Make A Donation
Click Here >
Worshiping Communities
The Rev. Neema Cyrus-Franklin, Around the Table’s project coordinator for its nationwide initiative supporting faith practices in the home, recently appeared as a guest on the “New Way” podcast.
“Finally!” was all my United Methodist friend had to text me when I asked how their General Conference was going. While I echo their relief, I know the recovery period for my LGBTQIA+ siblings is far from being final. Presbyterians stand as proof that the vote is sometimes the easiest part of change
The latest installment in the “New Way” podcast of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement includes a conversation about the formative years experienced by Minister Antonia Coleman, who works in the PC(USA)’s Office of Innovation and its Center for the Repair of Historic Harms. Listen to Coleman’s discussion with “New Way” host the Rev. Sara Hayden here.
“We don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our processes,” says the Rev. Dr. Jason Whitehead, a pastor and social worker who has co-created the Daily Ripple app as a model for spiritual formation and the meeting space of a new worshiping community.
“I was raised to see that faith and justice were completely linked, and so I just think it’s about living out one’s faith,” says the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, who talks with the Rev. Sara Hayden on the New Way podcast about being raised by an activist mother and where she is finding hope and challenge in her own activism and motherhood today.
The Labyrinth Café and Gathering Place is a campus ministry for Tulane University and the University of New Orleans in uptown New Orleans. “It’s a community center where people can gather and ask deep questions about life and faith,” said the Rev. Zoë Garry, campus minister and director of the Labyrinth.
When it comes to “Spirit-inspired worship,” the Rev. Veronica Cannon sets a very high standard and advises that churches and the people who attend them not compromise.
Very early on Easter Sunday, two women went to the historic cemetery in Decatur, Georgia, accompanied by a musician. They carried a Christ candle and copies of a printed liturgy. Others joined them, but it was hard to say how many, for they were just shapes in the darkness — spirit or flesh? It was hard to tell until the morning light reached its fingers through the trees and gravestones to pull away the shroud of the long night.
Wednesday’s Chapel Service celebrating Mister Rogers Day drew out the inner child among the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as they celebrated the many gifts given by Fred Rogers, the innovative children’s television pioneer and Presbyterian pastor. Rogers was born on March 20, 1928, and Presbyterians celebrate Mister Rogers Day each year on his birthday.
“So much of our lives is spent in the company of others. These encounters shape us, whether we’re passing time silently next to a stranger in the crowded row of an airplane or in the innumerable moments of life shared between our own roommates, co-workers, siblings or spouses,” the Rev. Sara Hayden, host of the New Way podcast, explains in her introduction to a two-episode interview with the Rev. Troy Bronsink, founder of The Hive, a center for contemplation, art and action.
