I teach a mission course at our seminary and have an on-again-off-again relationship with the field of “missiology,” which can include everything from church growth and personal evangelism to the study of world Christianity or contextual theology.
After serving for many years as a commissioned lay pastor of Brentwood Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of Long Island, New York, a Matthew 25 presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Rev. Ida Rosario retired at the end of 2020 to start a new season in her life and ministry. Today she serves as a minister in a small multicultural church that partners with a Hispanic congregation of more recent immigrants.
We gathered by the shoreline of a lake in Colorado. We were tired and showing symptoms of compassion fatigue. We had endured 24 deaths in 12 months — 10 of those by suicide.
In 2012, the General Assembly made a bold commitment — to create an environment within the denomination that would lead to the flourishing of the existing church and the birth of at least 1001 new communities of worship and witness. The Presbyterian Mission Agency went to work creating a system of resources to support this call to equip presbyteries, help potential leaders discern God’s call, develop a system of grants, build leadership capacity and create a network of coaches prepared to accompany a new worshiping community through all the stages of development. Establishing partnerships and collaboration with other North American denominations, the reach of these resources extends far beyond the PC(USA).
The Presbyterian Hunger Program accompanies Presbyterians doing the important work of questioning our economic lives as we move beyond what our dollars do in the offering plate, to considering what our dollars do in the marketplace. Over the years, educational resources, travel experiences and direct outreach to congregations via projects has helped Presbyterians ask themselves important questions like: Does my coffee provide good wages to small farmers or does it enrich CEOs at the expense of the producers? Are our Palm Sunday palms damaging God’s Creation? Is my savings account supporting development and women’s rights or fueling human rights abuses? Were our youth group T-shirts printed in a sweatshop?
Born in 1946, the Rev. Nibs Stroupe, now retired after serving for 34 years at the intercultural Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia, grew up “in a totally segregated society” in Helena, Arkansas. He said he saw Black folk “all the time” while growing up, but “they didn’t feel like people” until he did some work in Brooklyn, New York as a young adult.
The very public way the apostle Peter is called out by Paul in Paul’s letter to the Galatians offers modern-day readers a model for confronting racism for the sake of the gospel.
Ministering to Ministers Foundation (MTM), a long-standing program offering resources for terminated clergy and other church professionals, is now a program administered by the Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL) at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Caroline Davis Rourk has been a member of her church for her entire life. It’s a place of hope, friendship and a place that challenges her spiritually. And it’s a place that she wants to be around for generations to come.
When it comes to addressing the injustices and disparities experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in the United States — laid painfully bare by the nation’s double pandemic of COVID-19 and racial unrest — the Rev. Cathi King knows one thing for certain. And that is, she knows nothing for certain.
