America’s history with Indigenous peoples hasn’t always been neighborly. In the past five years, the General Assembly has taken actions to change that legacy, and to be neighbors not conquerors.
On the last day of Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) orientation, we are sent off to be commissioned at churches in the area. Several churches in the area agree to host small groups of YAVs for worship where we are commissioned for our year of service, followed by a meal and conversations. We as YAVs come as we are, bringing our whole selves, exhausted from the past week of orientation, to a table of strangers, to share our intentions for our year of service and what we have already begun learning during the first week.
Recently, I coached soap carving. Our church, Ankeny Presbyterian Church in Ankeny, Iowa, was throwing an outdoor block party for our neighborhood — hot dogs, a bounce castle, doughnuts made to order, even a fire truck. One of our neighbors offered to play guitar and sing, so we had live music, too.
The first time I became aware of a connection between race, faith and climate change was in the late 1980s when I was a sociology student in Venezuela. I lived in Caracas with my family. In this cosmopolitan city, there was lots of nonregulated air pollution that caused me to have a sore throat and irritated eyes daily.
When I was a child growing up in the United Methodist Church, I remember that my parents once got a little cardboard folder to put quarters in. Although I don’t remember whether you were supposed to put the quarters in every day or every week — or even what the project was for — it really made an impression on me that kids could be a part of giving.
It’s nearly time to celebrate “Mr. Rogers’ Day” in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and what better day to do so than March 20, the birthday of one of the most well-known ordained Presbyterian ministers of all-time, everyone’s neighbor — Fred McFeely Rogers (1928–2003).
Gentrification was coming to Inglewood, California, and it was not pretty. Some people saw the change as a renaissance for a city that had been economically challenged. Some local congregations, however, saw the devastating change gentrification was having on the long-term fabric of residents in the neighborhood and knew it was time to do something — together.
With the coronavirus continuing to infect scores of people daily worldwide, the number of people experiencing acute hunger is expected to skyrocket globally, and some partners of the Presbyterian Hunger Program say the economic ramifications of the pandemic already are hurting the ability of people around the globe to feed themselves and their families.
Presbyterian churches across the country are stepping up to feed the hungry, using ingenuity and elbow grease to help their communities despite being thrown some curveballs by the coronavirus.
It’s anything but business as usual for guests and staff at the Ladle Fellowship, the homeless outreach ministry of First Presbyterian Church in San Diego. As cases of COVID-19 increase across the nation, volunteers and church staff are continuing to serve their neighbors in need.
