Mid council leaders from across the country gathered virtually on Thursday for a streamlined, one-day meeting to talk about the issues that have had a huge impact on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this year. Like most national conferences, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced planners to go online for the annual Mid Council Leaders’ Gathering.

The theme was “Wholeness in Times of Crises” and began with a panel discussion about leadership in a crisis. The panel consisted of the Reverend Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency; the Reverend Frank Clark Spencer, president of the Board of Pensions; and the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA).

While Sunday morning worship and congregational fellowship, not to mention Circleville’s annual Pumpkin Show — in that priority order, of course — would normally have brought the members of Circleville Presbyterian Church together this fall, these are strange times.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has established The Rev. Drs. John C. (’02) and B. De Neice (’04) Welch Endowed Scholarship to honor the work and ministry of alumni John and De Neice Welch on the campus of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary as well as throughout the wider Pittsburgh community. 

We can make Christmas more meaningful by stretching out our celebration across 12 days — from Christmas Day until Epiphany (January 6).

The co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign delivered this post-election message during an online event Thursday: Now that voters have turned out in record numbers to cast their ballot, the real work of advocating and caring for the 140 million Americans who are poor and low income must begin in earnest, no matter who sits in the Oval Office or walks the halls of Congress and the nation’s 50 statehouses.

Two years ago, 78 students and three staff members were abducted from the Presbyterian Secondary School (PSS) in Nkwen, Bamenda. A week before that, 11 students were traumatized when they were kidnapped and held for ransom. The incidents drew attention to the deepening political conflict in Cameroon’s two most western regions, the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest Regions, and to the conflict’s particular impact on children.

After shutting down its building earlier this year due to the pandemic, Tippecanoe Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee was faced with a dilemma — how to keep providing food intervention and support for the hungry.

Friday will be the 40th day of the most recent full-scale military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the landlocked region of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The mountainous and forested land, historically called Artsakh by its majority ethnic Armenian residents, is a territory of 17,000 square miles — about the size of Delaware.

The Presbyterian Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment’s summer 2019 meeting in Detroit included a meeting with activist Emma Lockridge, who was protesting the impact a Marathon refinery had on her neighborhood.

The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had a pastoral message Wednesday for Presbyterians anxious about the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election even as ballots are still being counted.