The 2022 version of Presbyterian Youth Triennium will feature a Matthew 25 framework, activities that will extend a full year following Triennium and enough innovation to send thousands of high schoolers and young adults scurrying to register — once registration goes live this winter.
For nearly three years, Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church near Annapolis, Maryland, has been transforming its grounds and nearby woods with native plants to help protect local waterways and attract butterflies and other wildlife.
Jim Ferguson of Calvary Presbyterian Church in Newburgh, New York was recently checking out a do-it-yourself project on YouTube. Nothing unusual for him, since he is a long-time volunteer with the Habitat for Humanity PresbyBuild group in Hudson River Presbytery. The group is currently working on its 10th house and has raised almost enough funds for house 11.
Just when most young people were beginning to imagine what nontraditional instruction might look like during COVID-19, Sami Han set about picturing an even more nontraditional path.
She moved to South Korea with her parents.
After COVID-19 forced the cancelation of planned projects and in-person worship, Coastland Commons, a 1001 New Worshiping Community in Seattle Presbytery, moved to Zoom discussions about their city’s history of land use by Black, Indigenous and people of color communities. After about six months of Zoom gatherings, they figured out a safe way to see Seattle anew through socially distanced community walks. They reached out to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which organizes redlining tours in Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Central District neighborhoods.
As of Feb. 5, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has named itself a Matthew 25 agency, joining the rest of the Church in the important work of building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.
As we begin the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are reasons for hope, including vaccines approved for emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Yet even 95% efficacy for a vaccinated individual means that, statistically, 19 out of 20 people are effectively covered against becoming seriously ill from coronavirus, but 1 in 20 is not.
The bold vision and invitation of Matthew 25:31-46 to be the hands and feet of Jesus, serving people who are hungry, oppressed, imprisoned or poor, is awakening compassionate faith to new possibilities in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The year was 2009, the place was Yei in what is now South Sudan, the newest country in the world. I was a mission co-worker serving as the first principal of RECONCILE Peace Institute, and our first class of students had arrived. The student body included about 45 church and community leaders from a dozen or more ethnic groups on opposing sides of a two- decades-long civil war. They had come to Yei to take courses in community-based trauma healing, peace studies and conflict transformation.
