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Matthew 25
Why are people poor in your area? How has poverty touched your life? Your community? Your faith community?
More than 150 people joined the Matthew 25 webinar Tuesday on eradicating systemic poverty, which organizers called “Where Does Jesus Stand? Exploring Five Spiritual Practices to End Poverty.” The webinar explored these and more questions and invited participants to mull them further in small groups near the end of their time together.
When Jesus began reading from a scroll in the synagogue, Luke’s gospel records that his text came from the book of Isaiah. “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,” Jesus says, quoting Isaiah.
The first in a three-part series of online workshops dedicated to the three main Matthew 25 foci kicks off this month with “Where Does Jesus Stand? Exploring Five Spiritual Practices to End Poverty.” The Zoom event begins at 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 23. Registration is required and participants can do so here.
St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City constructed its beautiful and versatile campus seven years ago. While the Pop-Up Ministry Room is not the most eye-catching of St. Andrew’s varied ministry spaces, it’s easily the most versatile, with plenty of storage and display space for clothing and food distribution as the need arises. Church leaders liken the large space to the Room of Requirement in the Harry Potter novels.
The children of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, are “growing up in the church and learning how to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” says Nichole Hoffman, children’s ministries outreach coordinator at a church that’s living out its Matthew 25 ministry among members and friends of all ages.
The Rev. W. Robert (Rob) Martin, III, lead pastor and head of staff at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, has been at his current calling for 2½ years. That longevity places him among the senior members of the St. Andrew staff, which has welcomed nine new staffers since August.
When she sat for an interview this week, the Rev. Sarah Hegar, who directs congregational ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, was still basking in the glow of having welcomed six confirmands into membership the previous weekend.
How to help veterans who are affected by poverty and intersectional issues will be the focus of the next webinar in “The Struggle is Real” series hosted by the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People.
“Our church’s commitment to Matthew 25 is important to us,” says Ashlynn Beauchamp, a 15-year-old member of First Presbyterian Church in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. “It gives us the opportunity not just to better ourselves and follow Jesus, but to branch out and work in the world to improve others’ lives, not just our own.”
Marcy Stroud, the warden at the minimum-security Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility, remembers very well the day she received a cold call from the Rev. Trey Hegar, pastor of First Presbyterian Church.
