When I was little, my family took me on a trip to visit my uncle and aunt in Africa. They were both medical missionaries in Rwanda. We visited a game preserve where we watched lions, elephants and other wild animals from our Jeep. One night, my parents told me that the house we were sleeping in was right on the equator. I asked, “What is the equator?” My dad said it was an imaginary line running around the world. But what I heard him say was that it was “a lion running around the world!” I imagined the lion running around our house all night. I didn’t think it was Aslan, but more likely the devil, waiting to devour me.
I was in a cab headed to the high-speed rail station, on my way to preach at a Taiwanese wedding. While the groom is a Christian, he had told me that his parents are not. The vocabulary we use in Taiwan, when preaching to Christians, can often be language that non-Christians don’t understand. As soon I got into the cab, I saw that the cab driver, Mr. Jwang, had a small statue of Buddha on his dashboard. So, I thought to myself, it might be good if Mr. Jwang could listen to my sermon and tell me which parts he did not understand. That way I would be sure that the groom’s family was able to understand.
The Rev. Joseph Reid has had two unique calls from God to preach at two historic churches with one big difference — the view.
“My office window at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, looked out on the overflow parking area for the church,” Reid said. “From my office in Utqiagvik, I can see the Arctic Ocean.”
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, . . . if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. — Isaiah 58:3–12
Faithful witness can be demonstrated in myriad ways, supporting the mission and ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency in a very foundational fashion. The Pillars of the Church program provides a path for disciples to joyfully engage in God’s mission for the transformation of the world for generations to come.
The Rev. Sando Townsend, the outgoing moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Liberia, has invited the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to walk alongside the Presbyterian Church of Liberia, and U.S. church leaders are taking him up on his offer.
Dr. Jana Childers, dean and vice president of academic affairs and professor of homiletics and speech communication at San Francisco Theological Seminary, writes: “The idea that God is a boundary-crosser is not new. Nor is the thought that God’s grace flows through the world unhampered by human borders.
It’s been more than a year, but the mere mention of the devastation causes Lourdes Perez’s chin to tremble. Tears fill her eyes.
Everything was lost. The coffee trees. The plantain trees. Everything from the farm she and her husband, César Oliver, had been building for more than three decades.
With Native American women installed as executives in such places as the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is becoming a more diverse denomination — but there’s still work to be done, said the Rev. Danelle Crawford McKinney, a Presbyterian Women board member.
One day, the Rev. Irvin Porter invited about four dozen staff working at the Presbyterian Center to stand on the blanket of their choosing among about 20 covering a conference room floor.
