Make A Donation
Click Here >
eradicating systemic poverty
The Office of Public Witness is calling on Presbyterians to speak against a proposed administrative rule revision that will eliminate food assistance benefits to nearly 3 million Americans.
The right idea in the right place at the right time has led the Presbytery of Arkansas to say yes to the Matthew 25 invitation, one of the most recent mid councils to do so.
Some Sundays, five or 10 people show up for worship at Yaphank Presbyterian Church on Long Island, New York. The church, established in 1851, has 41 members on its rolls. The average Sunday attendance is about 15.
Yet the session of the historic church, whose sanctuary was destroyed by a December 2013 fire, has embraced the invitation to become a Matthew 25 church. Its chosen focus is eradicating systemic poverty.
Nancy Wind, the leader of the new worshiping community Isaiah’s Table in Syracuse, New York, She recently partnered with the Matthew 25 Farm in Central New York. Its mission is to give away fresh vegetables and fruit to those in need in their neighborhood.
When the Rev. Kirk Perucca of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Missouri, heard the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, speak about the agency’s new Matthew 25 invitation, he got excited.
As of Friday morning, 79 congregations, five presbyteries and one synod — Lakes and Prairies — had said yes to the Matthew 25 invitation, agreeing to become more actively engaged in the world by working on one or more of three focus areas: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.
Monday marks the official kickoff of the Matthew 25 Invitation, a movement that calls Presbyterian congregations and mid councils to actively engage in the world around them so that, as the invitation’s now-active website says, “our faith comes alive and we wake up to new possibilities.”
With all the skill and passion she’s built spending 30 years in the pulpit, the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett christened the Matthew 25 Invitation before the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board Wednesday.
