All across the landscape of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as leaders of the denomination’s nearly 400 new worshiping communities continue to transform the church—and the world—by growing new disciples for Jesus Christ, they, too, hunger for a space in which to grow and be nurtured.
Church Glorious, a new multi-ethnic church in the San Gabriel Presbytery, just 19 miles east of Los Angeles, began last September as a Glorious Living Bible study with a core group of 25 people meeting in the home of the Rev. Dr. Kerry Allison and his wife, Oona.
There’s always that first time—that time in ministry when a pastor’s expectations go unmet. It happened inevitably to the Rev. Jeff Eddings, who in 2004 co-founded the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community together with a United Methodist colleague, the Rev. Jim Walker, in the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
As flameless candles cast faint shadows on the walls, worshipers at the Disciple-Making Church Conference entered the meeting room—transformed into sacred space—on the evening of January 18 prepared to experience a unique service inspired by the Japanese art form of Kintsugi.
To hear the Rev. Jeff Eddings tell it, St. Ignatius of Loyola had quite a checkered past. Eddings, a co-founder of the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community in Pittsburgh, whose own spiritual life has been profoundly shaped by the teachings of St. Ignatius, is here to keynote the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s annual Disciple-Making Church Conference.
Travelers, not unexpectedly, arrive with baggage. And as pastors and church leaders regularly navigate the daily landscape of life and ministry under tremendous pressure and stress, they may find themselves carrying more than their usual share to the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s annual Disciple-Making Church Conference on January 16.
Imagine what type of ministry you would start if you had no fear of failure or financial limitations. That’s exactly what the Synod of the Northeast is asking people to consider as it receives another round of Innovation Grant applications.
In the words and experience of the Rev. Jim Moseley, executive presbyter of New Castle Presbytery, “Every great effort in ministry requires both strategic thinking and ‘daring’ in equal amounts.” And maybe just a few peaches.
It all began in Pittsburgh over a sandwich.
When Rev. Dr. Clinton “Clint” Cottrell, pastor and head of staff at Cypress Lake Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers, Florida, sat down in a sandwich shop during the 220th General Assembly (2012) to break bread with his Peace River Presbytery colleague, Rev. Miguel Estrada, their long-held dream took shape.
