In one of the great introductions in the history of such speeches, the adult children of Dr. Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Emma and Sam, introduced their mother on Wednesday to an adoring crowd present to witness Lapsley’s inauguration as Union Presbyterian Seminary’s eighth president, the first woman to hold that office.
Gone now more than four years, the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, one of the foremost educators in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the first Black woman ever ordained by a forebear denomination, lives on in the lives of the scholars whose work relies in no small part on what they learned from her.
These days she’s the Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Davis, who teaches seminarians about education at Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Charlotte, North Carolina, campus. When she was 9 and growing up in West Virginia, that role would have been difficult to fathom.
Highlighting worship efforts during the pandemic ranging from high-tech and labor-intensive to one church’s “Call ‘Em All” telephonic approach, Thursday’s webinar on Hybrid Ministry: The Scattered Church was a balm for clergy and worship leaders who’ve struggled mightily with pandemic-induced issues including pastoral care, trauma and self-care.