As over 1,000 college students and their advisors rushed the doors of Montreat Conference Center’s Anderson Auditorium on Jan. 2 for the annual College Conference’s opening worship, Frisbees featuring the logo of UKirk — the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s collegiate ministries network — flew overhead. The energy level at the gathering — as high as the soaring Frisbees — continued throughout the evening as attendees were introduced to the conference theme, “Beyond Babel,” based on Genesis 11:1–9. The 2017 conference, slated for Jan. 2–5, is designed to help participants see in the ancient text “how God gave an ancient people a holy nudge towards diversity” as they are challenged to consider how God is similarly nudging God’s people today.
As of January 1, 2017, the Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center has transferred its operations from the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to the National Ghost Ranch Foundation (NGRF). The NGRF, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation established in 1972 exclusively to support Ghost Ranch as a ministry of the PC(USA), has been providing financial, operational and volunteer resources for Ghost Ranch.
The Rev. Susan Washburn, interim editor of Presbyterians Today, says the periodical is looking forward to a few changes in the new year as it seeks to more effectively engage readers and celebrate the good news of Christ’s work in the people and churches of the PC(USA).
While water protectors, encamped near the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri rivers in North Dakota, endure brutal winter weather, Elona Street-Stewart, synod executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, recounted her mid-November trip to the encampment, describing the camp, the work to prepare for the north’s raw winter, the sacredness of water and the role of the church.
The Way Forward Commission has begun to discern next steps for its work – including considering some issues it may be able to act on quickly, and starting to figure out how to organize its longer-term work.
As immigration rights activists prepare for what is next in a post-election atmosphere of anti-immigrant sentiment, those that previously offered sanctuary to deportees aren’t waiting for the new administration to be installed.
Many people make a new year’s resolution to read through the Bible, but one Louisville area Presbyterian pastor is joining a statewide effort in Kentucky to read the scriptures aloud, continuously and in an uninterrupted flow—Genesis to Revelation—in less than four days.
Imagine what type of ministry you would start if you had no fear of failure or financial limitations. That’s exactly what the Synod of the Northeast is asking people to consider as it receives another round of Innovation Grant applications.
This is the big picture meeting – when the 12 members of the Way Forward Commission try to get their minds and hearts around the work that lies before them. The commission has a daunting job – the 2016 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) created it to “study and identify a vision for the structure and function of the General Assembly entities of the PC(USA).”
John H. Glenn, Jr., best known as the first American to orbit the earth, died yesterday at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus at the age of 95. What is less known about Glenn is his lifelong membership in the Presbyterian Church and the faith that influenced his life’s work.
