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Worshiping Communities
Record high temperatures in July didn’t deter thousands of spiritual pilgrims from gathering in the western North Carolina mountains for four days of inspiring worship, book talks, panels, music and dancing — lots of dancing.
Through a collaboration between Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and 1001 New Worshiping Communities, church planters and spiritual leaders visited Puerto Rico in June to learn about ongoing efforts to rebuild after hurricane disasters. 1001 New Worshiping Communities leaders recognized many commonalities with pastors in Puerto Rico, including the necessity of bivocational calls and a need for community engagement and the work of healing and relief.
The pastor of Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, has for the past 15 years led a church “with a collection of folks who share a commitment to serve the city and figure out together what it means to follow Jesus in this particular time and place. My favorite part of Broad Street are the people who find their way there. They’re just a remarkable collection of people who are willing to share their energy, their commitment, and put all of who they are in service to being in community and figuring out what it means to follow Jesus.”
Kin-dom Camp is set to be held in Texas later this month, and no one is more excited than the camp’s co-founder, the Rev. Pepa Paniagua, the guest during the most recent installments of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities podcast “New Way.” Listen to Paniagua’s conversation with podcast host the Rev. Sara Hayden here and here.
Since 2013, the Presbyterian Mission Agency has funded 1,155 grants for a total of $14,938,581 through seed, investment, growth and health insurance grants to new worshiping communities.
It’s time for people to start using their community — whether it’s a faith community, friends or one’s family — to talk about “the dangerous moment” that queer people are in right now.
The first of a two-part New Way conversation with the Rev. Elizabeth Edman, an Episcopal priest and the author of the 2016 book “Queer Virtue,” explores what being part of the queer community has taught Edman and can teach listeners about being faithful Christians.
“Praying with others, retreating with others is an unexpected blessing,” said one participant in last week’s online retreat facilitated by 1001 New Worshiping Communities. The same sentiment sprang up like an epiphany during evening worship when the group closed communion with the Lord’s Prayer in their first language. Following an invitation to “pray with your heart language,” the participants, including speakers of English, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, and Yoruba, prayed together the words that Jesus taught. The Rev. Sue Yoder, pastor of Blank Slate Community in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, said, “In my imagination that’s what it sounded like on Pentecost.”
Season 10 of New Way, the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement, made its debut on Thursday.
The podcast, which started in 2019 as a way of inspiring and informing aspiring leaders to start new worshiping communities, now has a catalog of more than 75 episodes.
The “What’s the Secret Sauce?” conference wrapped up at North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on April 27 with a multilingual worship led by leaders of new worshiping communities from around the country.