With less than a month before Mission Engagement & Support falls under the purview of the Administrative Services Group and away from the Presbyterian Mission Agency, top MES officials briefed the board of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), A Corporation on Thursday to let them know what the new arrangement, as determined by the 225th General Assembly last summer, will mean.
Registration for Stewardship Kaleidoscope is still underway, with a July 31 early-bird registration deadline approaching for the Sept. 26-28 event to be held in Savannah, Georgia.
The Rev. Chris Roseland has been named acting senior director of Mission Engagement and Support in the Presbyterian Mission Agency effective June 30. He succeeds the Rev. Rosemary C. Mitchell, who recently announced her retirement after nearly 10 years with the PMA.
Dr. Corey Schlossser-Hall has been on the job for 10 days as the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Director of Rebuilding and Vision Implementation. As he proved to the PMA Board Wednesday, he already has a clear vision of what he hopes to accomplish — together with the help of lots of new colleagues and plenty of former colleagues in mid councils and congregations across the country — over the next nine months or so.
The Rev. Jon Moore, a mission engagement advisor for 1001 New Worshiping Communities, had a real-life example to explain the relationship new worshiping communities have with the presbyteries in which they do ministry.
Crowdsourcing existed long before the internet.
Of course, we didn’t call it that. In some instances, we called it a miracle. Consider this: What was, for you, the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000? Was it that Jesus single-handedly fed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves? Or was the miracle that the message of Jesus inspired an unexpected outpouring of generosity, the likes of which no one had ever seen? A level of generosity that was miraculous?
Recently, the Office of the General Assembly released the 2020 annual statistics report showing a decline in membership last year at just over 56,000, which is about the same loss rate as has been reported since 2016. For 2020, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) counts a total membership of about 1.24 million members, with the total number of congregations at 8,925.
Now in its seventh, record-breaking year, the Presbyterian Giving Catalog — which offers a wide variety of gifts that provide real and positive impact around the world — has just debuted in Spanish and Korean.
While tummies are still full from Thanksgiving and hearts have just begun to glow with the first candlelight of Advent, the secular calendar offers yet another important observance — #GivingTuesday.
