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Mission Yearbook
What do you do when your Sunday school consists of one three-year-old child? If you’re First Presbyterian Church of Myrtle Point, Oregon, you invite other kids from the community to join her.
Tacoma church finds success in learning center for children
On any given afternoon, Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington, is abuzz with young people talking about math or science or reading a good book. It’s not uncommon to find fifth graders sitting with kindergarteners, helping them with their homework.
Nostalgia Creates New Connections
More than a decade had passed, but church members throughout the presbytery remembered the Pentecost Event. “Remember all those people? We filled the gym at Rhodes College!” “Remember that choir? Magnificent!” “I got to catch up with so many old friends!” “It was the best thing our presbytery has ever done!”
Remembering the Children in Jesus’ Name
Larry Coleman has been the sexton at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi, for some 38 years. He was in his early 20s when he came to Briarwood and for years has enabled the ministry of the congregation in many ways. Four years after he started working at Briarwood, he became a bus driver for the Jackson Public Schools. It was then that the damp chill of a Southern winter gave rise to an informal ministry that unfolded in a special way. Coleman noticed some hats and gloves that had been left at church from a project to provide schoolchildren with warm clothing and asked if he could take the hats and gloves along on his bus route. Women in the church began supplying him with more, as well as with knitted scarves, to keep on the bus all winter to distribute as needed.
Minute for Mission: Public Education
In the summer of 2013, Nikkitta Jacobs of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, received news that her son, Jaden, who had just turned three, would not have a spot at the Clara Hearne Head Start Center that fall. Facing a $267,000 budget reduction, the center had to cut 37 children from its incoming class.
Creative approach leads retired pastors to serve 10-member congregation
Two years ago Glacier Presbytery faced a challenge that may not be unique to that presbytery—how to find effective pastoral leadership for a very small, very rural congregation. The congregation of Community Presbyterian Church in Whitlash, Montana, with its 10 members, provides a vital ministry to that area, being the only church in that ranching community. Their remoteness presented an additional difficulty, as they are located more than 20 miles from the nearest paved road. Over the years they had tried many methods of securing pastoral leadership, sharing with nearby churches from other denominations, making weekly calls seeking a pastor to fill the pulpit, and helping a local person become trained as a commissioned ruling elder. When their pulpit once again became vacant, they reached out to the presbytery, wondering if there was a way to have a teaching elder serve them, even though their funds were very limited.
Congregation embraces organic gardening to combat hunger
The rolling, beautiful valleys of Marin County, California, provide the perfect backdrop for Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church. One look at this majestic landscape and it doesn’t take much to inspire people to protect and nurture it.
Fair trade artisan group credits Presbyterians with helping it reach milestone
Artisans from Peru, Cambodia, and other countries who have struggled with poverty most of their lives are celebrating a milestone. Partners for Just Trade (PJT), a nonprofit that connects artisans from impoverished areas with North American consumers, is commemorating its 10th anniversary this year.
Humble beginnings yield impressive results for Earth Care Congregation
Nearly three years ago, Fellowship Presbyterian Church (FPC) in Huntsville, Alabama, launched its witness for environmental conservation by simply changing its lightbulbs. Since then, FPC has greatly expanded its environmental ministries, becoming a PC(USA) Earth Care Congregation and organizing a food distribution community program to complement its environmental commitment. As PC(USA) Associate for Environmental Ministries Rebecca Barnes says, “We recognize that earth care ministries do well to encompass issues of poverty and hunger alleviation, peacemaking, and more. Caring for all in God’s creation includes social justice.”
Congregation hosts interfaith conversation
“There is something about being a junior at a Catholic college that makes you more Muslim,” Ali Ahmed recently quipped to a packed fellowship hall at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.
