At the outset of a recent webinar on vital congregations, organizers the Rev. Veronica Cannon, the Rev. Tony Oltmann and Marla Edwards had the nearly 70 participants play a game: name an outdated mode of technology beginning with “V,” “C,” “I” or “M” that your faith community might still be using.
When God promised to be present through life’s floods and fires, the assurance was of little comfort to Trell, whose house burned to the ground in March.
Liberty Community Church is the only African American-led PC(USA) church in the state of Minnesota. Located in North Minneapolis in one of the city’s poorest ZIP codes and situated between major interstates which make the area a prime spot for sex trafficking and illegal drug trading, this Matthew 25 congregation revitalized the spaces of two Presbyterian churches that closed in the last 30 years and transformed them into healing spaces for the neighborhood.
People with ears tuned to the Matthew 25 vision of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) heard plenty of support for the movement woven through this summer’s Worship & Music Conference presented by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM), which is a Matthew 25 group.
Saint James Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, has been involved in social justice ministry “from its inception,” Ruling Elder Mildred Powell says.
An unprecedented gathering last week brought more than 200 Presbyterian Mission Agency staff to the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky, for Vision Convocation, a week-long celebration, sharing, learning and listening session that included mission co-workers serving in about 80 countries around the world.
As we enter a season of dreaming and discerning what God has ahead for Presbyterians Today, we wanted to look back and celebrate the wonderful people, places and projects we’ve been blessed to share with our readers.
Paola Tognarelli’s [Tog-na-rē-le] connection to Mother Earth is sacred.
Just like the bond she now shares with the other significant women in her life.
“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.”
From helping women to start businesses in Panama to amplifying the voices of unhoused people in California, partners of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People are making an impact worth celebrating.
