On Thursday the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis recalled for the recently-renamed Association of Partners in Christian Education the scene — including tastes, smells and lasting impressions — of the first time she took communion when she was 7½ years old.

After discussing the proposed 2023-2024 Mission Work Plan in both small groups and all together Thursday, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board will vote Friday on the plan that will guide much of the mission agency’s work as it seeks to take on additional areas of concentration while maintaining and expanding efforts regarding the three foci of the Matthew 25 invitation: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.

When the Rev. Dr. Susan Sharp Campbell, outgoing president of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE), first started attending the organization’s annual event in 1988, she knew right away that she “fit.”

In a true celebration Black history, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s weekly worship service Wednesday reminded worshipers of the sorrows of the past and the joys of the future for African Americans. The service celebrated the gifts, skills and coping strategies of Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) as the theme for the month-long celebration “Resiliency to Recovery” was observed.

On Jan. 17, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), issued a statement commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In that statement, Nelson asserted that the U.S. is still a divided nation racially and economically.

The virtual series Around the World with PDA returns at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 17 with an installment showcasing how partners are welcoming Afghan refugees in two southern states, Arkansas and Virginia.  

The Rev. Mark Adams, a mission co-worker at the U.S.-Mexico border, tells an unsettling story about Jaciel, a six-year-old boy at Frontera de Cristo’s New Hope Community Center.

During opening worship at the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators annual gathering, the Rev. Shannon Johnson Kershner asked some 500 participants gathered in person and 200 joining online to put on “their glasses of Imagination.”

Dr. Corey Schlossser-Hall has been on the job for 10 days as the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Director of Rebuilding and Vision Implementation. As he proved to the PMA Board Wednesday, he already has a clear vision of what he hopes to accomplish — together with the help of lots of new colleagues and plenty of former colleagues in mid councils and congregations across the country — over the next nine months or so.

In response to questions and comments members of the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly have received about the Stated Clerk’s statement on the observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, we offer our understanding of the authorities and responsibilities given to the Clerk and COGA by the General Assembly.