In the vast sea of vendors that populate the Marketplace & Bookstore at the Association of Partners in Christian Education 2024 Annual Event, there’s only one who literally makes a splash.
And that would be Gracie.
Telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of the man who’d been left for dead, the Rev. Cedric Portis Sr. preached a thought-provoking sermon during opening worship for the Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education, which recently met in St. Louis.
Participants from across the country, representing 15 of the 16 synods of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), traveled to the Atlanta area the week of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday for the first Matthew 25 Summit. The Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, Presbytery of Baltimore and Denver Presbytery drew the greatest number of participants, but 93 of the 166 presbyteries of the PC(USA) — 56% — were represented at the Summit. The event was fully booked with a waiting list of 30 by the time it commenced on the campus of New Life Presbyterian Church in South Fulton and online.
“Achieving gender equality and women’s well-being in all aspects of life is more crucial than ever if we want to create prosperous economies and a healthy planet,” according to the United Nations. “However, we are facing a key challenge: the alarming $360 billion annual deficit in gender-equality measures by 2030.”
The Presbytery of Utah is gearing up for the 226th General Assembly this summer. In the first in a series of videos, Utah area pastors, members and presbytery leaders talk about the beautiful outdoors, friendly communities and the embrace of ecumenical ministry. Utah Presbyterians are looking forward to showing how “God is at work throughout the state.”
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the Fred Rogers Institute at Saint Vincent College have partnered to offer a one-year post-doctoral fellowship in theology and ministry beginning in summer 2024.
Several Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-workers and other employees moderated workshops and leading discussion groups at the recent People on the Move partner conference in Rome.
Drawing an insightful and inspirational Matthew 25 Summit to a close with worship, the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett asked those gathered at New Life Presbyterian Church in South Fulton, Georgia, and online to “consider with me” the thrust of her sermon, “Dream Driven.”
On the second day of the Matthew 25 Summit, the community again gathered itself at the New Life Presbyterian Church in South Fulton, Georgia, for a unique worship experience, in which gently evocative music flowed seamlessly into the creative force of the spoken word, the grace of liturgical dance, and again into poetry, song and silence.
Since early 2021, I’ve been participating in weekly book discussions via Zoom, designed to bring together all kinds of people for meaningful conversations, particularly about race, but also any other lines that too often keep us separated from each other. These book groups and other activities have been hosted by the First Presbyterian (of Salisbury, North Carolina) Race Task Force, which formed in 2019, brainstorming how they might promote such connections within and outside our congregation. In the book groups alone, co-leader Barrie Kirby estimates that 60–70 participants have been involved in at least one of the 15–20 book and video studies, some in all of them.
