mission crossroads Archives

Ebb and flow

Posted June 14th, 2022

One of the churches I visit every few years is Grace Taiwanese American Presbyterian Church outside of Trenton, New Jersey. I was briefly its youth director during seminary, and it was part of my call to ministry in Taiwan.

God provides hope in Syria — and the United States

Posted June 13th, 2022

Al-Hassakeh is a major town in northeast Syria that has existed for almost 1,000 years as part of the historic Silk Road. This part of the world has been Christian from around the time Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. The Rev. Mathilde Sabbagh ministers there with her congregation, the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Al-Hassakeh, to support her community without regard to religious affiliation.

Academic space in Argentina serves God’s mission in the world

Posted June 7th, 2022

There are still so many wonderings about what the church would look like, to face the current state of affairs in the world. What does it take to transform entire generations into disciples of Christ on their journey witnessing that a better world is possible? Here is the story of an initiative called REET (the Ecumenical Network of Theological Education):

Welcoming the stranger

Posted May 25th, 2022

As part of his sabbatical from Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, a few years ago, the Rev. Brad Smith brought his wife, Nancy, and their three young adult children to Taiwan to experience the richness of both Taiwan’s culture and church life.

Building faith connections that last a lifetime

Posted May 20th, 2021

In the late 1980s, when I was serving as a youth group leader in my local congregation, my pastor invited me to attend a gathering that I recognize now as the early stages of a new movement for youth in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Even as I was being drawn headlong into the phenomenon that was — and still is — the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, I had no idea how the lens through which I viewed the PC(USA) was about to change.

‘That they all may be one’

Posted April 8th, 2021

Racism in South Africa was legally instituted and theologically justified by some churches. It has remained embedded in the fabric of society to this day, manifesting itself in many subtle ways that cause racial discrimination, inequality, violence and ridicule of the “other.”

One congregation’s response to American imperialism

Posted April 6th, 2021

In 1997 I served as associate pastor at a Korean immigrant church in Atlanta. I led a group to visit the missionary work of a retired deacon commissioned by his Korean Presbyterian church in Maryland to connect with surviving “Koreanos” in Mexico. In 1905 more than 1,000 migrant workers left Korea to work on plantations in the Yucatán through deception, and today many thousands of descendants still live there.

The white man’s gospel

Posted March 26th, 2021

At its heart, the Reweaving the Ecological Mat initiative, now coordinated by the Pacific Conference of Churches, is about reclaiming the Pacific identity, an identity intimately interwoven with the land, seas and skies, but stolen by a racist gospel.

Praying for the women of Hagar’s Community Church

Posted March 20th, 2020

Hagar’s Community Church, a 1001 New Worshiping Community in Olympia Presbytery located inside the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW), is currently unable to meet for worship due to social distancing required inside the prison during the COVID-19 health crisis.

Presbyterian Church of Kabuga transforms schools

Posted February 7th, 2020

The Presbyterian Church of Kabuga, Rwanda, has two primary schools — Kabuga (with 310 students) and Muyumba (with 192 students). Parents, students and teachers are celebrating the fourth consecutive school year that students in Primary 6 in both schools have achieved a perfect score on Rwanda’s national examination.