Sometimes a great disruption provides the catalyst for change. Sure, disruptions can be painful, causing grief and anger. Disruptions, by their very nature, rupture our lives.
Nearly 50 mask-wearing, health-screened, socially-distanced friends, board members and staff of Cedar Ridge Camp, a ministry of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, gathered recently to celebrate groundbreaking for the 60-year-old camp’s new chapel.
Christmas recalls memories of home. Times full of awe as family gathers around wood-burning fires and glistering lit trees. A place of comfort and room at the table for everyone.
The story of Jesus’ birth reminds us of home, too. It is a story of a young family on the road, away from familiar comforts. An unwed couple needing a safe place to spend the night as they welcome a child into their lives. I imagine the first Christmas felt chaotic as the young couple wandered through the desert longing for home.
Ever since my girls were big enough to hitch a ride on a luggage cart, they’ve been in love with hotels.
The run-of-the-mill places that our family visited before the pandemic seemed like king’s palaces to the tykes, who couldn’t wait to take a ride on the elevator.
At the end of every Facebook Live event aired most Wednesdays by the Presbyterian Foundation’s Theological Education Fund, the host, the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, asks his guest to deliver a benediction or a charge.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Presbyterians researched their church histories in hopes of discovering how congregations responded to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Some were dismayed, though, to find that there was little to no mention of the flu in session minutes. Trinity Presbyterian Church, however, is making sure history doesn’t forget its response to the current pandemic. The Valdosta, Georgia, congregation has created a photobook called “Porch Pictures.”
While congregations and new worshiping communities are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also innovating by learning new technologies, starting new missions and finding new ways to be the Church while social distancing. A new report from PC(USA) Research Services describes some of the challenges that worshiping communities are facing and provides a peek at the new things that are springing forth.
“Many hands make light work.” “Teamwork makes the dream work.” “If we all do a little, it adds up to a lot.”
There are lots of ways to say it — but working together really does make bigger and better things possible. And, lots of times, working together makes it more fun, too. In fact, there are times made better just by our ability to be together, to be with one another.
The ministry of presence is important in God’s mission. Yet even when a global pandemic causes cancellation of short-term mission trips, congregations and presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are showing care and compassion in creative and urgently needed ways from afar.
If a sacrament may be defined as a visible sign of an invisible grace, in a similarly sacramental fashion, God’s grace and love are on abundant, if mostly virtual, display through “Links of Love,” a colorful paper chain representing Presbyterian generosity across the denomination, country and globe.
