One of the perks of being a PDA volunteer is getting to wear the infamous blue T-shirt. All you must do to earn a shirt is participate in PDA disaster recovery efforts. Whether you’ve been on a PDA work trip or any mission trip at all, you know how God’s Spirit stirs something within you when you when you volunteer. There’s something humbling and sacred about approaching a service opportunity with open hands and a willing heart. For some, a blue T-shirt may not mean much. But, for many, donning a blue PDA T-shirt is a symbol of pride and reminder of community resilience.
A queer psychotherapist who wrote a book about how people can rediscover their faith after a harmful church experience was a recent guest on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to the 35-minute conversation that hosts Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe had with Matthias Roberts, author of “Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion,” by going here.
When the Apostle Paul wrote about the varieties of God-given abilities conferred by the Spirit, the Rev. Peggy Krong — a gifted former English teacher — would be the first to admit that she likely missed out on the gift of financial expertise.
First Presbyterian Church of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, saw a need in its community for an animal shelter and heeded God’s command to care for its neighbor, Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility.
It has resulted in a program that engages prisoners at the facility to help train animals cared for by the shelter, All God’s Creatures, and thus make them more adoptable.
A couple of weeks ago, the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (GACEIR) met via Zoom for our winter meeting. In addition to working to review our work on actions referred to us from GA225, we spent time in worship and devotion. On Thursday, we remembered the church’s commitment to stand in solidarity with our siblings who are experiencing violence by wearing black. We invite you to join us each Thursday to stand with and pray for the end of violence in all areas of our lives.
Raquel Willis, a transgender woman who wrote “The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation,” quoted for a crowd recently gathered online and in person for the Westminster Town Hall Forum this snippet from Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”: “I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live.”
David French, a decorated military veteran and former litigator who’s now a New York Times columnist and the McClendon Scholar at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., borrows from the prophet Micah for his three commandments for Christians in politics.
A Brooklyn church has become a refuge and spiritual home for newcomers to New York City at a time when a massive influx of asylum seekers has challenged the city to its core.
As this new year begins, I invite you to take a moment to think about what you and the groups you belong to need. What clarity is needed? What do you need to take that next step? As you look ahead, consider a retreat. We all need time away from our daily rhythms to discover new patterns and get the rest and inspiration needed to sustain us.
“Home is tied to people, family, friends. It can be church, community, places where one belongs and feel welcome,” said the Rev. Mamisoa Rakotomalala in an episode of The New Way podcast called “Where We Call Home.”
