Synod School, put on each year by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, turns 70 this year, and so who else would leaders ask to preach during opening worship on Sunday than Elona Street-Stewart, a septuagenarian who’s the synod’s executive and Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly (2020).
When Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri learned that the 226th General Assembly of the PC(USA) would be celebrating the 75th anniversary of One Great Hour of Sharing — complete with a limited edition, enamel pin featuring Gracie, the Offering’s beloved mascot — she didn’t want to miss out.
When a Korean-American church celebrates its 70th year anniversary by opening with a Native American (Elona Street-Stewart, the Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly) telling the story of her people in Turtle Island thousands of year before it became United States, the destruction that came with Christian mission in Turtle Island, and the impossible gospel-bloom from the dust (the storyteller is a Christian Native American!), at first it’s difficult for your brain to adjust. It all seems darker, but it’s not.
In response to a referral from the 224th General Assembly (2020) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) for the Presbyterian Mission Agency to develop theological resources for how the church has benefited at the expense of Native American peoples, a consultation was held with Native American leaders at Stony Point Center in New York Sept. 13-15.
Native American leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from around the country met in person Nov. 4-6 in Farmington, Minnesota, for the first time since 2020 to discuss implementation of the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery by the 222nd General Assembly (2016).
America’s history with Indigenous peoples hasn’t always been neighborly. In the past five years, the General Assembly has taken actions to change that legacy, and to be neighbors not conquerors.
Led and inspired by the joyful recorded percussion provided by youth drummers at Beechmont Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Presbyterians on Tuesday dedicated the Presbyterian Center’s new conference center that will host the 225th General Assembly — and, perhaps, some future assemblies as well.
During Thursday’s Being Matthew 25 discussion on generational change, Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall kept hearkening back to a favorite verse in the Old Testament, Psalm 34:8: “O taste and see that the Lord is good …”
Orientation for moderators and co-moderators of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) probably never included learning how to sniff out the one true story from a trio of weird church stories.
If their repartee on Facebook is any indication, the current and former General Assembly co-moderators, moderators and vice moderators, quite frankly, miss each other.
