We live in an iPod world! You see these little units everywhere. They come in many colors, can be used in about any place, with users of all ages marked by the common feature of the ear plugs and the dangling cord that transports listeners into the wonders the little box produces!
Visitors to the University of Dubuque (Iowa) Theological Seminary often seek out a certain farmstead just a few miles away in Dyersville. There in the quiet countryside, surrounded by row after row of Iowa corn, is the baseball diamond created for the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.”
I’ve been asked to provide a mid-course view of theological education from the perspective of the student in one of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminaries. Having recently seen my 20-year high school reunion come and go, I have a slight fear that such thoughts might prove in hindsight to be as embarrassing as an old high school yearbook picture, but I offer them nonetheless.
Some common understandings would have folks believe that ministers are not exactly happy campers. Say “pastor,” and some folks jump to the conclusion of “burned out, isolated, lonely, and frustrated.”
Twenty-five years ago, the two denominations that came together to become the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) named the ten theological schools and said this about them: “The reunited church has continuing responsibility for its institutions of theological education.
When Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery in St. Louis, Mo., partnered with the country of Peru through the Joining Hands Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), it seemed no more than a random pairing, desired, but not providential.
They had turned in their two-year assignment on time, expecting to be dismissed with thanks, but the New Form of Government Task Force regrouped and restarted their efforts for a second two years, meeting August 21-22 in Arlington, Va.
LOUISVILLE — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-backed Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) https://www.ciw-online.org assisted authorities in the investigation and prosecution of one of the largest slavery cases ever in Southwest Florida.
LOUISVILLE — Leaders of new immigrant ministries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will gather here this week with representatives of the church’s middle governing bodies to talk about how to extend and strengthen the denomination’s outreach to new immigrants.
The District Court for Tulsa County, Okla. today (September 9) granted summary judgment in favor of Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and denied the motion for summary judgment of Kirk of the Hills Church in Tulsa, Judge Jefferson Sellers enforced the decision of the Presbytery's Administrative Commission and ordered Kirk of the Hills to convey the church's real and personal property to Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery (https://www.eokpresbytery.org/.)
At the close of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) the moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, invited us to stand and sing a closing hymn. The crowd, which had dwindled down to just a few hundred, obediently stood, but in an awkward silence. There was no one to lead us.
The recent Outlook article, “Doing good, doing better: Short-term mission more than a trip,” by Leslie Scanlon (July 7, 2008) raised issues anyone who takes mission trips seriously has struggled with. As a Christian educator, I have been leading mission trips from churches for more than 15 years. Here are some of the conclusions I have reached.
You may be surprised that missionary could be in need of rehabilitating, but some readers will have a visceral aversion to hearing this word. It is time to reconsider what we call those who represent the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in international cross-cultural mission.
Compelling calls for Presbyterians to move beyond attitudes and practices that hinder active mission involvement came from numerous speakers and seminar leaders at the third annual gathering of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, August 14-16 in Long Beach, Calif. Approximately 1,000 persons attended.
To the member churches of the Caribbean and North American Area Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, its steering committee, heads of Communions, ecumenical officers, delegates, CANACOM partners, WARC executive committee members residing in this region:
LOUISVILLE — Hurricane Gustav ripped the roof from a Presbyterian church north of Baton Rouge, La., and a manse in Natchez, Miss., was heavily damaged by falling trees.
PHILADELPHIA — The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has announced that it will continue to offer the Mayo Clinic Health Assessment, a benefit for active Medical Plan members and spouses designed to encourage members and their families to engage in preventive healthcare, thereby improving their overall health and helping contain healthcare costs.
Bangalore, India — (ENI) Christian groups have expressed dismay at attempts by the government of India's southern Karnataka state to take action against hundreds of church educational institutions after they closed for a day to protest at ongoing violence against Christians in eastern Orissa state.
(PNS) Elizabeth Andrews, a well-known Atlanta educator and widow of late Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Stated Clerk James E. Andrews, died suddenly Aug. 27 of a massive infection.
LOUISVILLE — Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders were still working Tuesday (Sept. 2) to assess Presbyterian-related damage from Hurricane Gustav, which roared from the Gulf of Mexico into southern Louisiana on Monday as a category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 110 mph.
(ENI)--Nearly two years after five Amish girls were killed in a grisly Pennsylvania school shooting, Anabaptist experts at nearby Elizabethtown College field a constant stream of questions from around the world about the religious group.
The floods in Iowa didn’t come in one dramatic, before-and-after moment. The rain kept coming, the water kept rising, and downriver, the trouble passed on from town to town to town.
