The NEXT Church national gathering roared to life Monday with heartfelt hymns of praise and powerful preaching from the organization’s director, the Rev. Jessica Tate.
The Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III turned to history and the cinema to open a conversation about congregational vitality on the first day of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board’s February meeting on Wednesday.
As Brian Frick, an associate for Christian Formation working with camp and conference ministries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), began planning a retreat with Ghost Ranch leaders to see how they might learn from and align their work with mission initiatives of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, he began to ask questions.
In general, smaller- and medium-sized congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), together with their counterparts in the Episcopal Church, assigned themselves higher scores as part of a vital congregations survey than larger congregations.
Glasgow (Kentucky) Presbyterian String Academy was born, the church’s transitional minister, the Rev. Charlie Evans says, because the church paid attention to what God was saying.
It’s a good thing Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky was listening as well.
This Thanksgiving, the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III is grateful, especially for his colleagues in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Theology, Formation & Evangelism (TFE) ministry area.
As 14 Presbyteries prepare to launch the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)’s Vital Congregations initiative in January, three presbyteries — Trinity, Newark and San Jose — are finishing up a pilot program of the two-year revitalization process.
Michelle Phillips, the acting director for the Presbyterian Youth Workers’ Association (PYWA), said a recent face-to-face-gathering of the Christian Formation Collective was “like a spider web tingling and then finally coming to life.”
