Attaining Resurrection — a virtual Refresh Retreat — provides an opportunity for 1001 New Worshiping Community leaders to replenish and reclaim their spiritual grounding in a time of pandemic. There will be three of these retreat opportunities this year, with the next scheduled for April 12–13. Leaders will have a chance to choose their start time, based on Eastern or Pacific time zones.
Together with partners also engaged in church planting and revitalization, 1001 New Worshiping Communities of the Presbyterian Mission Agency is sponsoring an upcoming Hopeful Economics UnConference on March 3-5.
The recently released book, “Fury and Grace: 40 Days of Paintings and Poetry from Prison,” edited by the Rev. Riley Pickett and the Revs. Layne and Crawford Brubaker, is now a podcast, too.
In the first episode of season seven of the 1001 “New Way” podcast, host the Rev. Sara Hayden and guest the Rev. Karen Rohrer anticipate their own journeys through Lent, which begins next week on Ash Wednesday.
As the Rev. Jacoba Vermaak — people call her Pastor Kobie — talks with people who have begun lining up for a week of free groceries at 5 o’clock each Monday morning, she spends a few moments listening to each person describe how they never imagined they would be standing in line for a handout. Simply put, it was beyond what they expected for themselves.
Though she’s the reentry pastor of Hagar’s Community Church, the Rev. Riley Pickett has never been inside the Washington Corrections Center for Women. That’s because Pickett’s ministry begins when residents of the largest women’s prison in the state of Washington are released.
In the fall of 2018, youth at Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center (BAJCC) in Chesterfield County, Virginia, asked to start a gospel choir. The request reached the Rev. Lauren Ramseur and the Rev. Ashley Diaz Mejias who, along with friends, collaborated to support the initiative. Ramseur and Mejias soon discovered that they were “doing church” — gathering twice a month at the correctional center for a community of worship. The group named themselves the Voices of Jubilee.
Ecumenical Partners in Outreach, a network of mainline denominational leaders engaged in church planting and revitalization, hosted its first ever “Founders’ Festival” via Zoom in early December.
During the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)’s #GivingTuesday 12-hour telethon on Dec. 1, the Rev. Nikki Collins, national coordinator for 1001 New Worshiping Communities, will visit with two ‘1001’ leaders who started new churches among people and in places where traditional PC(USA) mainstream churches haven’t been.
