Mount Pleasant is a community of fewer than 9,000 people. It has an idyllic town square surrounded by restaurants and local businesses, just like one would expect when picturing small-town Iowa.
That image changed on May 9, 2018, when dozens of men were seized from Mount Pleasant’s Midwest Precast Concrete plant by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The flat, sandy coasts of Colombia don’t lend themselves to guerilla activity. That turned out to be a blessing for Barranquilla, a northern coastal city that is the center of the Presbiterio de la Costa Norte of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (IPC).
Over 160 years ago, Presbyterians established their first churches in Colombia. All these years later, the Presbyterian Church of Colombia is still doing important and impactful work.
Jack Hemple grew up at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Toledo, Ohio. His parents were married there. He was baptized there.
“I remember being there a lot as a kid,” Hemple said, adding that back then his mother loved to knit.
“She was always knitting. She had a specific hat pattern that she used and she’d knit hats and give them to the church,” he remembered.
But in the late 1980s, a lack of support caused the church to close.
Since 2012, Giving Tuesday has reminded people that the holiday season is more than a time for receiving gifts. Held on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving and “Cyber Monday,” Giving Tuesday reaffirms the joy of giving during a season of celebration.
Knowledge of who gives, and how much they give, in a congregation is essential to successful stewardship. This was the message delivered last week by pastors Louise Westfall and Justin Spurlock at the Stewardship Kaleidoscope session titled “You Ask for It: Conversations on the Giving Spectrum.”
Many church leaders fear that emphasizing planned giving can damage the annual stewardship effort or an ongoing capital campaign.
But in fact, the opposite is true, says Karl Mattison, Vice President of Planned Giving Resources for the Presbyterian Foundation.
In his session titled “Endowments 101” at the Stewardship Kaleidoscope gathering in San Diego last week, Stephen Keizer, Vice President of Ministry Relations at the Presbyterian Foundation, taught key concepts around church endowments including their inception, management and eventual use.
