President Obama will publicly take the oath of office with Bibles once owned by his political heroes, Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. One Bible was well read, but cited cautiously. The other granted scriptural sanction to the civil rights movement.

The application process for prospective pastoral residents is now open for For Such a Time as This: A Small Church Residency—Growing Leaders, Growing Churches.

Launched by the Presbyterian Mission Agency in fall 2009, For Such a Time as This was designed to renew and grow small churches and help them to become healthy, missional congregations. The program pairs small, underserved congregations in rural, small town, and urban settings with recent seminary graduates in a two-year pastoral-residency relationship, during which they are supported and guided by a cluster of pastor-mentors. Since For Such a Time as This began, 22 recent seminary graduates are serving 26 congregations in 10 presbyteries.

Dozens of the nation’s faith leaders said Jan. 15 that they’re ready to take on the gun lobby and demanded that politicians take quick and concrete steps to stem gun violence.

In December 2012 the Cuba Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held its annual gathering in Matanzas, Cuba. Formed in 1986, the Cuba Mission Network seeks to deepen the ties between the PC(USA) and the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC). At the recent ‘encuentro,’ 33 leaders from the PC(USA) joined 30 from the IPRC as both groups continue to seek ways to deepen their partnerships and relationships. 

Gwen Crawley, a well-known leader in Presbyterian world mission, died Jan. 2 in Medford, N.J.

The Latin America and the Caribbean without Hunger Initiative is a commitment from the countries and organizations in the region to create the conditions to eradicate hunger by 2025. It began in 2005 during the Latin American Summit on Chronic Hunger held in Guatemala, and the proposal goes beyond the Millennium Development Goals of cutting in half hunger and poverty rates by 2015; it sets out to reduce child malnutrition below 2.5 percent by 2025.

After years of tension between Mormons and gay rights activists ― with political action and theological pronouncements on one side, protests and pain on the other ― the gulf between the two groups has begun to narrow.

Imagine the transformation of God’s church called into a common learning this Lenten season with Living into Lent, the 2013 Moderator’s Lenten study written by noted theologian, educator, and author Donald K. McKim.

Elizabeth Little, a congregational mission leader from Charlotte, North Carolina, has accepted a position as a church support fund-raising associate with the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Much of Roma history remains shrouded in mystery, a situation compounded by the fact that there is no single definition of the term “Roma.”