Three PC(USA) pastors who serve congregations that have made significant strides helping to provide their neighbors with safe and affordable housing formed the centerpiece of Wednesday’s national Matthew 25 webinar. Nearly 250 people participated.
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.
The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness is calling on Congress to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour to help lift low-wage workers out of poverty.
The vision for the Matthew 25 invitation asks us to engage together in the three works of vitalizing congregations, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty. Though individual, these three works are inseparable. Can a congregation be vital without confronting racism? What is at stake when racism directs our congregational and community life?
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.).
You may be startled to learn that 25% of children under 6 now live in poverty, nearly 23% of the American population can’t afford a medication they need and 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States were experiencing homelessness on a single night. The Presbyterian Mission Agency has created a short video designed to raise awareness of the systemic poverty facing people in all walks of life, especially with the additional impact of the pandemic. The video is available to download and share across social media and websites.
In what is believed to be a first, “Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching and the Arts” a quarterly journal produced by the Office of Theology & Worship, is focusing an entire issue on poverty.
The online Matthew 25 series continues with a fourth event scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Oct. 28. This online event will address the global issues around eradicating systemic poverty, one of the three focuses of the Matthew 25 vision along with building congregational vitality and dismantling structural racism.
The 85 or so Presbyterians studying the underpinnings of systemic poverty zoomed out to take in a more global perspective Monday, thanks to presentations by Valéry Nodem and the Rev. Jed Koball.
