As a boy growing up in Brazil, the Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes said he was afraid of the dark. At bedtime it comforted him that his father had the light on in the next room. “I could see the light where he was, and that was my resting place,” said Carvalhaes, associate professor of worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, during last week’s “Responding to an Exodus: Gospel Hospitality and Empire” celebration of 35 years of ministry by Presbyterian Border Region Outreach’s Frontera de Cristo. Carvalhaes led a Friday morning workshop he called “Preaching from the Darkness” at First Presbyterian Church in Douglas, Arizona.
Raised in both Douglas, Arizona and nearby Agua Prieta, which is just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, artist and community college instructor M. Jenea Sanchez has an interest in the kind of public art that’s a simultaneous expression of hope and resistance.
With a nod to comedian John Oliver, Presbyterian churches are wiping the slate clean statewide by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service LOUISVILLE — Taking a cue from comedian John… Read more »
The vision for the Matthew 25 invitation is “admittedly audacious,” a new Matthew 25 resource acknowledges. The three Matthew 25 challenges — building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty — “are enormous.”
“And yet we affirm that God is always immeasurably greater,” states the Matthew 25 Bible Study for Prayer and Reflection, now available on the Matthew 25 invitation website. According to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.”
A congregation without a building but with a proven record of innovation for serving the Rochester, New York, community — especially those living in the city’s margins — has accepted the Matthew 25 invitation.
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.
A free new booklet is proof Presbyterians can confess their sins, affirm their faith, pray, break bread and be dismissed — and start and end their day with prayer, all without leaving the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.
Three of the Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency will present webinars next week, giving Presbyterians and anyone else interested a chance to connect with the timely work of these offices.
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.
