The Westminster Town Hall Forum at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis called on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery to deliver its annual Arc Toward Justice talk Thursday to mark the fourth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020.
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.
“Scoot a little closer to the screen,” the Rev. Nannette Banks, vice president for Community Engagement and Alumni Relations at McCormick Theological Seminary said to an online crowd Saturday, “and lean into the power of transforming theological education and the life of Howard Thurman. Lean in and enjoy.”
In the first of three forums in recognition of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s celebration of Black History Month, the Rev. Dr. Terrlyn L. Curry Avery, the pastor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, addressed the subject of service, sacrifice or self-care.
To set the stage for her “Circles of faith, Circle of Empowerment” message from Hebrews 11:23-28 on Friday, the Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz proclaimed during the recently renamed Association of Partners in Christian Education conference that attendees were going to experience the Holy Spirit throughout their whole body.
During a webinar this week, lay leaders from two congregations — one predominately Black, the other primarily white — shared how their conversations about race and justice in the past year have strengthened their resolve to learn more about systemic racism.
Less than a mile apart in Princeton, New Jersey, Nassau Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church have a long history as PC(USA) congregations in this historic community.
The Rev. Dr. Michael W. Waters, who wrote the award-winning “For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World,” published last year by Flyaway Books, brought a pair of show-and-tell items to punctuate his hour-long talk Thursday evening at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, brought some Pentecost panache to her virtual pulpit Sunday, preaching via a recording to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis on both a joyful and somber occasion: while Pentecost celebrates the birthday of the church, Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by former a former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. The crime, which helped spark a racial reckoning in communities across the nation, occurred about three miles south of the church.
Faith leaders will gather in front of the Justice Department in Washington D.C. and march to Freedom Plaza Friday afternoon to lament lives lost and demand just policies in policing and an end to racism.
