A Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) delegation will travel to Eastern Europe this month in a show of solidarity with people in and near Ukraine as the war with Russia continues to create death, destruction and displacement.
Sandwiched between two brief but effective worship services, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board met via Zoom Thursday to learn more about the work of innovation, repair, Matthew 25, the grant process and professional development and diversity training that’s ongoing among PMA staff.
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II noted that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his final birthday on Jan. 15, 1968, helping to plan the Poor People’s March that he would not live to see. Meeting in the basement of the historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King’s staff presented the civil rights leader with a birthday cake and a few gag gifts. “They cut his birthday cake and they laughed for a while,” said Nelson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “and then he said, ‘Let’s get back to work.’ On his last birthday he reminded us there is still work to be done.”
As one who wrote the book on the role the Black church has played working to bring about social justice in the United States, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins was the logical choice Tuesday to complete Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Just Preach/Just Act series. The series began Monday with a sermon by the Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler.
As 2022 draws to a close, the hosts of the Being Matthew 25 broadcast, the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett and the Rev. DeEtte Decker, took a look back at the content they helped to create during each monthly episode.
Nearly 15,000 people facing crippling medical debt will receive an early Christmas present this year thanks to congregations in the Synod of Mid-America and in neighboring states.
Anticipation is building for a 2023 travel study seminar to the U.S. Southwest that will help participants understand the richness of Native American culture and how Indigenous people have been harmed by the Doctrine of Discovery and other forms of white supremacy.
“Need-based aid is one of the many ways that the Presbyterian Mission Agency responds to its Matthew 25 priorities to end structural racism and poverty.” This statement appears at the end of the full-page announcement in Presbyterians Today about scholarships for full-time undergraduate and seminary students belonging to Presbyterian churches.
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.
Sunday morning worship was long over with, yet the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church in Gainesville, Florida, was filled with activity. Musicians setting their music stands at the right height. Singers warming up their vocal cords. Ushers greeting those who came for what would be an inspiring afternoon of a community showing their “Love in Action.”
