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Worshiping Communities
Since 2009, Anna Hackett has been discerning a call to serve women who are recovering from sex trafficking and prostitution. It’s a call that seems obvious to everyone else, she says; yet it’s one she’s questioned, prayed about and tried to accomplish in her own strength for the past seven years.
It all began in Pittsburgh over a Primanti Brothers sandwich. When the Rev. Dr. Clinton “Clint” Cottrell, pastor and head of staff at Cypress Lake Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers, Florida, sat down at the famed sandwich chain during the 220th General Assembly (2012) to break bread with his Peace River Presbytery colleague, the Rev. Miguel Estrada, their long-held dream took shape.
Patrice Hatley wears her title well. As coach and coordinator for the Presbytery of Tampa Bay, Hatley’s calling—and among her considerable gifts—is identifying, strengthening, and coaching leaders to serve and to grow Christ’s church.
What could your congregation do if it didn’t have to worry about keeping up a building?
“YOU BELONG HERE NO MATTER WHAT,” reads the sign outside Broad Street Ministry, located in the heart of Philadelphia—a city where deep poverty and rapid gentrification exist side by side.
In a world that is less and less biblically literate—and where even people who are already coming to church are by and large unfamiliar with scripture—the Rev. Casey FitzGerald loves to tell the story.
From the outside it’s a very non-descript place—a small building surrounded by buildings that are the homes of Amazon and Microsoft workers.
As the Rev. Dana Vaughn was completing her studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) was innovating several new initiatives designed to allow Vaughn—and a new generation of risk-taking pastors like her—to change and transform the world through their ministries, all while freed from the burden of educational debt.
In Manhattan, a new worshiping community is being formed thanks to a nearly 140-year-old church that has taken seriously its belief that all God’s people are holy. Founded in 1887, Jan Hus Presbyterian Church had always been eager to invite the most marginalized people in the city. But the congregation had dwindled in numbers, down to fewer than 12 worshippers.
The third installment of “Keeping Faith” the video newsletter from Tony De La Rosa, interim executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was published earlier today.
