More than 15 years ago, Efi Latsoudi moved from Athens, Greece, to Lesvos Island when she realized “there are refugees suffering and local society didn’t know much about it. No one was taking care of them. I wanted to know what was happening to them.” She founded Lesvos Solidarity, an organization that serves refugees and others and is supported in part by gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering, which many Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations received Sunday as part of World Communion Sunday.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency celebrated the International Day of Peace on Wednesday with a chapel service led by this year’s International Peacemakers and personnel from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
For Monday’s Between Two Pulpits broadcast, Dr. William McConnell, interim director of Special Offerings, celebrated the start of the Young Adult Volunteer program year by talking to two YAV alums who were equal parts passionate and practical about their own YAV experiences.
Still reveling in the season of the Pentecost Offering, the guests on Monday’s Between Two Pulpits told host Dr. William McConnell about the ways their church uses the 40% of the Special Offering it retains to serve young adults, youth and children at risk. Watch the guests from Heritage Presbyterian Church in Mason, Ohio, tell their story here.
Monday’s Between Two Pulpits, an online conversation put on each week by Special Offerings’ interim director Dr. Bill McConnell, was a how-to in effective after-school ministry, as told by two pastors who decades ago co-founded Rising TIDE at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Long Beach, California.
The pandemic has indeed nixed the planned in-person Presbyterian Youth Triennium this summer. But youth leaders across the country are coming up with local and regional gatherings and other offerings for youth and young adults, including six presbyteries in Pennsylvania planning an event they’re calling the Presbyterian Youth Tri-PENNium, to be held at the Krislund Camp & Retreat Center in Madisonburg.
The educator and author who for 15 years has brought Presbyterians the adventures of Gracie the fish revealed to a Between Two Pulpits audience Monday the secret to keeping her underwater tales current: take an annual trip to the local aquarium.
Bryce Wiebe, director of Special Offerings and the Presbyterian Giving Catalog for the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) since March 1, 2015, has announced his resignation, which will take effect today, Jan. 21.
It’s that time of year again: time to take a quick breath to recall Advent and Christmas celebrations; time to look ahead to what the new year will bring. It’s also time to consider your local congregation’s missional priorities and the financial pledges you have received so that a budget can be finalized.
When I was a child, my family took frequent weekend trips from Charlotte to visit longtime friends in Lemon Springs, North Carolina. Lemon Springs was (and is) barely more than a dot on a map and a wide spot on the road, but my sister and I knew every traffic light, turn, ice cream shop and landmark along the way.
