The vision for the Matthew 25 invitation asks us to engage together in the three works of vitalizing congregations, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty. Though individual, these three works are inseparable. Can a congregation be vital without confronting racism? What is at stake when racism directs our congregational and community life?
As a seminary student I heard a constant refrain from our professors: Jesus came to preach and teach. It was the pretext underlying our whole seminary education as they trained us to preach and teach.
Applications from interested presbyteries are now being accepted for the third wave of the Vital Congregations Initiative. And for the first time since the initiative began with a pilot program in 2017, individual churches may also apply — if they have the blessing of their presbytery.
COVID-19 has caused the world to change the way people connect and the way they do business. For nearly a year millions of people have been sheltering in place and worshiping online. However, not all churches have the resources and capabilities to offer virtual services to their members.
When it comes to the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s increasingly popular Presbyterian Giving Catalog, the time-honored saying that “people give to people” has never been truer.
The pandemic of 2020 has further exposed disparities in healthcare and social justice and the wealth gap that exists in America. These glaring issues make the works and the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just as relevant today as they were in the 1950s and 1960s.
It had been several weeks of selling glasses of lemonade in the fellowship hall after worship, but the children of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Endwell, New York, were determined to raise enough money to provide a garden well to a community in need.
Congregations seeking renewal for their pastor are invited to apply to the Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Programs at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Presbytery of Cincinnati has received a grant of $997,412.00 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Living Churches Initiative under the presbytery’s newly-formed Center for Learning.
