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Do you ever feel — just off? Lost, disconnected or maybe even … a little defeated?
Truth be told, we all feel this way once in a while. Yet we do the best we can to live every day to its fullest, and always with the reality that God’s love, God’s grace, which is the very essence of God, will never leave us.
“We’re Presbyterians. We don’t DO evangelism.”
I heard these words as I served as a presbytery’s associate for mission and evangelism. The speaker was the chair of a congregation’s Mission and Evangelism committee ….
Ecumenical Women at the United Nations, an international coalition of denominations and organizations that advocates for gender justice, held its initial gathering as part of the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Watch the nearly four-hour celebration and discussion, which was held at the United Nations Church Center, by going here.
Mahmoud Darkish once said, “Whenever they find the reality that doesn’t suit them, they alter it with a bulldozer.” It is the reality of the Palestinians facing the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. You know, the Nabka didn’t happen only in 1948; it has been happening since 1948, as the leveling of villages is still occurring. House demolitions are on the rise, confiscation of lands is still ongoing, children, young adults, and others continue to be imprisoned, ethnic cleansing still occurs and unemployment is skyrocketing. It was a shocking war of 1948, a war which led to “independence for Israel” but a Nakba for the Palestinian Arabs in which 750,000 at least were forced to leave their country, and where 600 villages were destroyed.
Near the end of his time on a recent “Between 2 Pulpits” podcast with the Rev. Dr. John Wilkinson and Katie Snyder, the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson waxed visionary when asked about his hope for the church.
From childhood, the Rev. Dr. Anita Wright, the pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montclair, New Jersey, has thought Wonder Woman — especially Linda Carter’s version — was wonderful.
Columbia Theological Seminary has been awarded a Climate Science in Theological Education (CSTE) grant by the American Association for the Advancement of Science through its Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion program.
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).
Jesus fed the hungry and told his disciples to do the same. Yet, we know that hunger is an extremely complex phenomenon with economic, political and social causes. The Presbyterian Hunger Program does root cause work that addresses the underlying questions of why people are hungry in order to reduce ongoing hunger. That work includes accompanying Presbyterians in questioning our economic lives as we move beyond what our dollars do in the offering plate, to considering what our dollars do in the marketplace.
The Gun Violence Prevention Working Group of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) has been hard at work. The team of 15 Working Group members has completely retooled its primary resource, the Gun Violence Prevention Congregational Toolkit. One of the few comprehensive resources for congregations on this issue, the prior toolkit editions have been accessed by more than 2,500 Presbyterians and others from all 50 states. It was time for an update!
