What does it look like when more than 1,000 Presbyterians come to a city for the biannual General Assembly? How can they make a positive impact on the community where they hold the meeting? How can they “be the church” when gathering for a week? These are the questions that drove the start of the “Hands and Feet” initiative at the 223rd General Assembly in 2018. Under the leadership of stated clerk J. Herbert Nelson, the assembly in St. Louis became a pilot program in rethinking and recreating the ethos of the gathering by partnering with local churches and organizations to make a positive impact in the host community. Nelson said, “Our test case will be St. Louis, we ought to perfect it by Baltimore [site of the 224th GA in 2020], and by Columbus [site of the 225th GA in 2022] it ought to be old hat.” There is now a website dedicated to the initiative (handsandfeet-pcusa.org) that helps connect Presbyterians in the lead-up to GA in Baltimore that will be held June 20–27, 2020. … [Read more...]

Sometimes, the day-to-day complexities of working in mission around the world can be all-consuming: there’s always a crisis, pain or joy, places in transition. So part of the work of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) World Mission in recent months has been to hold a series of consultations, first with key global partners and then with domestic constituencies, to ask these broader questions: What is our calling in mission today? What does it mean to be partners in mission? As part of that process, World Mission leaders have held four international consultations beginning in late 2018 with global partners in Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. That’s being followed by a series of consultations in the U.S. with representation from mission networks, advocacy groups and congregations and mid councils that are involved in international mission work. “It’s designed to be a collaborative process,” said Philip Woods, World … [Read more...]

It has become clear to us at the Board of Pensions that a one-size-fits-all benefits plan may have had a certain appeal to an egalitarian sentiment, but in reality such a plan meets the needs of some but excludes many more. For the last four years, the Board has been engaged with the denomination at all levels to find out what is needed and then worked to structure support within our legal and financial constraints. The Board has dramatically expanded its flexibility and has succeeded in increasing the number of active members in the Benefits Plan by nearly 25% over the last two years. For the first time, the plan serves more employees who are not ministers than ministers themselves. This is healthy growth. However, this article concerns the unique needs of, and support for, ministers and others who are leading congregations. Presbyterian ministers serving traditional congregations The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is disappearing, emerging and thriving — all at the same time. Our … [Read more...]