For a Zoom gathering of about 65 people ready to hear Wednesday about doing intentional, authentic evangelism in the time of a pandemic, the director of Theology, Formation & Evangelism, the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III, looked to one of his favorite biblical texts in Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”
At 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, the Office of Vital Congregations will continue its weekly Zoom conversations around “The Seven Marks of a Vital Congregation: For Such a Time as This.”
Both the 2020 Vital Congregations facilitator training and national gathering in Austin, scheduled for April 24-30, have been postponed. The Office of Vital Congregations in the Presbyterian Mission Agency is looking at the possibility of rescheduling the event in August 2020.
These days the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III has a fancy title — director of Theology, Formation & Evangelism for the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
But at one time he was a young pastor embarking on his first call at a church in a town in Mississippi.
The Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III turned to history and the cinema to open a conversation about congregational vitality on the first day of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board’s February meeting on Wednesday.
This Thanksgiving, the Rev. Dr. Ray Jones III is grateful, especially for his colleagues in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Theology, Formation & Evangelism (TFE) ministry area.
The Stony Point Center will get at least the initial portion of the cash infusion it needs to become the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s (PMA) laboratory for becoming a Matthew 25 church.
If the handful of Presbyterian Mission Agency Board members who participated in a conference call Friday on the Stony Point Center Vision Plan have reservations about the plan’s recommendations, they didn’t voice them.
A proposed Vision Plan for Stony Point Center, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-affiliated center for hospitality and community-building along the Hudson River north of New York City, recommends investing in significant renovations, including the installation of private bathrooms in three lodges and construction of a facility called Cairncroft to replace the center’s current Evergreen building and provide modern meeting space, dining and administrative functions.
