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Mission Yearbook
Each year from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, the Christian family unites for the Season of Creation, a worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home. It is a special season where we celebrate God as Creator and acknowledge Creation as the divine continuing act that summons us as collaborators to love and care for the gift of all that is created. As followers of Christ from around the globe, we share a common call to care for Creation. We are co-creatures and part of all that God has made.
There are 20 churches connected with the Presbytery of Utah across the state. In an effort to build connections with youth from the various churches, the presbytery created a ministry role to make that happen.
On the last day of Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) orientation, we are sent off to be commissioned at churches in the area. Several churches in the area agree to host small groups of YAVs for worship where we are commissioned for our year of service, followed by a meal and conversations. We as YAVs come as we are, bringing our whole selves, exhausted from the past week of orientation to a table of strangers, to share our intentions for our year of service and what we have already begun learning during the first week.
In recent years, news from the Korean peninsula has tended to focus on the North. Nuclear capabilities and missile tests, famine and poverty, and the political turmoil that marked Kim Jong Un’s ascendance following the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, have all captured headlines. Added together, these headlines can give the misimpression that the barriers to peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula are largely parochial affairs to which those of us in far flung places can only look in on. But because today is set aside as a chance for us to reflect on and hope for peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula, it’s also worth remembering that the current situation is deeply indebted to U.S. interference and a longstanding U.S. foreign policy that puts militarism first.
Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What should we mull over as we remember these bombings from our vantage point today?
One of the morning worship services at the 226th General Assembly focused on how greed affects our capacity to embody hope. Associate dean for the Graduate School of Theology, University of the Redlands, the Rev. Ruth T. West, took her inspiration from the Assembly’s theme, “Live into Hope,” and the similarly titled hymn’s (Glory to God, #772) verse: “Live into hope of captors freed of sight regained, the end of greed.”
Fifty people attended the 1001 New Worshiping Communities (1001 NWC) lunch at the Marriott’s Skylight Ballroom during this year’s General Assembly to gather and encourage church and mid council leaders to support new worshiping communities and their partnerships with existing churches and mid councils.
In an ecclesiastical tribute — brimming over with affection, admiration, gratitude, tears, laughter and just the occasional touch of irreverence — the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, was joyfully celebrated for changing the denomination that shaped and changed him.
After meeting in a retreat for two days ahead of the 226th General Assembly, members of the African American Mid Council Leaders (AAMCL) spoke with Presbyterian News Service about some of the challenges both African American congregations and pastor face moving forward.
Although the love chapter of the Bible — 1 Corinthians 13 — has become so popular that portions of it are quoted on coffee mugs and embroidered pillows, it has a deeper meaning, one that is relevant to the evolving church of today.
So said the Rev. Jamie White, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City, as she gave a sermon, encouraging her congregation and guests from the 226th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to think more deeply about love.
