As the ferry from Juneau approaches the harbor here after its four-and-a-half hour trip up Lynn Canal, the Presbyterian church is among the most prominent landmarks — along with the towering snow-capped mountains that surround the town.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise: the church was founded before the town. It stands like a sentinel among the huddled buildings that hug the shore where the Chilkat and Chilkoot Rivers meet the sea.
When naturalist John Muir and the Rev. S. Hall Young — a protege of legendary Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson — first visited here in 1879, the area was …
Memorial Day is well over 100 years old. What began as a time of decorating the graves of those in military service who died during the Civil War has become a tradition that is identified with all wars.
We live in the eternal quest for the day when all swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. My fantasy for that day is of tanks rolling into one end of a factory and tractors rolling out the other. Unfortunately, the world in which we live is one where plowshares are often beaten into swords. Fields that should …
Nine students representing six colleges and universities related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have received the 2010 Samuel Robinson Award. The award recipients are:
The Samuel Robinson Award, which is open to PC(USA) students who are completing their junior or senior …
A local polka band wrapped up its rendition of “Sioux City Sue” as the Church World Service Day of Celebration began May 18 at the home of Dan and Sandy McSpadden.
The event was the culmination of a six-week ecumenical rebuild project. It was also a vivid reminder to the participating denominations of the ongoing need for disaster relief in Cedar Rapids. Since the floods of June 2008, local faith-based and secular partners have been working together across denominational and agency lines to rebuild more than 600 of the 6,000 flood-damaged homes. The CWS project begun in April of this …
The mountains of West Virginia played host to a group of young adults with hearts and minds for earth care last week.
Eight Eco-Stewards spent the week traveling around West Virginia, where they visited churches and farms and learned about local environmental issues like coal mining and mountaintop removal. The group ended the week with the Stewardship of the Land event, a community gathering that offered workshops, lectures and networking opportunities for eco-minded Christians and activists.
The Eco-Stewards program is a venture of Presbyterians for Earth Care and the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association. It invites young adults …
A sixth candidate has announced her intention to stand for moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which meets in Minneapolis July 3-10.
The Rev. Julia Leeth is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Lompoc, CA.
The Presbytery of Santa Barbara has called a special meeting June 9, at which it will vote on her endorsement.
Leeth joins five other candidates standing for moderator: elder Cynthia Bolbach (National Capital Presbytery), the Rev. Jin S. Kim (Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area), the Rev. Maggie Lauterer (Presbytery of Western North Carolina) and the Rev. Eric G. …
The General Assembly Mission Council today released adjusted numbers for the personnel decisions that accompanied last week's approval of the General Assembly Mission Council Ministry Plan and Budget for 2011-2012:
70 positions were eliminated;
26.5 new positions will be created or filled;
Net impact: 43.5 positions;
The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is a chilling reminder of the war that never ended.
It is a strip of land — 160 miles long from east to west and just 2-1/2 miles wide — that separates North and South Korea. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1989, Korea is the only partitioned remnant of the Cold War.
And the DMZ is the most heavily militarized border in the world.
The Korean War death toll is staggering: nearly 2,000,000 people, including 58,100 South Korean and 36,500 U.S. soldiers, 215,000 …
One day this spring, the Rev. Paul Roberts was wrapping up his workday at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary when the phone rang.
The seminary's development officer answered the phone, and Roberts remembers that the officer listened to the caller in shock.
"There was dead silence," said Roberts, dean of the seminary. "It's definitely the kind of surprise we want."
The surprise? A donor who had pledged $1 million to endow the dean's office decided to pay the balance of the pledge a year early, meaning the seminary would see an unexpected $400,000.
The original pledge was to be paid …
Presbyterians who are heading to Minnesota for the 219th General Assembly (July 3-10) can also use the trip to take advantage of local attractions.
The Committee on Local Arrangements has identified an exhibit that might be of interest to visiting Presbyterians — the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are on exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. As the oldest hand-scribed Bible, the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls represent a story with deep religious, historic and cultural significance.
The scrolls were discovered in 1947 in caves along the shores of Israel’s Dead Sea, near the ancient …