University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has received a five-year, $936,102 grant to help support the Clergy Coaching in Community and Context initiative. The grant is part of Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving in Ministry, an initiative that supports religious organizations across the nation as they create or strengthen programs that help pastors build relationships with experienced clergy who can serve as mentors and guide them through key leadership challenges in congregational ministry.
During the morning plenary at this year’s national evangelism conference “Sabbath Rest, Holy Surrender, Full Life,” 135 attendees were encouraged by Ryan McKenzie, director of program ministries at Zephyr Point Presbyterian Conference Center, to “silence themselves.”
That was the message that the Rev. Dave Carver shared as part of a panel on transformative partnership at the 223rd General Assembly (2018) in St. Louis. Carver is pastor of a Pittsburgh congregation, Crafton Heights First United Presbyterian Church. He shared how a three-way partnership in faith among the Pittsburgh Presbytery, the Synod of Blantyre in Malawi and the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church is transforming the lives of those involved.
Twenty-seven years of Saturdays, approximately 1,400 consecutive weekends of serving the “best meal in town,” is a pretty good track record of commitment. That’s how long Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, has been running its dining room ministry, a program that serves approximately 80 people each week. But that’s not enough for this 1,200-member congregation in north central New York. Their emergency food program has been similarly active for more than 20 years, and another hunger initiative, the East Avenue Grocery Run, a mere child at 9 years old, might be the most impactful program of all three.
The story of a father and mother and the sextuplets baptized at First Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia, was told one Sunday morning by the Rev. Mary Kay Collins.
After planting four churches while he was a refugee living in Uganda, Prince Mundeke Mushunju naturally had an eye toward establishing a Swahili- and English-language service when he arrived in Greensboro, North Carolina, three years ago.
The Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church is one church with two identities.
Located in San Diego, the church is home to both an English- and an Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern congregation. The Rev. Dr. Mofid Wasef serves on the staff of both congregations.
Tomorrow marks the six-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook tragedy, when 26 people, including 20 first-graders, were shot and killed in their elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Many people thought that inconceivable event would be the tipping point in our public and legislative complacency following mass shooting incidents in this country. Sadly, since then we have instead grown increasingly numb, as these events have become the “new normal” and 600,000 Americans have been killed or injured by guns in the subsequent years.
During the recent one-year anniversary celebration of On The Way Church, the Rev. Rafael Viana began to see a convergence of many things.
“Each one was necessary for us to reach this moment of great blessing,” he said. Viana arrived in Atlanta with his wife, Ivette, and their two children in February 2016.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” That’s how the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins. The declaration was drafted in response to the calamities and barbarous acts experiences by people all over the world during World War II. This year marks the 70th anniversary of this historic document in moral consciousness that has been a beacon of hope and purpose throughout the world. The United States was instrumental in this effort, and Eleanor Roosevelt was the driving force in the drafting the document that would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
