As a young adult, I moved to New York City. I wanted to know what it was like to ride in a crowded subway right underneath another person’s armpit. I wanted to know what it was like to walk down a crowded Manhattan street and have to engage with some people who were well and some who were not so well, all coexisting together.
For Cameron Presbyterian Church and Calvary Presbyterian Church, both in Statesville, North Carolina, accepting the Matthew 25 invitation was not a difficult decision. When presented with information about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s invitation by Salem Presbytery, the Rev. Timothy L. Bates, pastor of the two churches, says both congregations saw it as a great opportunity to join other Presbyterian churches in the endeavor.
The Rev. Dr. Brandi Casto-Waters learned a lot in seminary, but, she admits, not everything.
For example, she didn’t have a full understanding of the effects of asbestos until she served at a church that had some that had to be removed. She said she didn’t know how problematic termite infestation could be until the church’s sanctuary was being tented and treated for it.
As he began to talk exclusively with unchurched people, Dr. Tom Bagley heard the same thing again and again from people who were spiritually curious about God and faith: They wanted nothing to do with the church because of its hypocrisy, judgmentalism and exclusivity.
Far from “the peaceful easy feeling we experience when all is well and all is right,” God’s peace is “something really robust and active,” a peace “that is the most present in the presence of pain, in the hardest moments of my life, in situations that feel impossible.”
The Rev. Jessica Derise has served as a mission co-worker for more than a year, but for the first time is able to do so in person.
Derise is serving in an interim capacity as chaplain for the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy (MPC), an international congregation founded in the 1960s as a Protestant worshiping community for the U.S. Embassy. From the beginning, five denominations have worked together to ensure that the congregation has had pastoral leadership — the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Church and the Reformed Church of America.
The Welcome Table is the feeding ministry at Briargate Presbyterian Church on the southwest side of Louisville. Since April 2019, this small but mighty church of approximately 50 members is following the Matthew 25:31–46 call to actively engage in the world around us.
Each Sunday, the Rev. Robert Felix has been giving parishioners at Chandler Presbyterian Church in Chandler, Arizona, real answers to honest questions. The way he goes about providing those answers — producing a short film each week based on a top faith question identified on Google Trends, then discussing the film and the question together — has proven to be an effective and innovative platform for, as he says, “figuring out how we share the gospel in Chandler and the world.”
Natalie Pisarcik, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Boonton, New Jersey, has already bravely shared her story of deep depression and the intention she once had to end her life before asking God to forgive her for what she called “a terrible mistake,” forgiveness Pisarcik said she did receive.
For seven years, Nick Pickrell, organizer of The Open Table in Kansas City, Missouri, has been hustling to keep the new worshiping community afloat. There was a lot of grant writing and developing — not to mention the community’s antiracism training business. Finally, last summer, Pickrell was able to take a break, thanks to Sabbath & Sabbatical Grants from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement.
