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With a 30-pound pack on his back and a mission in his heart, the Rev. Zachary Morton, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Morgantown, West Virginia, set out in September on an eight-day, nearly 150-mile walk to the state capitol in Charleston.
The Rev. John Russell Stanger doesn’t like talking about money, or his student loan debt.
“It’s so uncomfortable,” he said. “But we’ve got to do it, so that others know help is available for people like me who want to serve smaller congregations.”
With nearly all of her trips to see family and friends temporarily on hold during the pandemic, Lucy Janjigian simply lets her fingers — and her imagination — do the walking, straight through every colorful page of the Presbyterian Giving Catalog.
I keep thinking about the mother of the disciples James and John, you know her as the wife of Zebedee.
Her name was Salome, which means peace. She may have been the sister of Jesus’ mother, which would have made her Jesus’ aunt, and James and John, Jesus’ cousins. Jesus gave them the name Boanerges, which means “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17, Luke 9:54).
The centuries-old Black struggle for freedom and equality in the creation of a better country, a better world, has erupted in Louisville. The Movement for Black Lives, powerful and undaunted community organizing by young people committed to racial and social justice, came into existence here and everywhere because it had to.
We gathered by the shoreline of a lake in Colorado. We were tired and showing symptoms of compassion fatigue. We had endured 24 deaths in 12 months — 10 of those by suicide.
In 2012, the General Assembly made a bold commitment — to create an environment within the denomination that would lead to the flourishing of the existing church and the birth of at least 1001 new communities of worship and witness. The Presbyterian Mission Agency went to work creating a system of resources to support this call to equip presbyteries, help potential leaders discern God’s call, develop a system of grants, build leadership capacity and create a network of coaches prepared to accompany a new worshiping community through all the stages of development. Establishing partnerships and collaboration with other North American denominations, the reach of these resources extends far beyond the PC(USA).
Intercultural leadership, according to the Rev. W. Tali Hairston, is about the power of leadership that takes to heart the stories from below.
The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” avant-garde film wasn’t well-received back in 1967. But its iconic status and concept proved stunningly successful in the middle of a pandemic.
The 85 or so Presbyterians studying the underpinnings of systemic poverty zoomed out to take in a more global perspective recently, thanks to presentations by Valéry Nodem and the Rev. Jed Koball.
