Hermeneutic skills of a higher order were on display Friday during the National Black Presbyterian Caucus’ opening worship service, which featured inspired and insightful preaching by the Rev. Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly (2020).
Recently, a pastor confessed, “My congregation doesn’t see me as human.” That’s not a strange comment considering the years clergy have had — having to work harder and adapting to the challenges of being the church in a pandemic that entangled many in a wired and wireless world.
“Turbulent” is how one New Jersey minister, who wished to remain anonymous, describes the past year and a half. Several of his church members with Covid sought prayers but didn’t want the congregation to know they had it. “Some thought Covid-19 was a joke or a political ploy, and there was no Covid-19 here,” he said.
On Wednesday, March 8 — International Women’s Day — members of the PC(USA) delegation to the 67th Commission on the Status of Women were hosted by Yuri A. Gala López, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, at the offices of Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations.
Whatever Covid stage churches find themselves in — post-pandemic, a return to in-person worship, a re-evaluation of what hybrid worship looks like, whatever the case — “we need to be attentive to the way our sermons are being offered to people,” the Rev. Dr. Peter Henry said Wednesday during the monthly “Equipping Preachers” webinar offered by the Synod of the Covenant.
A special town calls for a special pastor.
And the Rev. Sunjae Jung — initially worlds away from the storied college town of Athens, Georgia, home to the Athens Korean Presbyterian Church — heard God’s call loud and clear.
Although maybe not so clearly at first.
In 1970, the National Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP) began with a question: How should the Church respond to the growing disparity between rich and poor across the globe? Half a century later, the Covid pandemic and a canceled 50th anniversary celebration became an unexpected opportunity to answer that founding question in a new way.
The Rev. Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III, 10th president of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, has announced his intention to retire in 2023. President Pollard will serve until a new president is named and assumes office, no later than January 2024.
I was recently watching reruns of “M*A*S*H” — the iconic 1970s sitcom chronicling the lives of the nurses, doctors and even clergy working in a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War — when I came across an episode titled “Dear Sis.”
When Margo Smith thinks about Black Mountain Presbyterian Church’s commitment to addressing food insecurity and other community needs in western North Carolina, she is reminded of an engraving inside the church’s sanctuary.
Now that Presbyterian Youth Triennium Beyond events are being scheduled, Presbyterian News Service visited with PYT director Gina Yeager-Buckley to learn how new free online resources help young people go deeper into the theme of PYT2022, which was cancelled because of Covid.
