In this reflection by Katy Steinberg, pastor of the new worshiping community Missing Peace, we meet a young woman ready to go deeper in her relationship with Christ.
November 2016 will always and forever be a special month in the life of Missing Peace, a 1001 New Worshiping Community in Ormond Beach, Florida.
Donna has packed her luggage, figuratively, more than once to answer God’s call to mission—a call she has felt since she was 9 years old, growing up in Campbell, Ohio. Donna recalls that when a teacher at Campbell Christian Center asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said, “I want to be a missionary nurse.”
For the Rev. Kevin Johnson, the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and its aftermath became a turning point in his life. Raised in Washington, D.C., Johnson climbed the stairwell of a high rise under construction after the shooting and witnessed a city in anger as riots broke out in the nation’s capital.
There’s always that first time—that time in ministry when a pastor’s expectations go unmet.
It happened inevitably to the Rev. Jeff Eddings, who in 2004 co-founded the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community together with a United Methodist colleague, the Rev. Jim Walker, in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
It’s been called “one of the most important books on race in recent memory.” And now the Reverends Denise Anderson and Jan Edmiston, co-moderators of the 222nd General Assembly (2016), are urging Presbyterians via their “One Church, One Book” project to read and discuss “Waking up White”, by Debby Irving.
For Rebecca Reyes, the work never ends. The retired Presbyterian pastor has put a lifetime into working for the denomination by pastoring a church, working as a campus minister and leading Latino health services at Duke University Hospital. A fourth-generation Presbyterian, Reyes was the first Hispanic woman ordained by the denomination.
For the past seven years, the Rev. Byeongho Choi, pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Georgia, has served as the board chairperson for the Asian American Resource Center in Atlanta. However, Choi’s efforts in the Korean community of Atlanta go back much further.
As flameless candles cast faint shadows on the walls, worshipers at the Disciple-Making Church Conference entered the meeting room—transformed into sacred space—on the evening of January 18 prepared to experience a unique service inspired by the Japanese art form of Kintsugi.
Darius and Vera Swann used their skills as educators to spread the gospel in Asia and become an important part of the Presbyterian mission legacy. Growing up in the segregated South, the Swanns’ mission service was shaped by inequities they knew firsthand. That perspective would lead them to show respect and tolerance for their interfaith students and eventually would call them back to the U.S. to seek change in the midst of our own racial division.
One evening Dr. Anthea Butler was stopped for driving while black in her late-model luxury car. As a flashlight shone on her boyfriend’s pale face, the police officer asked, “Did you pick her up somewhere?”
