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Mission Yearbook
Look for signs of hope. The teachers of resilience offer this wisdom to the storm-tossed, the overwhelmed, the anxious. You may be way ahead of me here, but it’s advice I’m trying to take.
An Oklahoma husband-and-wife pastor team uses a love for theater to share the Good News with the congregation, providing sermons as plays that often feature modern and humorous takes on biblical stories.
John Calvin and Martin Luther come to mind for many Presbyterians as heroes of the Reformation. But women also played significant roles, and thanks to a new six-part series from Theocademy, their stories have become more accessible.
God’s mission clearly includes charity: a cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name; the Samaritan’s extraordinary care for the victim of highway robbery; the traditional “alms for the poor” that has characterized the institutional church through the millennia. Charity is clearly biblical and a hallmark of Christian faithfulness. After 35 years of working with Presbyterian congregations engaged in local and global mission, I have found that the overwhelming majority of congregations dedicate nearly 100% of their mission attention and budget to charity work. Buta singular focus on charity can blind us to the larger issues behind the suffering we seek to alleviate. A Congolese proverb says, “It takes two hands to wash”: God’s mission consists of both charity to stop our neighbor’s bleeding and justice to prevent the wound in the first place.
When the signers of the Declaration of Independence gathered in July 1776, chaplains were in the field with our soldiers and on vessels with our sailors and marines. As we remember the significant events of this day, please consider the ministry our chaplains have provided through our nation’s history. Below is the story of one of God’s servants now nearing the end of 30-plus years in uniform.
A continuing education program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is teaching rural faith leaders how to better respond to mental health crises.
Officially, the Presbyterian Pan American School is a “Christian international college-preparatory boarding school located in Kingsville, Texas.” But to Adelite Hategeka, it’s a second home filled with family from around the world.
“Help me and show me how to tend to my flock.” This was a prayer shared by many a clergy member in March 2020. It seemed to go straight from Jim Burton’s mouth to God’s ears. As the interim pastor of Kingston Presbyterian Church in Conway, South Carolina, he recalled reading an article from another church that utilized writing prayers on ribbons. He reached out to Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, and was given permission to use the idea any way he desired. Hence, in the quaint town along the Waccamaw River began the Prayer Ribbon Ministry. Pastor Burton reflects on Psalm 147:3: He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.
Ministering faithfully in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has called for creativity and solidarity. Who would have predicted that producing masks would be a part of fighting HIV and AIDS? The Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM), the PC(USA)’s partner church, has been committed to fighting HIV and AIDS since 2001.
The year was 2009, the place was Yei in what is now South Sudan, the newest country in the world. I was a mission co-worker serving as the first principal of RECONCILE Peace Institute, and our first class of students had arrived. The student body included about 45 church and community leaders from a dozen or more ethnic groups on opposing sides of a two- decades-long civil war. They had come to Yei to take courses in community-based trauma healing, peace studies and conflict transformation.
