Empowering women and tackling poverty will be at the top of the agenda as a joint delegation of about 50 people from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Presbyterian Women (PW) heads to New York to take part in activities surrounding the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68).
The Rev. Dr. Anita Wright, who serves Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montclair, New Jersey, was selected to be the liturgy writer and preacher for this year’s Celebrate the Gifts of Women. On Sunday, March 3, churches can share these gifts and use the resources provided by the office of Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries.
Presbyterian Women Inc. has begun the third annual Justice & Peace Book Discussion Group.
The group meets via Zoom on the second Monday of every other month at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Books are chosen by the national J & P Committee each year. They reflect the issues facing each of us in our country and the world.
On a crisp winter day on December 29, 1986, Jewel McRae began her first day as a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff, and, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
The online weekly Chapel Service held most Wednesdays by and for the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had three observances to mark: Monday’s birthday celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Matthew 25: Dismantle Structural Racism Sunday as well as Racial & Intercultural Justice/Presbyterians Affirm Black Lives Matter Sunday.
Liz Cooledge Jenkins, author of a new book on the perils of patriarchy, said on a recent episode of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” it can be “a long journey” for churches to determine just who gets to be considered a leader, a theologian or a biblical scholar. But many have found it’s a journey worth taking.
The Rev. Shanea D. Leonard, director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries (RE&WIM), has been doing the work of dismantling oppressive systems for more than two decades.
In their work they found that this requires white people teaching and facilitating white people. The hard conversations and unfiltered truths that come from fully embodying this work is often a lighter burden when white people are doing this self-work together without the emotional labor of their Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) siblings.
Leonard’s discovery led to the formation of the White Ally Network — a working title — which met last week for the first time in Charlotte, North Carolina.
When the Rev. Shanea D. Leonard was named the director of Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries at the Presbyterian Mission Agency last October, they were well aware that big changes were on the horizon for the ministry area.
As the 67th Commission on the Status of Women came to a close earlier this month, a list of Draft Agreed Conclusions was adopted following a lengthy session that stretched into the early morning hours of March 18, said Sue Rheem, Representative to the United Nations and Director of the Presbyterian Ministry at the UN.
Young delegates to this month’s 67th Commission on the Status of Women called the opportunity “an awesome privilege” and “memorable” in reflections completed on behalf of the ministry area that supported their time in New York City, Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries.
