A minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the Rev. Margaret Grun Kibben, a retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy’s Chaplain Corps, has been named Chaplain of the 117th U.S. House of Representatives.
The two prayers below were written for the nation’s chaplains and health care workers serving on the frontlines of COVID-19. The author is the director of the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel and is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
When faced with chaos and danger, four World War II U.S. Army chaplains on a critically damaged Army transport together chose to offer their shipmates the peace they could. When nothing more could be done, these same chaplains laid down their lives, giving a few of those around them a chance for life. (For more about the Four Chaplains, see fourchaplains.org/the-saga-of-the-four-chaplains.)
In the Mission Yearbook message for this Veterans Day, the Rev. (Capt.) Lyman M. Smith, director of the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel, (PCCMP) writes, “More than 18 million veterans live among us. And of those 18 million, some 18 are likely to die by suicide today.”
When the Rev. Terilyn Lawson was installed on Sunday, October 23, as associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Great Falls, Montana—and concurrently as the first resident in the Chaplain Candidate Residency Program newly launched by the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel (PCCMP)—she had to marvel at what God had done.
When the Rev. Terilyn Lawson was installed on Sunday, October 23, as associate pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Great Falls, Montana—and concurrently as the first resident in the Chaplain Candidate Residency Program newly launched by the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel (PCCMP)—she had to marvel at what God had done.
As you are reading this, over 200 Presbyterian teaching elders are scattered throughout our nation and the world in service to church and country. These teaching elders serve in federal chaplaincy positions with the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
