you care about climate change.” That, she said, is how interconnected the topics are.

Maudlin suggested several resources, including the PC(USA)’s climate change webpage, “Tread Lightly for Lent,” these Earth Day Sunday resources and this article from partner Blessed Tomorrow.

A visit to Beechmont Presbyterian Church

The Rev. Marissa Galván Valle and the parish associate at Beechmont Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Debbie Braaksma, described the ministry at the celebrated Louisville church. The church’s mission statement — “God calls us to be an inclusive intercultural family of faith led by the Holy Spirit bound together in worship, study, service and prayer, growing as disciples and partners with Christ in our ever-changing neighborhood and world” — well describes the ministry there, which includes a Peace Garden and the La Escuelita Learning Hub, an afterschool program for students hailing from several countries.

“We needed a place where people could talk rather than shoot each other,” said Ruling Elder Lionel Derenoncourt, who designed the Peace Garden. “It is an effort to witness for peace and talk about the future.”

Three Sudanese children are among the 20 or so enrolled in the Learning Hub, Braaksma said. A few of the children “play soccer with a vengeance” just outside the sanctuary. Many, she said, have been traumatized by what they’ve witnessed in their native countries, including killings.

‘Remarkable Woman’ finalist

One PMA Board member, Dr. Felecia Hardy, a certified ruling elder at St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Louisburg, North Carolina, has been named a finalist for a “Remarkable Woman” award by the local CBS affiliate. Watch the clip that the board viewed Thursday here.

Dr. Felecia Hardy is a certified ruling elder at St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Louisburg, North Carolina. (Photo courtesy of St. Paul Presbyterian Church)

Hardy told her colleagues she brought the Matthew 25 invitation to the church of 30 members, “and the session was on board with it.” At the airport on her way to this week’s meetings, she was on the phone “trying to get another church to become a Matthew 25 church. Churches feel good about what they’re doing,” she said, “and want to expand on that. I think they will be inclined to join.”

A report from PMA’s president and executive director

The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett, the PMA’s president and executive director, highlighted last month’s Vision Convocation, which drew 197 PMA staff, including 49 mission co-workers, to the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. “It was five days of meals, fun, fellowship, workshop and plenaries,” Moffett said, and it featured inspired preaching by a PMA Board member, the Rev. Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224^th General Assembly (2020). “We did a survey and got four out of five stars” from many of those in attendance, Moffett said. “We’re grateful for that.”

Matthew 25 signups are “reaching a tipping point,” she told the board, with 1,096 congregations, 82 presbyteries, all 11 of the PC(USA)’s programmatic synods and 59 groups having signed on.

The six-minute “Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid” promotional film on the work and ministry of the PC(USA), which will be aired in markets across the country beginning May 4, is expected to be seen by at least 60 million people, Moffett said. She played the inspiring piece for board members.

The Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett

“Company’s coming!” Moffett said, indicating PC(USA) churches across the country can expect visitors drawn in by the Viewpoint segment. “Get ready to warmly welcome them.” A media kit is being sent out to help churches prepare. “We believe this is ministry God has called us to” in order to “transform the world,” Moffett said. “I am so excited.”

Presbyterian Foundation

The Rev. Dr. Tom Taylor, president of the Presbyterian Foundation, told the board that “what we’re excited about is what we’re doing with other agencies,” including a wealth transfer study undertaken with the PMA designed to “help us understand how we might help Presbyterians engage in the largest transfer in history.” Between $40 trillion and $60 trillion is expected to change hands from one generation to the next in the coming 40 years.

The Rev. Dr. Tom Taylor

Taylor said Project Regeneration, which has helped hundreds of congregations to innovate and plan where they might be in three, five or 10 years, “is one of those things that’s been way more successful than we even wanted.” Discussions around reparations have sprung up as churches consider whether to let go of their properties, “transferring them into assets that can be used for higher and better missional uses,” Taylor said, by answering this direct question: “How might we give something back?”

The Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner has been studying trends around the sale of church property. Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary landed a planning grant, and is now applying for a larger grant “so the Presbyterian Church can convene a table of serious leaders led by people of color,” Taylor said.

“Every mainline denomination has these properties,” Taylor said. “Is there a way we can think about and talk about how these can be used?”

The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board concludes its work Friday morning. Find an agenda and committee reports here. Click on “Meeting Papers.”