“I always see people in our congregations eager to do some kind of service with our neighbors. Their first thought is often that that’s meeting a basic need, some sort of hands-on giving someone food or drink or clothing or shelter,” said the Rev. Rebekah LeMon, senior pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. “But we have to ask ourselves, as people of faith, why our systems don’t allow everyone to have food, clothing, shelter and welcome.” For the past six years, LeMon has served on the board of Presbyterians for a Better Georgia (PBG). “Advocacy is the way we try to create systemic change that would better support all of our neighbors.”
Clarkston, Georgia, has been synonymous with refugee resettlement for decades. Described as the Ellis Island of the South, and the most diverse square-mile in North America, the small city includes a number of faith and nonprofit groups assisting and accompanying refugees. According to a CBS News report, more than 60 languages are spoken in Clarkston. Fifty-three percent of its residents were born outside the United States.
In the midst of the Covid pandemic, when the efficacy of new vaccines was still unknown and many churches were not back to worshiping inside, the Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, issued an invitation for congregations to join the Vital Congregations Initiative (VCI). The Rev. Katie Day, having accepted her call to Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church in Duluth, Georgia, during the pandemic, remembers that her congregation was still worshiping in a parking lot and conducting meetings on Zoom.
The “What’s the Secret Sauce?” conference sponsored by the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities and the New Church Development Commission of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta recently welcomed more than 80 participants in a dozen languages with barbecue from three countries and a joyous worship service. Colleagues in the Office of General Assembly and the PMA’s Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries were also partners in the event.
Only a preacher as gifted as the Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson can take worshipers from “Green Acres” to the heavenly city.
Brooks-Johnson, executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, preached a taped sermon shown during opening worship for the Urban Presbyteries Network conference recently both online and in person at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As a child, the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Armstrong loved Mister Rogers and his neighborhood of make-believe — especially the puppets King Friday XIII and Henrietta Pussycat.
The way Mark Roberson sees it, it was Roswell Presbyterian Church’s turn to plant a church.
Roberson, a ruling elder for over 50 years—18 at Roswell—knew about church planting. He’d worked with the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta’s New Church Development Commission, and in 2011 he just knew it was Roswell’s time.
Congregation seeks to reduce gun violence in the U.S. and to provide safe water in Malawi
The ancient biblical vision of turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks has stirred the modern-day imagination of Columbia Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia.
Company of New Pastors provides framework for ministry
The transition from seminary to ordained ministry can be rough. All the hypotheticals and case studies of the classroom become real when you are in a session meeting or at a hospital bedside with people you are learning to love. Thank God we don’t have to make that transition alone!
