During this year’s celebration of the National Black Presbyterian Caucus’ 45th Biennial Convention in Atlanta, five outstanding Presbyterians were recognized for their efforts toward “seeking racial justice and equity.”
The 2019 Lucy Craft Laney Award was presented to Ruling Elder Corine Lytle Cannon, mother of the late Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon.
Union Church in Seattle is “a church with a day job — a very involved day job,” says Scott Lumsden, Seattle Presbytery co-executive presbyter.
Stick around for a few days at 415 Westlake Ave. N., and you’ll see he’s right.
After hearing social media feedback that parents were not enamored with Vacation Bible School offerings at nearby churches, Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, created from scratch its own Peace Camp.
Thirty-one campers, including about 10 from the host church, took part in this year’s camp. With help from their neighbors, church members wrote the curriculum and staffed the five-hour-per-day, five-day event, spending one day each on a significant topic — gender, social class and poverty, race, migrants and care for the Earth.
In Lebanon, a country “bursting at the seams” with refugee families, Scott Parker helps migrant children from Iraq and Syria unpack the trauma they have experienced.
Parker, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ecumenical associate, delights in seeing children start coming to terms with their painful pasts, but he acknowledged that deep feelings they express can be unsettling to hear. One day while playing a game with puppets, Parker asked the children to pretend they were on a bus and something bad happened. An 8-year-old boy blurted out, “Oh, a terrorist just exploded a bomb on the bus!”
The Rev. Tom Willadsen of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has become a fixture at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School, where his classes are known for humor.
Willadsen, author of “OMG! LOL! Faith and Laughter,” which can be found here, spent 19 years as pastor of First Presbyerian Church in Oshkosh. There he organized monthly meetings of faith leaders in the community and served as organizer and master of ceremonies at an annual Interfaith Festival of Gratitude.
For David Barnhart, it’s the story — not his story, but the story of the subject.
“One of the things I love about the work that we do is that we don’t know where it’s going. We have no idea where it’s going and what the focus is,” he said. “What we try to do is work with the community and have them guide us and [the film] needs to go wherever it needs to get.”
Presbyterian congregations are responding to homelessness around the country. They are preparing meals and sharing produce from community gardens, offering shelter on cold nights, assisting with job skills training and participating in Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO).
The Book of Genesis may spell out God’s plan of salvation. But the Rev. Dr. Renita Weems told nearly 800 people attending the closing worship at this year’s Big Tent that “sometimes I wish God would save us without asking us to participate in salvation. Just get on with it, God! But God continuously invites flawed, inconsistent people to participate with God.”
For nearly 15 years, a certificate has hung on a sparsely occupied bulletin board on the back wall in the sanctuary of Laguna United Presbyterian Church in Casa Blanca, New Mexico. For the only Native American congregation in Santa Fe Presbytery, this now-faded certificate represented much more than a tradition or achievement. Every time they walked by it, it was a reminder of their congregation’s commitment to participate in the life of the church — a church that spans beyond their Casa Blanca community.
In the first seven months of this year, more than 20 school shootings occurred. The refrain “I never thought this would happen here” has become a mantra on the evening news. The circle of those experiencing trauma — or knowing someone who has — widens daily.
