On April 2, Good Friday, musicians and pastors will offer a gift to the church: an experience of the practice that has sustained them through the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the shadow of a mass shooting in the United States that targeted women of Asian descent and the reality of the violence that women around the world face every day, Ecumenical Women at the United Nations turned its attention to violence against women in a parallel event to the 65th Annual UN Commission on the Status of Women last  Thursday.  

Gifts to this annual PC(USA) special offering support programs and ministries that provide people with safety, sustenance and support.

It was almost exactly one year ago when Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo leadership called faculty and staff together to announce that the COVID-19 pandemic had made its way to Egypt — and that it was time for students to return home and faculty to prepare to teach online.

The small open pickup truck, laden with large boxes, made its way cautiously down Alexander Fleming Street, an offshoot alley of Mar Mikhael Road, and just a few minutes walking distance from the Port of Beirut. “Hello! Hello,” Norma Irani warmly greeted Elias Habib, a youth leader of the Joint Christian Committee (JCC). “And you brought my new gas stove!”

After COVID-19 forced the cancelation of planned projects and in-person worship, Coastland Commons, a 1001 New Worshiping Community in Seattle Presbytery,  moved to Zoom discussions about their city’s history of land use by Black, Indigenous and people of color communities. After about six months of Zoom gatherings, they figured out a safe way to see Seattle anew through socially distanced community walks. They reached out to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which organizes redlining tours in Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Central District neighborhoods.

The 225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is still more than a year away, but plans are well under way for the denomination’s hybrid gathering. The Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) is knee-deep into working on how to combine in-person committee meetings with online plenaries and how to conduct those at the Church’s Louisville office.

“There is a gift,” the Rev. Phanta Lansden said during an online panel discussion held Tuesday, “in having womanist theology that centralizes the Black woman’s experience as it merges into the biblical story.”

As of Feb. 5, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has named itself a Matthew 25 agency, joining the rest of the Church in the important work of building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.

Asian Americans across the country have found themselves victims of violent crimes for no apparent reason other than their ethnicity. Tuesday’s killing of eight people in Atlanta, including six Asian women, four of whom were South Koreans, has brought about offers of support among Presbyterians — and cries for hate and violence to stop.