One of family systems theory’s most helpful concepts and practices is “reframing.” I love this concept because it is so elegantly simple..
I am routinely surprised at how we Christians in the United States struggle to enjoy Scripture in comparison with how easily we..
The premise is this: With a surge of retirements approaching, and fewer people going to seminary, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is..
Baltimore Presbytery’s journey through Scripture started with four Presbyterian pastors sharing these very challenges we heard from our members. Two..
My friend, a retired Lutheran pastor, confessed in a sermon that he was a believer on Sunday, but by Thursday nearly an..
I have to confess something: I’ve never had a class in youth ministry. I never went to Montreat or Triennium as a..
Throughout recorded history, African people have employed rites-of-passage practices and rituals to distinguish and celebrate the important non-reoccurring stages of the lives..
At 90 years old, Hazel Sparks still remembers how it felt to walk past Nelson Bell’s house and see the light on..
But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to..
It can be incredibly powerful to think of confirmation for the young people in our congregations as a rite of passage –..
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) It’s nearing the end of summer..
A dozen years ago, Robert Reich, academic economist and secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, published a brief essay in The..
Jane Gray Suggs’s face beams as she shows off the picture of her late husband, Forest DeWitt Suggs Jr. It is a..
While sitting in a Catholic funeral recently, I was struck by the richness and depth of the liturgy. It said so much,..
What is “healing”? Doctors tend to emphasize one aspect of healing: physical healing. Counselors and therapists focus on a different aspect:..
When I directed the doctor of ministry program at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, we employed Bowen family systems theory in several ways...
As a Korean-American church was about to purchase a new building, its members raised a question about the future of the church...
In the late 19th century, Protestant Christians who sought to engage in foreign mission work carefully observed diplomatic developments in East Asia...
The first time Mihee Kim-Kort witnessed a female Korean-American pastor preach in the pulpit was in 2008. It was Grace Ji-Sun..
Every year, researchers visit the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia to access our extensive Korea mission collections. Many are individual scholars and..
When Beth Garrod-Logsdon, pastor at Wilmore Presbyterian Church in Wilmore, Kentucky, prepared to broach the subject of a sabbatical with the session,..
How will you feel if we decide to close? About 45 minutes into the interview for the solo pastor position at Kirk..
On any given Wednesday night in downtown Casper, Wyoming, a group of once-strangers gathers for a shared meal in a small retail..
The latest count: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) now has 383 new worshipping communities, nearing the halfway mark of the denomination’s push to..
The cycle of General Assemblies bring with them a certain rhythm. And as we reach the midway point between the last GA..
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