The Rev. Laura Bentley, pastor of Sanctuary Faith Community, felt called to be a pastor — but she had the best pastoral conversations sitting at bars with people over food and beer.
Sometimes faith renewal happens in ways you would never imagine.
Mission co-worker John McCall, who has served in Taiwan for more than 20 years, works to build the leadership skills of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. He leads groups of pastors who meet monthly to find encouragement and challenge, but he felt called to do more. He wanted to give the pastors he was mentoring an opportunity to find spiritual renewal.
Each year, Emory University and many other organizations around the country name a class of leaders who have made a significant impact in business, research, leadership, and public service or philanthropic endeavors. This year, PC(USA) mission co-workers the Revs. Shelvis and Nancy Smith-Mather were named to Emory’s 2018 class of “Forty Under Forty.”
I’ve been listening for the voice of God in a new way lately, not as the cry of the baby Jesus tossing and turning in a manger, but as our pre-risen Lord and Savior dying on a cross.
A 3-year-old I’d baptized as an infant was coming back to visit after his family had moved to a different state. There, unconstrained by family tradition, his grandmother and mother found a church with a good kids’ program and a band. They occasionally come back “home” and join us for worship.
Miriam is a teacher at a public elementary school in her indigenous community in Guatemala. When the government funds for the school hadn’t come halfway through the school year (but had for all of the non-indigenous public schools in the area), she led a march of teachers from their small town in the mountains to the municipal building in Xela, six miles away. Outside the government building, indigenous teachers and parents held a rally and delivered a letter demanding the money allocated for their children’s education.
For five weeks during the summer, nearly 50 youth in West Baltimore can be seen working on their reading and math skills, or they might be packing up for a day on a local farm or at an area museum. It’s all part of the Rosemont Community Interfaith Coalition, which is focused on ending the violence in the city by offering positive experiences and hope for youth.
University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has received a five-year, $936,102 grant to help support the Clergy Coaching in Community and Context initiative. The grant is part of Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving in Ministry, an initiative that supports religious organizations across the nation as they create or strengthen programs that help pastors build relationships with experienced clergy who can serve as mentors and guide them through key leadership challenges in congregational ministry.
During the morning plenary at this year’s national evangelism conference “Sabbath Rest, Holy Surrender, Full Life,” 135 attendees were encouraged by Ryan McKenzie, director of program ministries at Zephyr Point Presbyterian Conference Center, to “silence themselves.”
That was the message that the Rev. Dave Carver shared as part of a panel on transformative partnership at the 223rd General Assembly (2018) in St. Louis. Carver is pastor of a Pittsburgh congregation, Crafton Heights First United Presbyterian Church. He shared how a three-way partnership in faith among the Pittsburgh Presbytery, the Synod of Blantyre in Malawi and the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church is transforming the lives of those involved.
