The Presbyterian Women of the Presbytery of Geneva in New York’s Finger Lakes region has become the 400th congregation or group to accept the Matthew 25 invitation.
May Friendship Day, a Church Women United initiative, is most often celebrated on the first Friday of the month of May around a theme of shared concern for Christian women and their communities. The predecessor to May Friendship Day, May Fellowship Day, began in 1933 after two Christian women’s groups planned gatherings based on similar concerns: child health and children of migrant families. These groups united and over the years eventually became what we now know as Church Women United. The May celebration has been continually observed since 1933; in 1999, Church Women United changed the name from May Fellowship Day to May Friendship Day.
International Roma Day is an opportunity for those of us who know little about the Roma (often pejoratively called “gypsies”) to learn about and celebrate their culture, history and people, moving past stereotypes and media depictions.
Among the winners announced Thursday during the Associated Church Press’ 2019 Best of the Church Press Awards was the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II.
Since 2007, a collection of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) church histories has been entrusted to the C. Benton Kline, Jr. Special Collections and Archives at Columbia Theological Seminary. The collection holds the histories of 5,800 PC(USA) congregations from 42 states. This enormous collection occupies close to 1,200 cubic feet and continues to grow every year.
A 2016 study conducted by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Research Services, “Gender and Leadership in the PC(USA)” identified two key findings: gender discrimination is still pervasive within the denomination, and almost half its members are not particularly aware of it. The study is a part of a larger research project assessing the status of women at all levels of the church.
Mount Pleasant is a community of fewer than 9,000 people. It has an idyllic town square surrounded by restaurants and local businesses, just like one would expect when picturing small-town Iowa.
That image changed on May 9, 2018, when dozens of men were seized from Mount Pleasant’s Midwest Precast Concrete plant by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
World Community Day began in 1943 as a day for church women across denominations to study peace. After World War II, leaders of denominations felt that they should set aside a day for prayer and ecumenical study.
A complete revamping of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s two main websites as they merge into one site, at http://www.pcusa.org, will take about two years and will come about only with significant input from the Presbyterians who use them.
