Will it play in Peoria?”
TPO: In your opinion, what is the most significant matter to come before this General Assembly, and how do you propose that the Assembly respond to it?
The report going to the General Assembly cuts to the quick. It affirms the denomination’s determination to be faithful to the teachings of Scripture and the Reformed tradition, but it admits that the effort to define what constitutes such faithfulness “has created significant debates among us.” It laments, “These debates (have) both clouded understanding of our mission and inhibited cooperative participation in it.”
interview by Jack Haberer, OUTLOOK editor
Linda Valentine has been re-elected by the General Assembly Mission Council (subject to confirmation by the 219th General Assembly) to serve a second four-year term as executive director – the chief of staff to most of the denomination’s national and international staff. Editor Jack Haberer sat down with Linda Valentine to talk about her first term and to look ahead.
Perhaps the most stunning piece of business coming to the 219th General Assembly is Recommendation 42 proposing to create a commission (the..
I remember a story my mother often told me. As a late teenager, she read in 1 John 4:7 that God is love, and concluded that God was nowhere to be found in the church in which she was raised.
Editor’s note: The Presbyterian Outlook will confer the E.T. Thompson Award for lifetime achievement in service to our Lord, the church and world to Syngman Rhee at its General Assembly luncheon banquet on July 3. Louisville Seminary President Dean Thompson prepared this tribute.
the silence in the coastal communities
is almost deafening,
Perhaps the most difficult principle for the Multichannel Church to implement is moving some activities and ministries off site, out into neighborhoods and homes.
My friend Molly T. Marshall is accustomed to controversy.
Today’s my birthday. Forty years young, spiritually speaking.
Throughout much of the modern era, Christian educators, along with most modern people, assumed a linear process for Christian education starting with Biblical and theological scholars handing on their scholarship to teachers, who, in turn, effectively passed it on to students, who, ostensibly, learn and change their behavior.
It may not come as a great a shock to the Outlook to know that this reader seldom files for future reference most copies of this publication.
In an October 8, 2009, Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Paul Krugman opines:
What’s actually new about a Multichannel Church?
If ever I were totally convinced and totally unconvinced, it’s right here and right now: on the matter of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) speaking out regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We are the Church of Jesus Christ. When the powers of the world decide that they will conduct business as usual, and that business is contrary to the teachings of Christ and the will of God for humanity, then it is time for the church to end its complicity in this sinful behavior. If we do not, then we remain unrepentant.”
This summer, in addition to doing less of the main thing, I suggest you do more of smaller things.
The year is 1948. The place, the holy island of Iona. The Rev. Dr. George MacLeod is sitting with a young man, John, who has spent time in a borstal for young offenders. Sensing that the young man is troubled, MacLeod invites him to write down any burden he has on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope, before receiving the laying on of hands.
We’re winning. Christians in the Great State of Texas have taken the majority of seats on the state’s Board of Education, and they are re-writing the curriculum for social studies courses (final vote in May).
Two generations ago, the deal was pretty clear: church members went to Sunday worship.
My associate pastor wasn’t surprised, but I was.
LOUISVILLE — Yes, Virginia, there is a vital Presbyterian Church in Cuba.
I accepted the call to pastoral ministry with humbled thrill. But when reality set in, I found myself dreading the thought of having to officiate at funerals. For the past four years writing, editing, and publishing have separated me from regular congregational leadership duties, and I find myself missing most the pastoral practice of officiating at funerals.
On this particular Sunday we are celebrating the Lord’s Supper by intinction. The congregation has been served except for those in the nursery.
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO
