“For more than 50 years, Call to Worship and its precursor journals have fostered deep dialogue among pastors, musicians, and scholars around the theology and practice of worship,” said the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for worship with the Presbyterian Mission Agency, who sees the new website as an opportunity to expand these conversations in digital spaces and draw in fresh perspectives.
Friends and family of Dr. Arlo Duba gathered both in person at Gunnison (Colorado) Congregational Church and online Monday to remember one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s foremost authorities on worship.
Inside St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, are more than 20 murals painted by Croatian immigrant Maxo Vanka in the late 1930s and early ’40s. Many of the paintings depict the immigrant experience in America. There is one of St. Francis, though, that shows Vanka’s love of animals, especially his fondness of birds. In the painting, exotic birds can be seen encircling the patron saint of animals.
At baptisms especially, Presbyterians love to talk about water. Some of the more adventurous baptizers even splash some of the water out of the font to remind those gathered to celebrate of their own baptism.
“The advent of a new liturgical year offers congregations and church leaders a fresh opportunity to engage the Matthew 25 vision of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” says the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for worship in the Office of Theology and Worship in the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
“Evangelism means sharing the good news in relationally flourishing ways,” said Dr. William P. Brown, Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia on Tuesday.
The Evangelism Conference, a three-day hybrid offering put on by Theology, Formation & Evangelism in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, concluded at Montreat Conference Center on Tuesday with a list of tips for evangelists and spirited and Spirit-filled closing worship led by the Rev. Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly (2020) and pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
Beginning with Advent, preachers, music leaders and the people who hear them each week will enter a year with Matthew’s gospel, thanks to the Revised Common Lectionary, which turns the focus to Year A beginning Nov. 27.
A new webinar from the Presbyterian Mission Agency will help preachers, church musicians and other worship leaders connect Scriptures from the Gospel of Matthew with the PC(USA)’s work on building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.
