The online Matthew 25 series continues in 2021 with the next event scheduled for 2p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 24. The topic is how all three areas of the Matthew 25 vision — building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty — intersect around the subject of housing.
Since conflict and violence began in Syria in 2011, at least two-thirds of Christians and two-thirds of health professionals have left the country, according to the Jinishian Memorial Program (JMP), a long-time partner of World Mission and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
Applications from interested presbyteries are now being accepted for the third wave of the Vital Congregations Initiative. And for the first time since the initiative began with a pilot program in 2017, individual churches may also apply — if they have the blessing of their presbytery.
You may be startled to learn that 25% of children under 6 now live in poverty, nearly 23% of the American population can’t afford a medication they need and 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States were experiencing homelessness on a single night. The Presbyterian Mission Agency has created a short video designed to raise awareness of the systemic poverty facing people in all walks of life, especially with the additional impact of the pandemic. The video is available to download and share across social media and websites.
In what is believed to be a first, “Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching and the Arts” a quarterly journal produced by the Office of Theology & Worship, is focusing an entire issue on poverty.
The co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign delivered this post-election message during an online event Thursday: Now that voters have turned out in record numbers to cast their ballot, the real work of advocating and caring for the 140 million Americans who are poor and low income must begin in earnest, no matter who sits in the Oval Office or walks the halls of Congress and the nation’s 50 statehouses.
Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine … (Isaiah 66:1–2a).
The online Matthew 25 series continues with a fourth event scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Oct. 28. This online event will address the global issues around eradicating systemic poverty, one of the three focuses of the Matthew 25 vision along with building congregational vitality and dismantling structural racism.
