“On Sunday, March 10, 1822, four men and six women swore an oath together in district school #1 on the corner of Concord and Adams Street in the village of Brooklyn,” reads Collette Foster, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, New York, in a video series celebrating the congregation’s bicentennial. “Their idea,” Foster continues, “was to organize a house of worship and to found the only Presbyterian church in their settlement of 7,000 people.”
The Rev. Adriene Thorne, leader of First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, has been voted in by the congregation of The Riverside Church in the City of New York as the eighth senior minister in the church’s history. Thorne is the first African American woman to serve as senior minister. She will begin her post on Oct. 1.
Bodies in motion are holy — period. That’s my truth and my reset button in a coronavirus world. It’s Janet tottering to the Chinese restaurant on her walker. It’s the UPS man bringing the day’s deliveries. It’s me boogeying to Motown in my kitchen as I make the third meal of a very long day for myself and my kid who quickly learned that one way to combat the lockdown blues was to make dance parties an evening ritual. I think God approves.
Born in 1946, the Rev. Nibs Stroupe, now retired after serving for 34 years at the intercultural Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia, grew up “in a totally segregated society” in Helena, Arkansas. He said he saw Black folk “all the time” while growing up, but “they didn’t feel like people” until he did some work in Brooklyn, New York as a young adult.
Born in 1946, the Rev. Nibs Stroupe, now retired after serving for 34 years at the intercultural Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia, grew up “in a totally segregated society” in Helena, Arkansas. He said he saw Black folk “all the time” while growing up, but “they didn’t feel like people” until he did some work in Brooklyn, New York as a young adult.
A nearly hour-long plenary to cap the second week of the Intercultural Transformation Workshops focused on the pain and trauma clergy and lay people alike have been carrying for the past six months during the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice, including the killings of African Americans at the hands of police and Wednesday’s grand jury decision on the role of police in the killing of Breonna Taylor of Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 in her apartment.
In an ongoing effort to create a more diverse and inclusive denomination, the Presbyterian Intercultural Network and the Presbyterian Mission Agency — in partnership with the presbyteries of Sacramento and Stockton and Charlotte — will host the 2020 Intercultural Transformation Workshops.
Though the Rev. Rola Al Ashkar grew up close to where Jesus Christ lived and shares a similar ethnicity to Christ, she still had to unlearn a Western-influenced, blonde-hair and blue-eyed image of Christ.
The Rev. Samuel Son, manager of diversity and reconciliation at the Presbyterian Mission Agency, recently held a roundtable discussion with three Presbyterian clergywomen to discuss the challenges and opportunities of leading a congregation during protests and pandemic.
