Each year, the Presbyterian Outlook hosts a luncheon on the first Saturday of General Assembly. The gathering gives participants an opportunity to hear from each of the candidates standing for moderator and listen to some thoughts from the editor on the critical issues facing the church. This year, the luncheon was held in St. Louis on June 16, 2018, and celebrated the Outlook’s 200-year anniversary. Here are the remarks from the event. Jill Duffield, Outlook editor and publisher Researching one’s ancestry seems to be in vogue right now. The ability to swab our cheek, put it in the mail and – “presto!” – discover the journey our DNA has taken that leads to us seems irresistible. We long to know to whom we are connected, what hardships and triumphs they experienced, what kind of people are “our” people. I have not sent my DNA to ancestry.com or 23andMe or any of those services. My sister, however, has done them all. She has also researched parts of our family … [Read more...]
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Outlook Reporting 4 hours ago
Celebrating 200 years of the Presbyterian Outlook at GA
Each year, the Presbyterian Outlook hosts a luncheon on the first Saturday of General Assembly. The gathering gives participants an opportunity to hear from each of the candidates standing for moderator and listen to some thoughts from the editor on the critical issues facing the church. This year, the luncheon was held in St. Louis on June 16, 2018, and celebrated the Outlook’s 200-year anniversary. Here are the remarks from the event. Jill Duffield, Outlook editor and publisher Researching one’s ancestry seems to be in vogue right now. The ability to swab our cheek,… continue reading... -
Outpost Blog 4 hours ago
Life, love, parenting … and social media
I was married for about five days the first time my body gave me an inkling that something might be up with my reproductive system. Four months later, after extensive testing, I listened to my doctor talk to me about my diagnosis. These were the words that stuck with me: “It will be difficult for you to have children.” Five years later, our daughter was born. She was born during the rise of social media. My mom was in town the first time we planned to take our baby to… continue reading... -
Commentary 3 days ago
A visit with Mister Rogers remembered
Guest commentary by Richard Austin Thompson Fred Rogers was the hallmark of a good neighbor. With 2018 marking the 50thanniversary of the launching of the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood TV series, there has been revived interest in Fred Rogers himself. From the making of films about him – the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and the forthcoming biopic with Tom Hanks portraying him, not to speak of the recent PBS special about him – to the post office issuing a stamp featuring him, there has been nothing else like this… continue reading...
Parties in Stamford case had tried to expedite process in order to get a ruling on the merits of the case January 1, 1995 Uncategorized83 views The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission -- in sidestepping the question of exactly how deeply a session should be required to probe into the private life of a gay elder who has acknowledged being in a committed, life-long relationship but has declined to say whether he is sexually active -- has put the question off but has not put it to rest.- Ministering with the Earth January 1, 1998 Book Reviews90 views By Mary Elizabeth MooreChalice. 1998. 226 pp. Pb. $19.99. ISBN 0-8272-2323-4 Ministering with the Earth is a quiltwork, both the on-the-ground activity and Moore's book about so ministering. Moore, professor of theology and Christian education at Claremont School of Theology, is fond of the metaphor, suitably pastoral and feminist.
- Remembered Voice: Reclaiming the Legacy of 'Neo-Orthodoxy' January 1, 1998 Book Reviews90 views By Douglas John HallWJKP. 1998. 145 pp. Pb. $18. ISBN 0-664-25772-0 It was in this order. I first read Tillich's Dynamics of Faith. Riveting. Next came The Courage to Be. Gripping. Then I went back and read the first volume of the Systematic Theology. Things began to make sense. Next came Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. Positive.
Human rights advocate claims death threat after speaking to General Assembly panel June 18, 2018 Outlook Reporting3 comments ST. LOUIS — Threats are nothing new for Bassem Eid. During his 26 years of investigating human rights abuses, he’s gotten a lot of them.
He says he received another one on June 18, when he stepped outside a meeting room in the St. Louis Convention Center where he’d spoken in favor of a measure condemning both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for indoctrinating and exploiting children in ways that perpetuate violence and hatred.
Eid, 60, is a rare sort of human rights activist — a Palestinian who speaks out as vehemently against Palestinian abuses as he does against those committed by Israelis. ...
Proposed per capita increase will go to General Assembly February 9, 2018 Outlook Reporting2 comments LOUISVILLE – With no debate, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board voted Feb. 9 to approve a sizeable proposed increase in General Assembly per capita – from $7.73 per member in 2018 to $10.71 in 2019 and to $11.45 in 2020.
That would amount to a 39 percent increase from 2018 to 2019 and a 7 percent increase from 2019 to 2020. The proposal now will go to the 2018 General Assembly in June in St. Louis for its consideration.
Ken Godshall, who is chair of the board and a pastor from Kentucky, had voted against the proposed increase Feb. 8 when it came before the board’s executive committee, saying the increase...
Way Forward Commission takes action regarding trust and transparency June 12, 2018 Outlook Reporting2 comments The Way Forward Commission met on June 12 to take administrative action regarding issues of trust and transparency in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – apparently responding to imbalances it has detected in the way things have been operating in the national church.
The action (leading with the affirmation that “God alone is Lord of conscience”) addresses what information can be openly shared after a closed or confidential meeting of a denominational entity, and the ways in which staff and board members can express their views regarding information that’s not restricted “without real or implied threat.”
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Celebrating 200 years of the Presbyterian Outlook at GA
Tagged With: GA223
Life, love, parenting … and social media
I was married for about five days the first time my body gave me an inkling that something might be up with my reproductive system. Four months later, after extensive testing, I listened to my doctor talk to me about my diagnosis. These were the words that stuck with me: “It will be difficult for you to have children.” Five years later, our daughter was born. She was born during the rise of social media. My mom was in town the first time we planned to take our baby to church, and she was horrified that we would expose her to all those people and all those germs. It was important to us to go because of how we see our daughter: as a gift. Not knowing if a baby would ever come changed how we think and pray about parenting. When we first learned I was expecting, we told no one; there was too much risk. My husband I wondered about if this pregnancy made it to birth, how would we parent? Breastfeeding? Day care? Formula? Stay at home? I have said she is a gift from God (I hesitate to … [Read more...]
Regarding ruling elders: “It’s not all about us”
(OGA) In his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker J. Palmer writes about functional atheism, the belief that God is distant and the ultimate responsibility for everything rests on us. Functional atheism confesses on Sunday morning that God is the sovereign Lord of creation, while acting during the rest of the week as if it’s really all about us and what we do. If in our deepest heart we really believe we are pretty much left alone in the universe to fend for ourselves, churches will tend to function like religious do-it-yourself projects instead of being outposts of the Kingdom of God. Usually the viewpoint of functional atheism is not intentionally adopted but rather creeps into minds and hearts unconsciously over time. Those who bear the burden of leadership, who deal with institutional administration, budgets, fundraising, or management of buildings, programs, and volunteers, are especially at risk of coming unconsciously to act as though the … [Read more...]
The visible signs of Christian faith (Aug. 19, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 19, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 12:9-21 Christian theologians are challenged to connect their theology to the lived experience of believers. We should all be grateful for the many pastors and teachers whose ability to bridge the distance between theological reflection and the realities of daily life help the followers of Jesus lead lives of faithful discipleship. The cynical comment that theologians go down the deepest and come up the muddiest reflects an all-too-common attitude of pragmatic activists who prefer doing to thinking. Even the followers of John Calvin are not exempt from the temptation to minimize the theological basis for ministry. That theological base must be connected to the real world in which believers live every day. No book in the Bible is more explicitly theological than the epistle to the Romans. Its first 11 chapters contain Paul’s most profound theological principles. That is why the first verse of chapter … [Read more...]
Christ-like giving (Aug. 12, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 12, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 Most people are familiar with fundraising letters that have been carefully crafted to persuade the persons who receive them to make a donation. Professional fundraisers know that no matter how sophisticated their donor research has been, only a small percentage of those letters will result in a gift. Therefore, they typically send thousands of requests for money in the hope of meeting their goal. Political fundraisers send written appeals and numerous email requests for financial support. Churches also depend on contributions they solicit from faithful members. By basing their appeal on a shared commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ministry of the congregation, they get a much higher positive response than the mass mailings aimed at the general public. The results of the annual stewardship drive are eagerly awaited by the budget committee and the leaders of the … [Read more...]
God’s justice (Aug. 5, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 5, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 2:1-16 The focus of our Bible study shifts from passages in the Gospels about the justice Jesus taught to the justice the apostle Paul describes in his letter to the Romans. That letter is reliably dated to 55 or 56 A.D., approximately 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus but 25-35 years before the Gospels were written. Understanding the letters of Paul nearly 2,000 years after they were written is a challenging task. Paul, a Pharisaic Jew whose allegiance to Jesus came about as the result of a life-redirecting encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road, wrote theologically profound but also very practical letters to new congregations that were inventing what would develop into Christianity. The letter to the Romans was written to a congregation Paul had not established but hoped to visit. It constitutes a carefully argued statement of the gospel Paul preached for some 20 … [Read more...]
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