Ash Wednesday — which falls this year on Feb. 14 — marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a 40-day period of prayer, fasting and self-examination which culminates in Holy Week and the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord at Easter.
An updated version of the PC(USA)’s Daily Prayer app is now available for Apple, Android and Amazon devices. The app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times since its debut in 2012. This is the first significant update to the app, and it comes in response to requests to have the new version match the latest (2018) version of the Book of Common Worship.
With crayons at the ready and voices lifted high, the PC(USA)’s chapel coordinating team called members of the national staff together for online worship Wednesday to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord/Día de los Reyes (Day of the Three Kings), which is observed on Jan. 6.
As Christians across the globe prepare their hearts, homes and houses of worship to welcome and celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has created a new online landing page that lists a wide variety of devotional and worship resources from across the agencies of the PC(USA) just in time for the Advent season, which begins on Sunday, Dec. 3.
In its final series, the “A Year with Matthew 25 podcast” asks leaders to invite worshipers into reflection about how their congregation will focus the resources of its time, treasure and service.
“For more than 50 years, Call to Worship and its precursor journals have fostered deep dialogue among pastors, musicians, and scholars around the theology and practice of worship,” said the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for worship with the Presbyterian Mission Agency, who sees the new website as an opportunity to expand these conversations in digital spaces and draw in fresh perspectives.
Friends and family of Dr. Arlo Duba gathered both in person at Gunnison (Colorado) Congregational Church and online Monday to remember one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s foremost authorities on worship.
Inside St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania, are more than 20 murals painted by Croatian immigrant Maxo Vanka in the late 1930s and early ’40s. Many of the paintings depict the immigrant experience in America. There is one of St. Francis, though, that shows Vanka’s love of animals, especially his fondness of birds. In the painting, exotic birds can be seen encircling the patron saint of animals.
At baptisms especially, Presbyterians love to talk about water. Some of the more adventurous baptizers even splash some of the water out of the font to remind those gathered to celebrate of their own baptism.
“The advent of a new liturgical year offers congregations and church leaders a fresh opportunity to engage the Matthew 25 vision of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” says the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, associate for worship in the Office of Theology and Worship in the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
