Presbyterian Mission Agency NEXT Church Archives

Lilly Endowment Inc. awards $1 million grant to NEXT Church

Posted December 16th, 2022

NEXT Church has received a grant of $1 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Preaching for Change Project.

Moving a Virginia church from one stone edifice to another

Posted August 24th, 2021

Susan Ehterton, a real estate developer and ruling elder at Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia with 35 years of experience in redevelopment and affordable housing, explained the church’s journey as moving “from one stone edifice to another stone edifice” — one with 173 units of affordable housing and, as it turns out, room for the congregation as well.

NEXT Church director will leave her post later this month

Posted May 11th, 2021

The Rev. Jessica Tate, who helped lead NEXT Church into what she called “a space for sparking imagination, telling the truth, working for justice and pouring into church leaders in this time when the church as an institution is precarious,” has announced she will leave her position at the end of the month after nine years of service.

Messy but vital work

Posted March 11th, 2021

During a candid panel discussion held as part of the NEXT Church national gathering last week, leaders talked about antiracism work that’s been going on within the organization and the bumps in the road they’ve encountered striving toward greater inclusivity, especially among leadership.

Moving a Virginia church from one stone edifice to another

Posted March 10th, 2021

Susan Ehterton, a real estate developer and ruling elder at Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia with 35 years of experience in redevelopment and affordable housing, explained the church’s transformation as moving “from one stone edifice to another stone edifice” — one with 173 units of affordable housing and, as it turns out, room for the congregation as well.

Unity and justice on display ministering in America’s Second City

Posted March 9th, 2021

The Rev. Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Tanya Watkins, executive director of Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, which carries the memorable acronym SOUL, may take slightly different approaches to serving their community.

‘Church, we have an oppression obsession’

Posted March 7th, 2021

Closing worship for the NEXT Church national gathering on Sunday brought together two ways of being community that you wouldn’t necessarily associate — Luke’s description in Acts 2 of how the early church functioned and the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which have been adapted to other addictions as well.

It’s time to name the demon

Posted March 6th, 2021

The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III remembers the heartbroken grandmother of a man in denial of his drug addiction. “Son,” she told him one day, “until you name the demon, you ain’t never gonna be free.”

Tapping into the ‘genealogies of the tangible’

Posted March 6th, 2021

Picking up on the NEXT Church national gathering theme, “Breaking, Blessing, Building,” Dr. Christine Hong wondered how people will come out of “survival mode” inflicted by the pandemics of coronavirus and racial injustice and rally for a future of blessing and building.

NEXT Church keynoter delivers insight, honesty and a few tears

Posted March 5th, 2021

The Rev. Lenny Duncan, who delivered a powerful and at times anguished and angry keynote Friday during the NEXT Church national gathering, said he agreed to speak because the Rev. Denise Anderson asked him to.