While “Flint: The Poisoning of an American City” is the title du jour for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s Story Ministry, other films in its catalog continue to get recognition, including an auspicious booking, this month.
What are your earliest memories of stewardship? Who taught you what it means to be generous?
“I believe the church extends far beyond the congregation or building,” said the Rev. Mary Sellers Shaw. “I am called to build community both inside and outside the church.”
When the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, was elected Stated Clerk of the Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of his first acts was to create the Hands and Feet initiative. The idea was to work with organizations in the cities that would host the next General Assembly to address community needs such as hunger and poverty.
For the past year, the focus has been in Baltimore, host of the 224th General Assembly (2020), with special emphasis on The Center, a mission initiative of the Presbytery of Baltimore. The nonprofit organization hosts mission teams from across the country to engage in community services with other churches and nonprofits in the Baltimore area.
Renowned biblical scholar Dr. Cain Hope Felder may have been a Methodist, but he had fans among Presbyterians, too. Felder, who taught for decades at the Howard University School of Divinity and before that at Princeton Theological Seminary, died Tuesday at the age of 76.
The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) said Wednesday the per capita funding model “is at a significant place right now” and that the denomination has seen the model “lose some ground over a number of years” following churches leaving the PC(USA) over General Assembly decisions including one to allow the ordination of LGBTQ pastors.
During the closing plenary of Just Worship, the director of the event, the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Bracken Long, confessed that “in the face of so much injustice and suffering, it was hard to keep despair at bay and not be ruled by rage.”
Leaders of small churches sometimes spend so much time looking back at how things used to be that they don’t appreciate the blessings and assets their church still has, says Olanda Carr Jr., Senior Ministry Relations Officer for the Presbyterian Foundation.
I still visualize the words etched into a granite slab on a wall of Elmina, a stately castle on the coast of Ghana, constructed in 1482 by the Portuguese:
From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 the United States celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month. During this period the country recognizes and honors the rich history and contributions made by Hispanic and Latino-a Americans. Hispanics/Latino-a are the largest people of color group in the United States and the third-largest people of color group in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).