Together with the Rev. Dr. Ellen Davis, her colleague at the Duke Divinity School, the Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal, who teaches homiletics there, has been teaching a class that requires students to preach a sermon on the climate crisis to any congregation in North Carolina.
The Rev. Roland Gordon, whose length of service as the pastor of Ingleside Presbyterian Church in San Francisco is exceeded only by the care and inspiration he has provided to the youth of the neighborhood in which the church does ministry, is one of five recipients of Jefferson Awards from the organization Multiplying Good, which seeks to cultivate greatness through service to others. Last month, Gordon accepted the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefitting Local Communities.
Union Presbyterian Seminary recently received a grant of $249,920 from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to expand The Bridge for Early Career Preachers. The program was developed with the support of an earlier grant from Lilly Endowment made through its Compelling Preaching Initiative.
The Synod of the Covenant, in partnership with Alma College, Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, and the Presbytery of Cincinnati, has received a grant of $1.25 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Cultivating the Gift of Preaching initiative.
Leland Presbyterian Church in Mississippi welcomed four members of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) National Response Team on Sunday, Oct. 29, as part of a commissioning ceremony for the church’s recently established disaster recovery volunteer host site as well as for the site’s coordinator.
“People are looking for meaning in their lives,” said Nathan Heimer, who with his wife, Mindy, have found more success opening up deep conversations on a paddleboard, in a yoga class or in a coffee shop instead of a traditional church. That’s why the Heimers, started a paddleboard ministry named A Stoked Life in Colorado rather than waiting for people who have grown up in secular households or who have been hurt by the church to walk through a sanctuary door looking for a good sermon. They see themselves as a bridge between nature-lovers and communities that seek to be God’s love in the world.
Registration is now open for the Spanish online Annual Event of the Association for Partners in Christian Education (APCE) to take place Jan. 24–27, 2024. The event coincides with APCE’s annual hybrid and in-person events hosted in St. Louis. The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Office of Christian Education has made this event free to those who register through a partnership with Global Language Resources. All worship and plenary sessions and four workshops will be interpreted in Spanish.
Four new “Along the Road” podcast episodes were released in October, two from the “Encounter” series for mid council and church leaders and two “Nourish” episodes for deacons and ruling elders.
Listen to all Along the Road episodes directly from the Mid Council Ministries section of pcusa.org or from popular streaming services. Access sample clips below.
Pyoca Camp and Retreat Center, located in the Presbytery of Ohio Valley, announced this week that they received a $451,505 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to launch an innovative day camp program for local youth. The program is funded through the Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana initiative, which is aimed at improving the academic, physical and social well-being of young people, ages 5 through 18.
Earlier this week, a Matthew 25 workshop on eradicating systemic poverty focused viewers’ attention on the importance of being willing to dig in “for the long haul” to help address deeply rooted problems in international communities.