When urban design consultant Joshua Poe showed me a redlining map of Louisville, Kentucky, I saw how the intersections of racism and poverty are interwoven. More about the map, which was recently recognized by Harvard University, is available at insiderlouisville.com/government/redlining-louisville-map-wins-harvard-university-honor.
A representative from a Kenya-based church organization visited the Presbyterian Mission Agency this past fall to discuss the plight facing South Sudanese refugees. The Rev. Nicta M. Lubaale, general secretary of the Organization of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), was hosted by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
For Dr. Su Yon Pak, the “personal” is not only political but also profoundly pastoral, prophetic and pedagogical.
“My personal always informs my professional, and vice versa,” says Pak, senior director and associate professor for Integrative and Field-Based Education at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. “The way I do my teaching and research is to start by saying, ‘If I’m asking myself certain questions in response to a life experience I’m going through, what does it mean for us to train today’s religious leaders in that area?’ Going through an experience helps me to teach about it.”
Marking its 65th year, this year’s iteration of Synod School, the midsummer ministry of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, drew more than 600 for a week of worship, classes, fun and fellowship on the campus of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.
Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministry hosts pre-gathering event January 16, 2019 Native American women came together in Louisville over the summer for a pre-gathering event prior to the… Read more »
Despite the improbability of her call last winter as pastor of historic First Presbyterian Church in Havana, Cuba, the Rev. Liudmila Hernández is confident about her ministry. “It is a challenge all the time, but I have no doubts,” she says. “I feel energy every day and ask God, ‘This is your church — help me.’”
Mark lived on the streets of Hollywood, well known by social service providers as one of the toughest homeless cases in the city. He was often found standing on a street corner, looking disheveled, staring into space. His looks scared most people away.
Gita, a toddler, sits on her mother’s lap, her head lying on the table in front of them so quietly she might be napping. It is as if she is willing her mother, Hiromis, to concentrate on her studies in the Superior Ecumenical Institute of Religious Sciences (ISECRE), a weekly interfaith academic program of the Evangelical (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary (SET) in nearby Matanzas.
I’d been on the job for about three months when it came time for the joint planning meeting with the session and deacons. It was my first call to a small congregation in a medium-sized building. I was old enough to remember what church was like
back in the ’70s, when vacation Bible school was a community event and Christmas and Easter meant extra chairs around the perimeter of the sanctuary. The church to which I’d been called didn’t even fill up on the big holidays.
While the religious backgrounds of U.S. military personnel have changed greatly over the past three decades, their spiritual care continues to be a pressing need, the U.S. Navy’s chief of chaplains says.
