In prison, the Rev. Lane Brubaker has never once felt scared or nervous. In fact, she’s experienced more joy and laughter there than she could have ever imagined.
“He never follows through,” the church member complained. “What do you mean?” I asked. “He’ll call and say he’s going to drop by the hospital, or check up on us later, or send us something, but he never does. I think that’s why we’re all wondering if we called the right pastor,” she replied. I’m hearing more and more complaints like this about pastors from members of struggling churches. It’s not just griping about failing to follow through. It’s critiques that increasingly pastors aren’t doing the small things that make a big difference.
Philadelphia, Pa: The Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) will award four Research Fellowships in 2020 thanks to a successful Giving Tuesday campaign.
The PHS Research Fellowship program provides grants of $2,500 to scholars and independent researchers to cover the cost of travel to Philadelphia, where researchers explore the Presbyterian Historical Society’s collection materials for up to one month. The popular program has funded 40 fellowships since its start in 2004.
More than 8.6 million people call New York City home. It is the most populous city in the U.S. Even with its strong corporate and financial structure, the city faces incredible challenges.
Recently, staff from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office invited the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), to meet and discuss the city’s various issues.
As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decades before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, David Price saw racial barriers begin to fall as a result of the civil rights movement.
A 2016 study conducted by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Research Services, “Gender and Leadership in the PC(USA)” identified two key findings: gender discrimination is still pervasive within the denomination, and almost half its members are not particularly aware of it. The study is a part of a larger research project assessing the status of women at all levels of the church.
Union Presbyterian Seminary will use a $400,000 grant to lift the voices and perspectives of black women in the church, academy and the world.
For the Rev. Shelvis Smith-Mather, the road to the majestic halls of Oxford University took a journey of nine years and three continents. But it is, he says, a “crazy, wonderful, beautiful story.” “And… a long story, but the details of the many stops and starts along the way speaks to how it has come together now in God’s time,” he said.
We live in a scary world. Every morning, the news is filled with stories of natural disasters, carnage on roadways and diseases that we have not yet found a way to control. The beat goes on, and the reality of our own finitude is too intense to deny.
When Tony and Lilia Acabal were determining where to send their children to school, they both carried deep memories of the struggles they faced years ago as new immigrants.