Jeff Richards, pastor of The WordHouse, began building a Christian community for young adults in November 2009. A graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, he was talking with friends about their disconnection from the traditional forms of what church looked like and their desire to do church in a new way.
Blistered by criticism and given some breathing room by far better than expected Medical Plan experience in 2012, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Board of Pensions (BOP) has stepped back from a controversial proposal for funding family medical coverage that would have cost employers and/or church workers nearly $6,000 annually.
Hundreds of thousands of people have crossed into Lebanon to escape the violence in neighboring Syria. Immediately they find unemployment, a high cost of living, and diminished funding from abroad. Resources are scarce due to the overwhelming need amongst both the Lebanese and the Syrians. But it is our mission to “serve the least of these” and to enable them to move from poverty and despair to self-sufficiency and hope.
The Board of Pensions (BOP) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved a 1 percent “experience apportionment” here March 9 after changing the formula by which the pension benefit for the denomination’s Pension Plan members is calculated.
These days are very difficult, and sometimes very hopeless. We are having casualties within our community... Although our Jinishian Memorial Program family lives with all these dangers personally, we feel responsible to help and support our community. Saving someone’s life, giving shelter to a homeless child, giving hope to an abandoned, lonely, elderly and sick person, and showing compassion and helping an unemployed breadwinner—this gives happiness to our hearts, and we can forget our own troubles a bit.
Bethany Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N.J., suffered the fate of so many urban churches — changing demographics saw the church, which was founded in 1885 and once boasted 1,500 members, dwindle to just a couple dozen members when it closed in 2011.
But part of Bethany lives on.
Like many other pastors’ kids, the Rev. Steve Eason resisted being a Christian.
When he was a freshman in college, Eason saw the play “Life of Galileo.” During the Inquisition scene, Galileo argues that earth is not the center of the universe, and Eason realized that he had been living as if he was the center of God’s universe.
The voice that calls us to ministry has its own agenda and timing, said Eason, now pastor of Myers Park Presbyterian Church here. Other voices try to drown it out, but it never yields. The voice comes from heaven and needs no explanation.
“In the church,” Chicago Cardinal Francis George once said, “everything has happened at least once!” That's no surprise given that the Catholic Church is a nearly 2,000-year-old institution that has adapted to radically different epochs.
Daniel Yang presents the perfect example of how the Presbyterian Study Grant is helping to shape the future of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
When he started at Princeton Theological Seminary, Yang thought he had his future ministry goals all figured out: he was going to serve a multicultural congregation or work with persons with disabilities. But thanks to the opportunity to focus on his studies afforded by the Presbyterian Study Grant, Yang has come to understand that ministry and calling is about much more than just picking an area of interest.
The Rev. Eduard Grigorevich Khegay of Moscow ― who on Jan. 1 became the new bishop of Russia for the United Methodist Church ― dreams about “brave and humble leaders” for his church.