Who’s in and who’s out? That’s the question from the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this week. The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II reflects on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In this week’s devotional, Nelson focuses on the struggles faced by millions in this country, including poverty, health care, and education.
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II noted that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his final birthday on Jan. 15, 1968, helping to plan the Poor People’s March that he would not live to see. Meeting in the basement of the historic Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King’s staff presented the civil rights leader with a birthday cake and a few gag gifts. “They cut his birthday cake and they laughed for a while,” said Nelson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “and then he said, ‘Let’s get back to work.’ On his last birthday he reminded us there is still work to be done.”
영어를 모국어가 아닌 언어로 사용하는 사람으로서 저는 영어 표현의 매력에 빠지곤합니다. 예를 들어, 모국어가 영어가 아닌 동료에게 "the whole nine yards"라는 표현의 의미를 설명했던 때를 기억합니다. 저는 그들의 표정을 잊을 수 없습니다. 스포츠에서 기원한 듯한 표현이 어떻게 교회 모임에서 사용되고 있는지 이해할 수 없다는 얼굴이었습니다.
Como una persona cuyo segundo idioma es el inglés, este idioma siempre me ha fascinado, especialmente al escuchar alguna de sus expresiones. Recuerdo, por ejemplo, el tener que explicar el significado de the whole nine yards (todo lo que está disponible o es posible) a una colega cuyo primer idioma tampoco era el inglés. Todavía recuerdo su expresión facial, cuando no pudo creer cómo terminología asociada con los deportes (fútbol americano en este caso) había sido utilizada en una reunión de iglesia.
As someone whose second language is English, I have always been fascinated by English language expressions. I remember, for example, explaining the meaning of “the whole nine yards” to a colleague whose first language is not English. The face they made was memorable, when they could not understand how what seemed to be a reference to sports had made its way into a church meeting.
The Office of Public Witness and some of its partners will hold a webinar Jan. 18 to raise awareness about a health and environmental crisis stemming from depleted uranium in Iraq.
On Nov. 13, leaders from Presbytery of San Fernando gathered at Kirk o’ the Valley Presbyterian Church in Reseda, California, to ordain and install elders to Cultivate Church, a new congregation comprised of leaders of that presbytery’s new worshiping communities. San Fernando’s Executive Presbyter, the Rev. Juan Sarmiento, sees the chartering of Cultivate Church as an expression of the presbytery’s strategic direction passed in 2018 that “we will seek to pass on a faith that is Reformed in theology, Presbyterian in governance and multicultural in scope.”
It was standing room only in mid-November at Orchard Path, a Presbyterian Homes & Services senior living community located in Apple Valley, Minnesota. On that fall afternoon, the community gathered to hear a piano concert entitled “Four Ladies in their Eighties.” The concert was performed by Orchard Path resident Vicki Hall and her sisters Jan Goris, Val Duininck and Carol Hall.
By extending an invitation to love everyone no matter what, as Jesus did, Pamela Atkinson, who grew up in the slums of London, has helped shape the life of First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. It has even earned her the nickname “the Mother Teresa of Utah.”
The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Militarism Working Group is kicking off 2023 with its newest in a series of Connecting the Dots webinars at noon Eastern Time on Jan. 25.