While the world tries to rush us into Christmas, decorating the day after Halloween and packing it all up once the gifts are opened on Dec. 25, Advent is a season of preparation that — like our holiday gatherings themselves — takes time and care.
The Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo, an eco-theologian and Presbyterian pastor who coordinates the Climate Justice and Faith Spanish online program at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, went to Matthew 20:1–16, the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, and a landmark study using the board game Monopoly to offer a sermon during the Presbyterians for Earth Care conference.
South Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, recently celebrated the beginning of the second decade of selling its building and implementing its Acts of Faith community, a throwback to a first-century model of being the church.
Like so many people she knows, Mary Osburn has more than she could ever need or want.
Which is exactly why the longtime ruling elder and Mission Committee chair at the First Presbyterian Church of Fulton, Missouri, immediately thought of the Presbyterian Giving Catalog when helping to plan the church’s annual Christmas Fair Trade International Market last year.
When God promised to be present through life’s floods and fires, the assurance was of little comfort to Trell, whose house burned to the ground in March.
If you want to know how and why the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is known as a connectional church, ask the Rev. Jihyun Oh.
That’s precisely the connection Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe, the hosts of A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast, made last week. Listen to their conversation with Oh, an assistant stated clerk and the director of Mid Council Ministries in the Office of the General Assembly, here.
Over her long career in higher education and in hymnody, Dr. Melva Wilson Costen taught her students that music is a gift from God that can lift our spirits and serve as a refuge during difficult times. “It speaks,” said the Rev. Addie Peterson, eulogizing Costen at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, “when we don’t know the words to say.”
Roughly 421,400 people were unhoused in the U.S. last year, and 127,750 of them were chronically unhoused, meaning they didn’t have a place to stay for a year or more, according to National Alliance to End Homelessness data. Unhoused rates have been climbing nationally by about 6% every year since 2017, the alliance said. The increase in the number of unhoused people comes when housing costs are soaring and prices for essentials like food and transportation continue to rise.
Originally called Armistice Day, Nov. 11 was set aside to honor veterans of World War I. In its official resolution, Congress sought to set aside time to “commemorate with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through goodwill and mutual understanding between nations … with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.”
Just ahead of the Dallas Cowboys’ opening season shutout against the New York Giants on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” on Sept. 10, Cowboys’ linebacker Micah Parsons, scored another decisive win.
