St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Lomita, California, is located near a substantial encampment of people experiencing homelessness. In and around the community in southern Los Angeles County, “the homeless issue out here is humongous,” says Marney Wilde, an 82-year-old St. Mark’s member who is part of one of two St. mark’s teams providing services to the church’s neighbors. “It’s not just the typical homeless. The rents here are incredibly expensive. Most people are two or three paychecks away from being on the streets. That helps explain the heavy homeless population we are seeing.”
Becca Stevens, one of the keynote speakers for this year’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities and Vital Congregations national gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, remembers how she felt when she started a residential community for women who have survived trafficking, prostitution and addiction.
Just as one country became two with South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Nile Theological College, offering both Arabic and English curriculum tracks, also split into two campuses in two countries the same year.
Presbyterians have always supported public education. Jesus calls us to love God with “heart, soul and mind.” Our Reformed tradition affirms education as one way we develop our mind and one way we love God. The PC(USA)’s most recent policy statement on public education stands in that tradition and recognizes “that quality public schools are essential to our society’s efforts to overcome poverty and address social inequality.” The policy statement states that “quality public schools offer a holistic education, one that equips our children to live both meaningful and productive lives. A quality public school … is a place where they learn to think critically and become effective citizens, where they gain an appreciation for the sweep of human history and for the arts. Public schools are one place where children and young people can learn about their own bodies, how to be healthy and stay fit.” The study acknowledges the role of private and charter schools while affirming that quality public schools impact most of our children. Loving our neighbor means loving our neighbors’ children and supporting the public schools, even if we do not have children attending those schools.
My mother has a fascination with cemeteries and the stories the ancient gravestones tell. I, however, am captivated by abandoned barns.
The weathered facades speak to me of harsh winter storms and scorching summer heat. Inside, the posts and beams that have been notched, pegged and dovetailed together by calloused hands tell a story of when animals filled the stalls, hay reached high into the rafters and grain overflowed in bins.
A few years back, the 130 or so members of First Presbyterian Church of South Lyon, Michigan, decided to turn their focus outward into their community about 40 miles west of Detroit.
Two hundred years ago, William Dunlop, a professor of church history at the University of Edinburgh, published two volumes of confessions that had enjoyed “public authority” in Scotland since the Reformation. While the Westminster Standards (1647–48) filled the first volume, more than 10 earlier confessional documents — including the Geneva Catechism (1542), the Scots Confession (1560) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) — filled the second. By placing Westminster in the broader tradition of Reformed (“Calvinist”) theology, Dunlop honored a distinctly Reformed custom: He compiled a book of confessions.
Most of us don’t get any mail except for what? Bills and junk. But once in a while, now and then, a pretty envelope, perhaps hand-addressed and with something nice inside, is nestled among the coupons and ads and utility bills.
All his life, the Rev. David Maxwell has found prayer baffling.
Maxwell, who leads Presbyterian Publishing Corporation’s curriculum imprint, Geneva Press, said during a recent weekly chapel service at the Presbyterian Center that he often finds prayer “awkward, irrational and confusing — and I know I’m not alone in my discomfort.”
“Trigger: The Ripple Effect of Gun Violence,” produced by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s Story Productions, is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
“This is new ground for the church,” director David Barnhart said.
