A dance, a Bible study preview and a talk about neighborliness highlight Friday evening’s PW plenary
The Rev. Evelyn Torres, a bivocational pastor in Puerto Rico, is the Friday evening keynoter for the 2024 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women
LOUISVILLE — Friday’s evening plenary at the 2024 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women in St. Louis included a dance and a discussion of the upcoming 2025-26 PW/Horizons Bible Study, “Finding Resilience, Joy and Identity in Jesus Christ.”
Clara Harper provided the dance, set to “Amazing Grace.” Harper is assistant director of admissions and coordinator of Westminster Scholars at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
The Rev. Dr. Rhashell Hunter introduced the Bible study she is writing. With all the big changes in society in recent years brought about by forces including the pandemic and by racial reckoning, Hunter called it “a good time for us as Presbyterian Women to find resilience, joy and our identity in Jesus Christ.”
Her goal with the new study is to help users “find calm in the midst of chaos” by “reconnecting to our spirituality, reading and hearing God’s word and being reminded that we belong to God.”
Years ago, Hunter served as an associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, where her duties included leading a Bible study at the now demolished Cabrini-Green housing project. One day, a woman living at Cabrini-Green closed the Bible study with a prayer thanking God “for the abundance you have given us.”
“She lived in one of the worst housing projects in Chicago,” Hunter noted. “They had so little compared with the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue just a few blocks away,” but they knew something about thankfulness having studied Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi.
“For some reason, hardship does not kill joy,” Hunter said, calling the upcoming study “an invitation and opportunity for you to become grounded again, renew your faith and reconnect to Christ. I look forward to joining you in this quest.”
Friday evening’s plenary speaker was the Rev. Evelyn Torres, the bivocational pastor of La Iglesia Presbiteriana en Lares, Puerto Rico, and also the director of six clinical labs in Puerto Rico’s mountainous region. The church she serves was severely damaged in 2017 by hurricanes Irma and Maria; it received PW’s Birthday Offering grant in 2022 to help cover the cost of rebuilding.
“‘Do all things in love’ is the insightful advice that is guiding the activity of this gathering,” Torres told those gathered. Centuries ago, Paul offered the same advice to the church in Corinth, where he “laid the foundations for one or several communities of faith, established order, then went on his way to repeat” the process, Torres said.
Portions of 1 Corinthians “could have been written for the church of today. We also suffer from internal divisions,” she said. “We have problems with our egos. We forget that before God we are all equal, and we even forget sometimes that everyone needs to eat. … We too need to be reminded that without love, we are nothing. Everything we do must be done in love and with love.”
“Only in love could they deal with internal divisions and schisms,” Torres said. “Only in love could they counsel those living in reprehensible behavior and break bread with empathy and consideration.”
A direct question posed to Jesus — “who is my neighbor?” — prompted “one of the most relevant parables for understanding our mission in Jesus,” the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Torres said.
“I am so sure every one of us knows how to act like a good neighbor. We know how to be good Samaritans,” Torres said. “With time, we have learned a neighbor is someone who meets a need, who cares, who provides for safety and well-being at the right time.”
Torres invited the more than 900 people gathered to “think about all the people who have cared for you recently, who have listened or offered a shoulder to cry on or an understanding ear to vent.”
“For all the people who have blessed you, fed you and taken care of you, this parable becomes a little uncomfortable. No one wants to be the half-dead, half-naked person” beaten by robbers and ignored by people who could have provided aid.
After the hurricanes of 2017, “you, Presbyterian Women, became our neighbors. You have made it easier for us to serve poor women and children, vulnerable people living through immense trauma. … Today, some of you are here with me — no longer as unknown neighbors, but as beloved sisters, as family.”
Because of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance “and other water-related ministries,” hundreds of homes in Puerto Rico now have water filters and solar lamps, she said. Her church’s “tiny and rudimentary kitchen” is now “gorgeous and safe” and can “provide warm food when the situation warrants it. From my heart, and the heart of my people, thank you for being the neighbors of my people. Thank you for helping me understand a great truth: To see myself as a Good Samaritan, it is first necessary to recognize how many times I have been the traveler left on the road.”
“By grace — and only by grace — time and again together, we rise to love and serve, understanding that everything that is done must be done with much love — love that comes from our broken hearts, from grief and sadness and trauma,” Torres said. “May God help us always to love as we feel embraced by God’s blessing and holy love. God bless you, my sisters. Amen.”
Read other Presbyterian News Service reports from the 2024 Presbyterian Women’s Gathering here and here. The gathering concludes Sunday.
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