Make A Donation
Click Here >
Mission Yearbook
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)
Everyone can do something for peace.
What can one person do to advance world peace? Elizabeth Meehan, an elder at Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church of Saratoga Springs, New York, learned. Eight years ago, Meehan wanted to get involved in peacemaking, a cause that touches the environment, equitable access to resources, hunger, and many other topics. Meehan gained the support of her church’s Social Concerns Committee, and the Peace Fair was born.
new calling
In the nearly four years since Hurricane Sandy struck the United States, volunteer work teams from across the country have traveled to the hard-hit regions, particularly New Jersey and New York, to help people recover and return to their homes. But after months of hosting recovery teams, one church believes the time has come to close the doors on its Sandy relief efforts.
The pieces may be different, but the center holds us fast.
These days, I suppose we could consider Christ our “Network Administrator,” the only One who is permitted to make changes in our lives together. Network administrators are those folks to whom we turn when our computers experience a glitch, when our systems are all confused, and when we just need to “reboot.” The Administrator can fix it all and get us back on track!
Do you call today’s Gospel reading (Luke 16:1–13) the parable of the Dishonest Steward, the Shrewd Manager, or something else? Either way, in the end, this servant pleases the master in the story with his more abundant view of the economy and in spite of unjust accounting to gain friends and shelter. We could call the servant a shrewd investor in eternal homes.
A common religious conceit is that people turn to prayer only in times of difficulty and despair. In my time as a hospice chaplain, I have found that idea to be untrue. Often pain and grief seem to stifle one’s ability to connect with God in prayer. Prayer can seem both insufficient and overwhelming when trauma has pierced the soul. I am often called in to assist people in these times of spiritual disconnect.
In December 2013 Steve Shive had a dream.
Shive, general presbyter of the Presbytery of Wyoming, says that in the dream, he felt a strong sense to create a place where God’s people could come together to work on spiritual practices. “I saw our teaching and ruling elders coming together to learn from each other,” he says, “and to engage in the presence of their lives in Christ in community.”
Winnebago Presbytery got a chance to learn from its counterpart in Colombia earlier this year when five visitors from Urabá Presbytery spent a week in northern Wisconsin.
The sounds could be coming from any busy school office responding to myriad requests: Someone needs first aid for a scraped elbow. Someone else is turning in a missing nametag. Someone else wants to change classes.
But this school is different. It’s Synod School, the annual midsummer ministry of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies. It’s a nearly weeklong event—Sunday afternoon through Friday noon—that always runs the last week in July at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.
The way Mark Roberson sees it, it was Roswell Presbyterian Church’s turn to plant a church.
Roberson, a ruling elder for over 50 years—18 at Roswell—knew about church planting. He’d worked with the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta’s New Church Development Commission, and in 2011 he just knew it was Roswell’s time.
A group of 19 young adults from the Presbytery of Yukon faced some significant travel challenges when they went to West Lafayette, Indiana, for this year’s Presbyterian Youth Triennium.
The delegation came from all parts of Alaska, from Barrow in the north to Anchorage in the south, where average temperatures in July range from 60 to 70 degrees during the day and 40 to 50 degrees in the evening. Indiana greeted them with temperatures approaching or exceeding 90 degrees and humidity that ranged from the high 70s to mid-80s each day. As if that wasn’t enough of an adjustment, the group was assigned to a dormitory without air conditioning.
