Highland Presbyterian Church — Maryville, Tennessee Highland Presbyterian, which was founded by Maryville College students 65 years ago, is a small church with an active youth program today. Recently, Highland’s youth baked and sold bread for an alternative market to raise funds for refugees and held a diaper drive for a local women’s shelter. Highland may be small in numbers, but we are big on service. We are thankful our youth are learning to show God’s love through acts of kindness. – Courtney Webb, member Share your 150-word story of “what’s right” with the Outlook by emailing it to [email protected] … [Read more...]
How to Not Be Afraid
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea around us.” — Franz Kafka Start by looking at a picture of your fear several times each day and at unexpected moments. Yup. Just whip out that glossy snake photograph and stare at it for four seconds. See how you feel. Read how others have come to terms with it, how the Norse serpent grows and grows until it encircles the known world, holds it all together exquisitely. Next, lift a plastic replica of one into the palm of your hand. Try talking to it, make friends with it, so to speak. Watch a real one in a jar; get used to how it moves. Take a trip to the nearest reptile house and say to yourself: behold, my fear is contained behind glass. If you find none of this to work, remind yourself that earthquakes can turn water into gold, and that you and I are nothing more and nothing less than the interiors of collapsing stars. CHARLOTTE MATTHEWS is associate professor in the Bachelor of … [Read more...]
Stewards: Caring for all creation — February 11, 2019
Scripture says human beings are to be stewards of all that is entrusted to us by God: relationships, creation, resources, skills and gifts. Do we see all we have and do in this light? Are we servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God each day and with all things? This issue of the Outlook challenges us to lead with love as we interact with one another and all creation. Click here to read the issue in the Uberflip reader. The core of stewardship is love Stewardship isn’t an event or a campaign — it’s a spiritual practice. Cultivating food for life Shalom Farms and Union Presbyterian Seminary partner to held address issues of food justice in Richmond, Virginia. Borrowed Time Lenten poetry by J. Barrie Shepherd Care for creation Presbyterians share stories of how they are being stewards of the earth. … [Read more...]
Remembering James Hutchinson Smylie
Guest commentary by Dean K. Thompson It is a privilege to be in the grateful company of many who are celebrating the fruitful ministry of James Hutchinson Smylie (1925-2019), teacher and scholar for the church in the field of church history. Specializing in American church history and American Presbyterianism, James Smylie served God by serving ministerial students, pastors, congregations, his denomination and his academic guild with remarkable effectiveness and energy. As I matriculated at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, in 1965, he soon became a loving and demanding mentor who abided with me from my early adulthood into my older adulthood. He liked to joke that we were providentially bonded by geography. He had been born in the manse of Second Presbyterian Church in Huntington, West Virginia, my hometown; I had gone under care for the ministry at a presbytery meeting held in his father’s old church. The home of Elizabeth and Jim Smylie was a place of … [Read more...]
The Steward of the Underside of the Table
there is nothing for me outside of You. this is the only thing i know. and when i have lost sight of You the one place i know i can find You is here. at the Table. i do not know what it means to be called here. i know what it means to be drawn here, to be sustained by grain to be refreshed by grapes for i am sick with love; to run towards the Table in this desperate need to taste You; to wander the streets looking for You until i finally find You here where i see You with my eyes and taste You on my lips and feel You in my mouth. (hem me in, behind and before) but i do not know what it means to be called here. i do not stand on ceremony: i love the trappings, the robes and stoles and collars but let’s not kid ourselves — we have no authority here. this Table is not ours, it is Yours. if we are anything, we are stewards. and i? i am perennially a child here taking bites that are too big for me to handle sneaking second helpings crawling underneath … [Read more...]
A Beautiful View: A Friendlier Christianity as a Way of Life
F. Morgan Roberts Cascade Books, 108 pages. Reviewed by Thomas G. Long Near the end of this lovely and engaging book, Morgan Roberts reveals that one of his “hobbies” has been studying the life and work of C.S. Lewis. It comes as no surprise, because “A Beautiful View” has much in common with “Mere Christianity” by Lewis. Both books successfully seek to describe the Christian faith conversationally, compellingly, generously and free from the abstractions of specialized theological language. “Mere Christianity” has been useful over the decades for both personal reflection and group study, and Roberts’ book will undoubtedly be similarly valued. To that end, Roberts even includes a helpful final section on “ideas for group study, personal reflection and additional reading.” Two primary impulses are at work in “A Beautiful View.” First, Roberts desires to provide an accessible primer for readers who want to learn the basic convictions of the Christian faith. He manages to touch … [Read more...]
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