“Thanks so much.”
“I am so overwhelmed with gratitude.”
“We are excited.”
“This is wonderful news for our congregation.”
These comments are from some of the leaders in more than 200 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) churches and worshiping communities — each of them with 150 members or fewer — who recently received free book bundles (listed below) from the denomination.
One night when the Rev. Dr. Craig Barnes was a boy, his father woke him up and introduced him to his new brother, Roger.
Barnes’ father was the pastor of a church in a poor community, and Roger came to services with his mother. The pastor had talked to the family and tried to help the mother and father with their addictions, to no avail.
In the late 1980s, when I was serving as a youth group leader in my local congregation, my pastor invited me to attend a gathering that I recognize now as the early stages of a new movement for youth in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Even as I was being drawn headlong into the phenomenon that was — and still is — the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, I had no idea how the lens through which I viewed the PC(USA) was about to change.
A “peace movement” is taking place throughout Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. Its origins are found in Scripture for sure, but the movement has gained momentum largely in response to COVID-19.
World Food Day — celebrated on Oct. 16 every year — commemorates the founding in 1945 of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO was created to respond to famines and the tragedy of hunger in a world of God’s abundance. Despite the abundance of land, water, nutrients, and sunlight on this precious planet, even in the 21st century, hundreds of millions of people go hungry on Oct. 16 and every day of the year.
Like great Black preachers from previous generations, including Dr. James Cone and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., modern-day prophetic preachers have two main jobs, Dr. Anthea Butler said during the first day of the online Festival of Homiletics: bringing solace to people in the pews in times of trouble and speaking truth to power.
The founding pastor of Brambleton Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Elizabeth Brookens-Sturman, remembers what it was like to establish a new Christian church presence in the area just beyond the Capital Beltway. That’s why she isn’t taking lightly Brambleton’s honor of being named the “best of” churches in Ashburn, Virginia, announced in a recent issue of a local magazine.
Peter is to be the rock in which the church would be built upon, really? Outspoken and fearless in declaring Jesus’ message, let us not forget that Peter is the same person who cowered in denial when Jesus was about to be crucified. Still, after all is said and done, the proper focus is not Peter’s courage and lack thereof, but the fact that our Lord chose this fallible human as the touchstone of God’s intention to establish the community of the faithful here on earth. So, what can we say about this “church” in 2021?
Mental Illness Awareness Week is Oct. 3–9, 2021. As the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) notes, millions of Americans live with a mental health condition, and all of us are affected either directly or indirectly. This week provides a time for mental health advocates across the country to come together as one unified voice. See nami.org.
Nearly 19,000 unaccompanied minors entered U.S. border custody in March, an all-time monthly record. The onslaught of lone minors overwhelmed the U.S. government’s infrastructure and intake process. The largest Border Patrol facility for migrant children was at 1,640% capacity in late March, holding more than 3,200 unaccompanied minors in a facility designed for 250 people.
