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Mission Yearbook
“This is our stone-cold moment to be like Jesus, our rock and our redeemer,” Dr. Brian K. Blount told the recent NEXT Church national gathering at the close of a sermon. The president and professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary called on worshipers to “stand on God’s promise … and rock out our world.”
A formal apology by the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy to African Americans for what the presbytery calls “the sin of slavery and its legacy” recently occurred following a “Journey of Reconciliation” last fall to two institutions in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to telling the stories of enslaved black people and those terrorized by lynching and humiliated by Jim Crow.
It’s a universal theme among mission co-workers that they often learn more from the people in the cultures they serve than they could ever hope to give. That’s exactly the lesson mission co-workers Richard and Debbie Welch, serving in Guatemala, learned from their longtime partner in ministry, Julian.
Last November, when they gathered in a park near downtown Detroit, folks from the Dexter-Linwood Cordon neighborhood could see spring. They could see a butterfly garden, kids getting lost in a black-eyed Susan maze, people relaxing in a gazebo and gathering fresh vegetables in a garden. They could see a new season filled with hope for a Detroit block that had seen better days.
We were walking back to the car after dropping off Christmas cards at the post office. My 7-year-old son skipped as he held my hand. Without changing his movement, he asked how much money I had in my purse. I told him I didn’t know and asked why. Down the street, a handful of children experiencing homelessness had set up a camp on the sidewalk. Mattresses, cardboard, shopping carts and belongings were pushed around chaotically 10 yards from our car.
For this country pastor, spring means Town Meeting Day is here.
A Vermont tradition since 1762, Town Meeting Day is where residents in sleepy hamlets and frozen-in-time villages throw on their boots and trudge through the mud (or sometimes a foot or more of snow) to get to schools or village offices to speak for or against proposed policies, budgets, prospective town clerks and supervisors, and then to vote.
“Our congregation wants to go on a short-term mission trip outside the U.S. Are there PC(USA) global partners that can host us?”
“I am planning a trip next summer for families in my church. Does the PC(USA) have a devotional guide for intergenerational trips?”
As stewards of God’s Creation, we are challenged to care for planet Earth and all its inhabitants.
This is an awesome responsibility, but also an incredible opportunity. There are many concerns facing our planet, with climate change and its impact on the most vulnerable at the top of the list. Related concerns include privatization of the Earth’s precious resources, threats to the safety of our world’s water supply and the effects of toxic emissions.
The Presbyterian Women of the Presbytery of Geneva in New York’s Finger Lakes region has become the 400th congregation or group to accept the Matthew 25 invitation.
The Rev. Dr. Mark Snelling, a lifelong Presbyterian and pastor in the Seattle Presbytery, wants to see impoverished children in Mexico break out of the cycle of poverty in a wholistic and sustainable way. He is confident this is possible through education, specifically Christian education.
