According to the Rev. Wilson Kennedy, people doing the work of ministry do well to remember the words of a pair of neurologists who star in the Netflix documentary series, “Lennox Hill”: “Remember, there is a person here.”
Righting a wrong from its celebrated predecessor 60 years ago, when just one woman was invited to speak during the March on Washington, about three dozen women spoke Monday on the 60th anniversary of the original march during “She Speaks,” billed as “a virtual assembly to fight for the same demands that were made 60 years ago, demands that our nation’s leaders have yet to fulfill.”
Kintsugi, the 15th-century Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the broken areas with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold or other precious metal, reminds us that when repaired, formerly broken places reveal new lines of character and beauty.
Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary is relying on the calling of Isaiah 58:12 — “… you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” — as it begins convening a national conversation on what the seminary calls in a news release “the interest and capacity of diverse organizations in developing sustainable approaches to reparations” and repair.
The Poor People’s Campaign says it’s high time the nation undertakes a Third Reconstruction. The campaign, co-chaired by the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor, and the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, took an initial step in that direction Monday with a rally in Raleigh, North Caroline, which PPC livestreamed here.
The pandemic has stretched the Church in many ways — but we are still very much … here. Although it was hard at first, we have expanded our thinking, and our doing, in new and innovative ways to close the distance and be together. We have continued to worship. We have continued to build and shape community; we have continued to take care of one another. And on top of all that, we have continued to come together to serve those in need; both here in our own community and all over the world. Despite the difficulty, struggle and loss, the Church continues to declare its presence in the world, through different means, certainly, but toward the same purpose.
The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had a pastoral message Wednesday for Presbyterians anxious about the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election even as ballots are still being counted.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exploited wounds we never healed.
Once who knows that truth all too well is the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the group Repairers of the Breach, co-chair (with Presbyterian pastor the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis) of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in North Carolina, where he preached a sermon as part of the Festival of Homiletics.
The Rev. T. Denise Anderson, Co-Moderator of the 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), added her voice today to the many faith leaders present for the launch of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in Washington, D.C.
