St. James Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, did its part Sunday to help inform the wider church on ways COVID-19 is impacting the African American community — and what can be done to reduce those impacts.
From an early age, the Rev. Dr. Darrell Guder knew he was going into ministry. In fact, in grammar school he envisioned himself in the mission field in the South Pacific.
The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground...” (Genesis 4: 10 NIV) This was the opening passage of a heartfelt and prophetic pastoral message that the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA) sent to its congregations condemning systemic and structural injustice and lamenting security force excesses in both South Africa and the United States.
For months now, leaders in the Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have said the upcoming 224th General Assembly (2020) will be like none other. Weeks ago, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) approved a plan for a three-day assembly to be held completely online.
Beth Mueller got a note from a man who saw the virtual choir of international peacemakers video she created for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and had a question. “He wanted to know how we got all those people from around the world to sing at the same time on Zoom,” Mueller said, laughing.
When the Rev. Carol DeVaughn welcomed the congregation of Faith Des Peres Presbyterian Church to virtual worship on a recent Sunday, those watching could hardly believe what they were seeing.
“Racism … is an essential part of economic injustice and hierarchical visions that deny that all human beings were created in the image and likeness of God.”
Born in Alabama, Rowan Sankar lived in India for two years before moving to the Dallas area in 2006, where he discovered First Presbyterian Church of Plano, Texas.
Even in a youth group with a membership alternating between 3 and 4, “there were many opportunities afforded to us, which helped me grow as a person and a leader,” Sankar, 23, said this week. Following conferences or youth retreats, “the congregation always wanted us to bring back what we learned, because it made our (faith) community stronger.”
A little under a year after it launched, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s gun violence prevention webinar series concluded Tuesday afternoon with a discussion about domestic violence.
Vision, technology and time management skills and, of course, leadership in a time of pandemic and protesting were among the skill sets examined Wednesday during a Presbyterian Outlook forum starring the three sets of candidates for Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly — Moon Lee and the Rev. Sandra Hedrick, the Rev. Greg Bentley and Elona Street-Stewart, and Arthur Fullerton and the Rev. Marie Mainard O’Connell.