When Mother Nature rages, Eden Roberts knows her phone is going to start ringing.
“They want to go to the place they saw on the news,” says the mission specialist for hosting and volunteer management for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). “After (Hurricane) Sandy, they all wanted to go to New Jersey where the boardwalk got torn down. Now, Mexico Beach (the Florida town where Hurricane Michael made landfall in October) — everybody wants to go to Mexico Beach.”
World Day of Prayer is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women who welcome all to join in prayer and action for peace and justice. This year, World Day of Prayer is celebrated Friday, March 1. The annual worship service is created by an invited writer country. In 2018, the service was created by the World Day of Prayer Committee of Suriname. With Genesis 1:1–31 as their guiding Scripture, the women of Suriname reminded us that we are all caretakers of God’s good creation. They wrote, “What God creates is always good! In the first five days, all that is needed is made ready until humankind is created. We are created in God’s image. We are worthy just because God loves us, but the creator holds us accountable for how we care for the environment and all the beings on earth. We can’t be careless or wasteful. It is time to seriously think about what we have done to God’s creation.”
Because it’s relatively nearby for tens of thousands of Presbyterians and because it’s the site of the 224th General Assembly next year — and also because it’s an important American city with big-city challenges and innovations — Baltimore is the site for Big Tent Aug. 1–3, one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s signature events.
Building bridges between Central Presbyterian Church in Des Moines, Iowa, and others in the faith community is the thinking behind a series of get-to-know-you meals the congregation is calling “souper suppers.”
While sitting in a committee meeting in 2004, Tom Neal asked, “How do we help all our churches get involved in mission?” Since no formal system was in place within the Presbytery of Detroit at that time, he and others worked to create the Hands-On Mission Work Group (HOMWG).
Every time my wife wants me to try a different recipe that she has prepared, I start finding a reason to say no. I want to ask her, “What is in the recipe? Why do we have to try something different?” These thoughts run through my mind before I eat the new dish.
When leader Nick Pickrell heard that The Open Table KC would receive a $25,000 1001 New Worshiping Community growth grant from the Presbyterian Mission Agency, he said, “What? What!”
It is not hard for visitors from the mainland United States to draw comparisons between Campamento El Guacio and Presbyterian camps back home. “You can just imagine kids there in the summertime,” says Bryce Wiebe, director of
Special Offerings for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, reflecting on the facility with the requisite dorms, dining hall and fields you expect at a summer camp.
Online giving is steadily growing at “Decatur’s oldest church with the newest ideas,” according to the Rev. Dr. Todd Speed. He’s the senior pastor at Decatur Presbyterian Church, an 800-member multi-generational church in the east Atlanta metro area that has used services from the Presbyterian Foundation to collect online donations since 2012.
Every year, the first Sunday in Lent is designated “Wear your blue T-shirt to church Sunday” as a testament of one of the ways that One Great Hour of Sharing makes a difference.
