The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s (PMA) proposed Mission Work Plan for 2023–24 was presented to the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) last week and approved to send on to the General Assembly this summer.
After discussing the proposed 2023-2024 Mission Work Plan in both small groups and all together Thursday, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board will vote Friday on the plan that will guide much of the mission agency’s work as it seeks to take on additional areas of concentration while maintaining and expanding efforts regarding the three foci of the Matthew 25 invitation: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.
Dr. Corey Schlossser-Hall has been on the job for 10 days as the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Director of Rebuilding and Vision Implementation. As he proved to the PMA Board Wednesday, he already has a clear vision of what he hopes to accomplish — together with the help of lots of new colleagues and plenty of former colleagues in mid councils and congregations across the country — over the next nine months or so.
“Being Matthew 25,” a monthly interactive livestream series designed to inspire congregations, mid councils and groups to help care for the least of these, debuted Thursday with a look at the work of Central Presbyterian Church in Princeton, Kentucky, a church that’s been a blessing for people dealing with the December 2021 tornadoes that struck Western Kentucky, killing 77 people.
If their repartee on Facebook is any indication, the current and former General Assembly co-moderators, moderators and vice moderators, quite frankly, miss each other.
In its final action of 2021, the Presbyterian Mission Agency on Thursday passed what it called enabling motions that will result in some if not most of the ideas generated in a consultant’s report, “Reflecting, Reimagining and Making Space for Rebuilding,” being worked into the PMA’s Mission Work Plan that must be approved by the 225th General Assembly in 2022.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board set the table Wednesday in order to decide Thursday whether to approve a consultant’s report that envisions new ways for the mission agency to do its ministry in the coming years.
A consulting firm hired to help redesign the structure and purpose of the Presbyterian Mission Agency to more adeptly carry out the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Matthew 25 invitation and to better serve a changing Church and changing world has completed a report that recommends some sweeping changes for the agency over the next 30-42 months.
On Thursday the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) offered up his thoughts on the proposed renovation of the Presbyterian Center in downtown Louisville, a renovation that the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II also hopes will include the transformation of hearts and minds of employees inside the building and of Presbyterians working at carrying out Christ’s mission across the nation and around the world.
After skipping a meeting in April, the Coordinating Table came together with a purpose Thursday, agreeing by consensus to a plan for staff to begin identifying the restrictions on some of the 2,000 restricted funds set up as bequests over many decades and continuing the discussions required for presenting a unified budget, perhaps as soon as the 226th General Assembly in 2024.
