Posts Categorized: Health

PT Special Feature: Isolation in the Lone Star State

Loneliness is an increasing problem nationwide. How are pastors in Mission Presbytery staying connected during their calls?

What Texas is to states, Mission is to presbyteries: one of the largest and most diverse in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with dozens of congregations near San Antonio and Austin, and large swaths of countryside where farm supply stores and oil wells outnumber houses of worship.
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Loving Your Neighbor and Mental Health

A few weeks ago, on one of the most beautiful afternoons we’ve had so far this spring, I drove a few miles up the highway to meet a colleague, who is also a dear soul friend. Interstate-81 notwithstanding, it was a gorgeous drive, throughout which I gave thanks for both the beauty of this piece… Read more »

Mental Health and Asian Americans – A Reflection

Mental health and Asian Americans by Samuel Son, Presbyterian Mission Agency   Recently, I attended an online conference titled, “Mental Health and Asian Americans: Context and Strategies for Faith Leaders” hosted by Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. I am still processing my emotions. If it was a physical conference, I would have… Read more »

Hopeful Church

Is healing at the core of our congregations? by N. Graham Standish As a seminary student I heard a constant refrain from our professors: Jesus came to preach and teach. It was the pretext underlying our whole seminary education as they trained us to preach and teach. It made sense to me. Isn’t that what… Read more »

justleros = more than just nonsense or disparates

Lying there A resource for Sunday’s liturgy based on John 5:1–9 by Magdalena I. García Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha[i], which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus… Read more »

Ponderings

Things that make you go hmm . . .   Therapy Ain’t for Black Folk?! by Shanell T. Smith It’s all I see in movies.It’s all that I’ve heard spoken.“Black folk don’t do therapy.Unless he was a ‘token’Negros don’t believe in sittin’With no man to help to free usWe don’t need no medicationAll we needs,… Read more »

Scribbling Outside the Lines

Playing beyond the boundaries in hopes of finding God and inspiration   Preaching about mental illness Being vulnerable and breaking the stigma by Adam Walker Cleaveland According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in four Americans experience mental illness in a given year. The average size of a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation is… Read more »