From February through April, the Rev. Thirza Sayers was in bed, in another space of darkness.
The leader of Light for the Darkness, a new worshiping community that serves as a mental health ministry in the Presbytery of Giddings Lovejoy and pastor at Hillside Presbyterian Church in House Springs, Missouri, has lived with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder for 30 years. Then came post-traumatic stress disorder. This combination, treated with 20 Electroconvulsive Therapy sessions, sidelined her from 2013 to 2017, when she took mental health disability leave.
The founding pastor of Brambleton Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Elizabeth Brookens-Sturman, remembers what it was like to establish a new Christian church presence in the area just beyond the Capital Beltway. That’s why she isn’t taking lightly Brambleton’s honor of being named the “best of” churches in Ashburn, Virginia, announced in a recent issue of a local magazine.
Like many churches across America, First Presbyterian Church of Lake Charles, Louisiana, had long been on a downward spiral, struggling with an aging congregation, declining membership and dire financial concerns.
The Presbyterian Church of Washington, Missouri, likes bugs — outdoors, that is. So much so that Jolene Patterson, described by many in the congregation as the “capable and creative” chairman of the mission committee, recently wrote and obtained three grants to fund an expansion of the church’s mission garden. The garden was started about six years ago by longtime member David Brunworth, a recently retired family physician. As all gardeners know, larger gardens attract more insects — and more insects mean more birds. That’s the short story of how the Eastern Bluebird discovered one lone nesting box in the church’s backyard.
Heading into the 2021/2022 church program year holds many questions, anxieties and hopes for new beginnings and new ways of gathering. Faith formation is the heart of our communities, and we are beginning to live into exploring how formation happens in a variety of contexts.
Susan Ehterton, a real estate developer and ruling elder at Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia with 35 years of experience in redevelopment and affordable housing, explained the church’s journey as moving “from one stone edifice to another stone edifice” — one with 173 units of affordable housing and, as it turns out, room for the congregation as well.
Chapel by the Sea Presbyterian Church is where wedding dreams come true. Nestled among knotty pine trees on the rocky Washington coastline, the chapel, however, provides more than just nuptial photo ops. It provides a snapshot of hope for residents living in the hamlet of Moclips who struggle to put food on the table.
Over the past year amid a pandemic, protests and politics, I often heard many pastors, elders and mid council staff say that they are having a particularly hard time making ends meet. People aren’t giving the way they used to give. These churches and presbyteries are struggling to do more with less, and it’s the same way at the place where I currently serve, the Presbyterian Mission Agency — which has had a 40% reduction of our workforce over the past 10 years. In the end, the need is becoming greater and greater.
Officially, the Presbyterian Pan American School is a “Christian international college-preparatory boarding school located in Kingsville, Texas.” But to Adelite Hategeka, it’s a second home filled with family from around the world.
