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A lone candle in the middle of a darkened room greeted the small-group participants. They had gathered for an evening of identifying their gifts — not the spiritual kind of prophesying or speaking in tongues as Paul talks about in the letter to the Corinthians. Those sometimes perplexing and seemingly elusive gifts to the average Christian would require a more intense workshop. Rather, the gifts to be unwrapped were those disguising themselves as talents, passions, interests and even vocations, which could do much in building God’s kingdom.
Jenn Chow, a hospice nurse, ruling elder and member of the worship team at Living Hope Church in Port Hueneme, California, and her husband, Sean, associate for training and leadership cohorts for the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities, know their way around new church plants and their leaders. And they really like them.
Jesus points to a widow who gives out of love. She did not seem embarrassed about a small gift, nor did it prevent her from giving.
Presbyterian survey of seminary life revealed a pressing need among students of color, which at the time represented a small percentage of seminarians attending various theological institutions nationwide. The study found that, in some cases, there were very few seminarians of color per campus, and most frequently, they were not members of the same racial or ethnic group.
Many people of faith have stopped asking big, unanswerable “why” questions. Questions like, “If God loves us and God is all powerful, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?”
As the Rev. Crawford Brubaker began working on what would be his new book, “Alas! A Lament for the United States of America,” he remembers tossing page after page of paper into the garbage.
Each piece — squeezed into a ball — contained some of the pain he felt due to the pandemic.
If you’re looking for a congregation that personifies the spirit of Matthew 25 congregational vitality, you will find one in White Rock Presbyterian Church in White Rock, an unincorporated community of nearly 6,000 people in Los Alamos County in north-central New Mexico.
In the late ‘80s, my spouse Loyda and I, originally from Cuba, moved to Louisville with our small children to attend seminary. A fellow white Anglo student tried to say Loyda’s name but kept mispronouncing it. He finally asked, “Why don’t you change your name?” My wife replied, “If I have to learn how to pronounce yours, you better learn how to pronounce mine.”
When the Presbyterian Giving Catalog first started arriving in 8-year-old Nathaniel’s mailbox, he had just one simple wish. A chicken.
As Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations commemorated Reformation Sunday — remembering when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses for reform on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517 — their thoughts turned to Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
