Since October 2013, an estimated 63,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended at the U.S./Mexico border, the majority of whom are fleeing rampant violence and poverty in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
New Worshiping Community leader Elbis Hernandez credits the kindness of a local congregation — partnering in ministry with Presbyterian Mission Agency — for helping save his life.
A Presbyterian church in West Virginia just got 60 solar energy panels installed on its roof for $1, thanks to a local group that’s making it easier and cheaper for nonprofits in the state to go solar.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 26, Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church ― a certified Earth Care Congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ― became the site of the largest community-supported solar system in West Virginia, at the same time kicking off a model to bring solar energy to West Virginia nonprofits that’s being pioneered by local group Solar Holler.
Even as hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant attacks find refuge in the towns of the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, agencies assisting these internally displaced persons (IDPs) warn of a huge unmet humanitarian need exacerbated by the looming onset of winter.
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is mourning the loss of the Rev. Johannes G. J. (“Jannie”) Swart, associate professor of world mission and evangelism. Swart died Sept. 8 from an apparent heart attack while playing Frisbee with students.
At the end of July the outline of the curriculum for teaching the Christian faith in primary schools here was finally produced and distributed with great celebration.
“I am here to ask for forgiveness from the presbytery and particularly those members of it who I harmed by a court case that I initiated in 1999 titled Benton et al. versus Hudson River Presbytery,” begins a statement by the Rev. Marc Benton.
“I am here today to repent of that position and apologize to you who were hurt by my actions, and apologize to the presbytery as a whole for the time and money spent in what I now recognize was an incorrect thing to do,” writes Benton, who will join in conversation with members of the presbytery at their Sept. 23 meeting.
When the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly ruled on Benton v. Hudson River Presbytery, it made a “determinative distinction” between a permissible same-sex ceremony and a marriage ceremony.
The practice of divestment and proscription of equities or other investments by individual Christians and by church bodies for ethical reasons has been around a long time. In its earliest stages it was focused largely on the refusal to invest in companies whose profits were derived from such things as tobacco, alcohol, or gambling. Presbyterian investors have often been among those who refused to invest in these so called “sin stocks.” Those decisions were taken with the full awareness that many Presbyterians were users of tobacco and of alcohol and some were participants in gambling, as well as the awareness that in some cases, Presbyterians were owners or operators of some of these businesses and that Presbyterians also worked in those enterprises.
Highland Park Presbyterian Church here will pay $7.8 million to Grace Presbytery in order to obtain both a release of its obligations under the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s trust clause and ecclesiastical dismissal from the denomination.
The man who murdered John Lennon wants only one thing now — to tell others about Jesus. Mark David Chapman, 59, told parole examiners he was no longer the man who sought notoriety through killing the Beatles rock star in 1980.