“On Sunday, March 10, 1822, four men and six women swore an oath together in district school #1 on the corner of Concord and Adams Street in the village of Brooklyn,” reads Collette Foster, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, New York, in a video series celebrating the congregation’s bicentennial. “Their idea,” Foster continues, “was to organize a house of worship and to found the only Presbyterian church in their settlement of 7,000 people.”
“A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” turned its attention last week to the repair of historic harms, including reparations. The guest of the Rev. Lee Catoe and Simon Doong was the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, named last year to direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Center for the Repair of Historic Harms. Listen to their conversation, which is about 50 minutes, by going here. Ross-Allam comes in during the 20th minute.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board spent more than two hours in closed session Thursday undergoing boundaries training put on by the Minnesota-based LeaderWise consulting firm. Part two of the training for board members is slated for Friday afternoon, again in closed session.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s (PMA) proposed Mission Work Plan for 2023–24 was presented to the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) last week and approved to send on to the General Assembly this summer.
During the final day of its three-day online winter meeting, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board voted to allocate $9 million from unrestricted reserve funds for three purposes.
Dr. Corey Schlossser-Hall has been on the job for 10 days as the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Director of Rebuilding and Vision Implementation. As he proved to the PMA Board Wednesday, he already has a clear vision of what he hopes to accomplish — together with the help of lots of new colleagues and plenty of former colleagues in mid councils and congregations across the country — over the next nine months or so.
With the exception of how the term “militarism” is understood, the proposed 2023-2024 Mission Work Plan received a warm reception Thursday by the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board’s Coordinating Committee.