For more than 140 years, Magnolia Presbyterian Church in Riverside, California, has been providing ministry in this Southern California community. The city recognized it as a historic landmark in 1973. Members cite the church’s many outreaches into the community, across the country and around the world.
Over a year after a tornado destroyed First Presbyterian Church of Mayfield, Kentucky, and much of the community, the disaster has left the church grounds virtually bare. But a sign gives a hint of a promising future.
The Rev. Edwin Gonzalez Gertz says Light of Hope Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Georgia, didn’t hesitate to become a Matthew 25 church. It provided them the language to articulate who they are.
For Grace Presbyterian Church in Martins Ferry, Ohio, answering the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s invitation to become a Matthew 25 church was such a natural fit, it didn’t hesitate.
A few years back, the 130 or so members of First Presbyterian Church of South Lyon, Michigan, decided to turn their focus outward into their community about 40 miles west of Detroit.
Nearly 30 years ago, 25 residents of North Scottsdale, Arizona, attended a worship service at what would grow to become Pinnacle Presbyterian Church, a congregation of more than 1,400 in the Presbytery of Grand Canyon.
Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis continues to break down walls between church and community. As an engaged urban partner, it is listening to, and praying for, the concerns of its people.
On “Day One” of their “Hands & Feet” mission trip to St. Louis, 13 Presbyterians from southeastern Iowa spent the morning shoveling compost at an urban garden.
In the mid-1980s, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington, was on life support, and Olympia Presbytery had begun nudging the session to consider pulling the plug.
Drugs, crime and gangs had infested the church’s neighborhood. A handful of loyal members attended worship and struggled to maintain the church building.
When the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board met in Puerto Rico this spring, several board members went on a field trip. The visit to Mision Presbiteriana Rio Grande was the first experience with a new worshiping community for several board members. The first sign that this was not “church as usual” occurred when the drivers pulled up to a small storefront location squeezed between a mechanic shop and a laundromat in a tiny strip mall. Instead of stained glass windows and pews, they saw handmade decorations, vases of flowers picked from local gardens, and a welcoming crew of pastor Eileen Rivas and a few church elders. The space was just about the right size for the 35 attendees who show up regularly for worship.
