First Presbyterian Church in Maumee, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, has partnered with an urban Toledo mission, Mosaic Ministries, that’s working to eradicate poverty and lack of education in south Toledo.
On Sunday mornings in congregations across the country, hands are shaken, and the words of Christ’s peace are exchanged with one another. Yet what does it mean to pass the peace of Christ into a world that is often anxious?
Church-going or not, Americans are finding spiritual inspiration through podcasts.
In fact, according to Buzzsprout.com, 49 million households across the country listen to religious podcasts.
One of those, Aijcast, is hosted by a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister, the Rev. Marthame Sanders. The podcast began as a church plant, as Sanders had a sense of call to work with artists and bring them together.
“We were only surviving, not living,” Kohar recalled of the war years since 2011 — before her family fled Syria.
When sniper-fire hit her husband, Jan, getting medical care for his foot was a battle — prices were skyrocketing and doctors were scarce. The wealthy who could leave already had. Like everyone left in the rubble of the once prosperous, diverse city of Aleppo, these two minimum-wage earners needed help. The Jinishian Memorial Program (JMP) — part of a network of churches and charities giving hope to the desperate — came alongside with health and social services.
Last summer, the Rev. Dr. José Irizarry took a mission trip to Puerto Rico with 10 teenagers from his church. They knew he’d been a university professor and administrator, and on a break from repairing houses, they circled him, wanting how-tos on college life. Irizarry describes the trip as “part work, part worship and part listening.”
Do you find yourself wishing political leaders would speak more respectfully to one another as they share their perspectives on important issues?
The National Institute for Civil Discourse is coordinating a yearlong effort — leading up to the 2020 national election — to pray for the healing of divisions in the United States and to promote use of the Golden Rule in politics.
The woman from Iraq was dressed completely in black.
It was the first time she had been to Refugee Family Literacy at Memorial Drive Ministries in Stone Mountain, Georgia in two weeks. When Jennifer Green, director of the program, asked what had happened, she learned the woman’s brother had been killed by a car bomb in Iraq.
What a trap! They came to put Jesus in jeopardy with the authorities regarding the payment of taxes to Caesar, and he turned it back on them. They were caught in their own theological trap because they had a double standard. They did their best to get along with the Roman authorities, while quietly teaching their people that God — not the civil authorities — must be the ultimate object of their worship. They taught that in the end, everything belongs to God, so when Jesus put before them the coin showing the image of Caesar, they were in a bind. The worship of the one on the coin was a basic principle of Roman citizenship. He was to be worshiped and obeyed not simply as the political primate, but as a god, and therefore a divine alternative to the God of Israel, to whom the Jewish leaders were bound.
Stewardship is not simply asking for pledges at the end of the year to meet the needs of the church’s budget for the following year. Stewardship is a theological statement — a way of life. And it comes from believing that we are beloved children of God.
Women’s Leadership Development and Young Women’s Ministries is a national ministry of the Presbyterian Mission Agency operating within Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries (RE&WIM). The office provides resources and training programs to young adult women ages 18–35 considering leadership opportunities in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
