The Rev. Dr. Hector Rodriguez, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission associate for Hispanic / Latino-a Congregational Support, has authored the new book “Reflexiones acerca de la salud de la iglesia” (Reflections on the health of the church), a series of compiled observations and recommendations to church leaders from his career as a pastor and mentor in the Presbyterian Church.
When the men’s chorus of Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, N.C., decided several years ago to send complimentary copies of its CD, Singing Our Faith, to the Presbyterians Caring for Chaplains and Military Personnel (PCCMP) offices in Washington, D.C., to distribute to active duty military chaplains, it was an outreach straight from the heart.
For 461 consecutive nights Rosa Robles Loreto, seeking sanctuary inside Southside Presbyterian Church, joined supporters in prayers for freedom, for safety, and to change America’s broken immigration system.
On Tuesday they gathered once again, but this time for the final prayer vigil. The wife and mother of two young boys, who has become a faith-filled voice of the new sanctuary movement, walked free from Southside Church in Tucson, Arizona, Wednesday morning.
Families are coming together at different locations in the city of Sheikh Zaid and other communities in Egypt to pray for the future church, including the necessary finances to build new church buildings on 14 parcels of land donated to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Egypt (EPCE) by the Egyptian government.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s office of Theology and Worship is hosting its third Twitter chat on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, from 4:00-5:00 p.m. EST. The conversation will be moderated by the Rev. Karen Russell, program manager for the Company of New Pastors.
The White House has named a former staff member with the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations to chair the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The Rev. Jennifer Butler, who served the Presbyterian Ministry at the UN from 1998 to 2005, began her official duties with the council last week.
How can Presbyterians be involved in the difficult work of addressing injustice and working for reconciliation? That question has been weaving through a series of discussions at the Covenant Network of Presbyterians’ national gathering Nov. 5-7 in Denver – as when Clifton Kirkpatrick, a former stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), said the debate in South Africa over the Confession of Belhar convinced him that “if there is no reconciliation there is no justice, there is no peace, there is no future.”
"I think it has moved us to a new place as a presbytery,” says the Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, mission catalyst at Presbytery of the Pacific, referring to the presbytery’s approach to engaging in the three critical global initiatives of Presbyterian World Mission. These initiatives are reconciliation in cultures of violence, addressing root causes of poverty and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
Through its religion grant making, Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation, seeks to deepen and enrich the lives of American Christians. It pursues this goal primarily via initiatives to enhance and sustain the quality of ministry in American congregations and parishes.
In his acclaimed novella, A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean memorably wrote that he is “haunted by waters.” Similarly haunted by waters, the Rev. Karen Russell, program manager for the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Company of New Pastors, was recently inspired to author a paper for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) using the river’s flow as an apt metaphor for how church leaders in today’s rapidly changing ecclesial landscape are called to be especially resilient.