“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!” Christopher McCandless wrote these words – a psalm-like prayer – during the late summer of 1992 and prior to his death on an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness.
Austin Presbyterian Theological
Seminary, Austin, Texas
The Reverend Dr. Devison T. Banda, principal of Justo Mwale Theological College in Lusaka, Zambia, will address graduates at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s commencement on Sunday, May 25, at 2:30 p.m.
Recruiting leaders is hard work.
It is easier to accept the willing, to anoint whoever steps forward, even if they lack requisite skills or cannot “play well with others.”
Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha’olam
Blessed are you, Eternal God, ruler of the universe
LOUISVILLE –Gradye Parsons, currently director of operations for the Office of the General Assembly, has been chosen by the Stated Clerk Nomination Committee as its nominee to be the new stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
It’s the kind of reality that threatens to whack on the head congregations all over the denomination. They’re small already – and getting tinier and older by the day. There’s not enough money to pay a full-time pastor – or if there is, the cash will run out soon.
LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council’s Stewardship Committee is recommending that discussions continue between the council’s leadership and the Presbyterian Foundation over the issue of whether the council should be required to invest all of its medium and long-term funds with the foundation.
LOUISVILLE — With many questions still unanswered, a task force studying the pros and cons of creating a separate corporation for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) has recommended that church leaders not move forward with incorporation at this time.
LOUISVILLE – The Synod of the Southwest, concerned that the Presbyterian Foundation isn’t producing as strong a return on investments as is available elsewhere in the financial market, is pushing for change.
DETROIT--The Rev. Edward H. Koster, current stated clerk of the Presbytery of Detroit, announced April 21 he will stand for election as stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Koster comes to the election from a varied background with experience as a pastor, presbytery stated clerk, and lawyer.
He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and served five years in the Navy during the Vietnam War. After receiving his Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., he studied Old Testament history in the doctoral program of the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Michigan for three years, receiving his MA in 1974. He served as pastor of Calvary Church in Ann Arbor, Mich. for 10 years, during which time he also served as chaplain in the Washtenaw County Jail, president of the Ann Arbor Council of Churches, and chaplain at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor. He studied organizational development in 1985-86 under the late Dr. Ronald Lippitt, then at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, and Kathie Dannemiller, who was principal in Dannemiller-Tyson Associates of Ann Arbor.
Sometimes it happens organically -- a small church and a big church form a relationship and start working together.
But now there are new efforts in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to try to cultivate intentional partnerships between bigger congregations and smaller ones, to explore ways they can work together in mission, both overseas and close to home.
One long-standing partnership between a big congregation and a smaller one is the local mission partnership between Second Church in Indianapolis -- a suburban church that stands more than 4,000 strong -- and Westminster Church, an inner-city congregation that's dropped to just 22 active members.
The partnership goes back to 1980, when Catholic, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations in the neighborhood -- a low-income area just east of downtown -- decided to hold Vacation Bible School together. That led next to the idea of creating a summer-long program for area children, "a safe place to be," said Donna Studevent, a member of Westminster since 1982. She is an educator who trains substitute teachers and now is Westminster's clerk of session and commissioned lay pastor.
LOUISVILLE -- The mission budget being proposed for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 2009 and 2010 does not call for layoffs, but would use $7 million in reserves to balance the budget.
The proposal, which the General Assembly Council will vote on this week -- probably April 25 -- also calls for an increase in the number of missionaries who would serve the PC(USA) in the next two years.
And it would restore the denomination's Environmental Ministries office, which was eliminated in a major round of budget cutting in May 2006. At least two overtures coming to this year's General Assembly have asked for that -- with one from Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, for example, saying that the office was eliminated "at a time critical to sustaining the planet and life on earth as we know it."
The cost for restoring the office is estimated at $100,000 a year.
The council will vote this week to approve a proposed two-year budget that it will send on to the General Assembly for consideration in June. Concern about Presbyterian presence in global mission work definitely will be part of the discussion.
LOUISVILLE – (PNS) With the announcement that Bruce and Lora Whearty will begin their mission service in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August, the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) celebrates the deployment of its 24th and 25th new mission co-workers since the campaign was launched at the 214th General Assembly (2002).
New York, 18 April (ENI)--Pope Benedict XVI has met privately and prayed with several survivors of sexual abuse by clergy during his visit to the United States, in a move that is believed to be the first time a pontiff has met with abuse survivors.
The unannounced meeting on 17 April, reportedly at Benedict's request, was held at a chapel at the papal nuncio's residence in Washington.
Bernie McDaid, an abuse survivor who was at the meeting, said in an interview with the CNN television network that he told the pope 'it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was spiritual abuse. And then I told him that he has a cancer growing in his ministry, and needs to do something about it,' said McDaid, who was abused by a cleric as an altar boy.
John Allen, who writes on Vatican affairs for the National Catholic Reporter, described the meeting as 'an unexpected and essentially unprecedented move'.
LOUISVILLE -- The co-founder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-backed Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is to be among those testifying before a U.S. Senate committee today (April 15) about conditions facing farmworkers in the growing fields of southern Florida.
CIW co-founder Lucas Benitez, a former tomato picker, and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, are among the witnesses expected to appear at the hearing of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
The CIW, an Immokalee, Fla.-based group of farmworkers, receives support from the PC(USA) and other faith groups.
The hearing, in Washington, D.C., beginning at 10 a.m. comes after U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) visited Immokalee in January to urge support for the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food, which is working to persuade Burger King and other food industry leaders to raise tomato workers' pay.
OXFORD, OHIO -- The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States has said that a Virginia court ruling in favor of 11 breakaway churches that want to keep church property is a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which guarantees the separation of Church and State.
The court ruled on April 3 that the Virginia congregations that broke away are covered by a state law written during the U.S. Civil War era. The statute says that any congregation that "divides" remains under the control of the majority, as does property entrusted to it.
In a statement, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said if the statute means what the court held, "it plainly deprives the Episcopal Church and the Diocese, as well as all hierarchical churches, of their historic constitutional rights to structure their polity free from governmental interference and thus violates the First Amendment and cannot be enforced."
LOUISVILLE -- Rob Bullock, of Orlando, Fla., has been selected as the director of mission communications for the General Assembly Council. He begins his new post here April 14.
In this new position, Bullock will oversee the development of strategies and messaging to communicate the full work of the denomination's mission arm, with the goal of engaging Presbyterians at all levels of the church in that work.
"There are so many great things happening in the PC(USA)," Bullock said. "If we are going to find a way to unite as a denomination and fulfill all that God is calling us to do, we need to share those stories, to remind ourselves that we can do so much more together than we can individually, so that we invest our lives in the connectional work on which our denomination is built."
LOUISVILLE -- The Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) has unanimously elected Marc Lewis as president and publisher-elect.
The board's appointment is subject to approval by the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which meets in San Jose, Calif., in June.
Lewis, 58, a graduate of the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University, brings a career of denominational publishing experience to the position. His mother was a Cokesbury bookstore manager in Nashville, Tenn., and Lewis' first endeavor in the industry was to open a new Cokesbury store in Memphis, Tenn. Lewis and his wife, Clare, are members of Springdale Church in Louisville.
CNN will serve as the exclusive broadcaster of a presidential candidate forum on faith, values, and other current issues at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pa., on Sunday, April 13, at 8 p.m. (ET)
CNN Election Center anchor Campbell Brown and Newsweek editor and Newsweek.com election anchor Jon Meacham will moderate what is being billed as The Compassion Forum, which will take place nine days before the Pennsylvania primary.
LOUISVILLE -- Former General Assembly Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase and his wife, Kitty, have been named transitional co-directors of financially-troubled Stony Point Center, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-owned conference center in New York.
They will share the full-time director's position beginning August 1, succeeding William Pindar, who recently resigned.
"Kitty and Rick are uniquely qualified to lead Stony Point Center into its vision for the future," said Gary Batty, president of the Stony Point governing board. "Not only do they have extensive backgrounds in peace and justice work that is deeply grounded in the practice of their faith, they also bring a passion for modeling an intentional community at Stony Point Center -- both strong components of the vision."
Recent studies indicate that only about half of our church members grew up Presbyterian, and many of these left our Presbyterian congregations during their teen years only to return later as they begin to establish families. As a result, an understanding of our Presbyterian heritage and the tenets/themes of our Reformed faith is not part of the background or memory of most of our members.
As people make a commitment to the ministry of teaching adults, they often come to the task with a sense of call, a love of learning, a desire to pass along the stories of our faith, and an earnest hope to make a difference in the lives of others. However, many are unaware that being Reformed implies particular viewpoints regarding the ways that we teach the adults with whom we work. To that end, we look to the major tenets of our faith tradition to consider how they inform our teaching.
A major topic of discussion taking place in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A. today is the ordination of women. The issue is one of the primary driving forces for congregations leaving the PC(USA). These congregations are moving to the Presbyterian Church in America and other denominations that do not ordain women as ministers, elders, or deacons. Other congregations are considering such a move for the same reason.
San Diego Presbytery in an effort to recast the way it sees its reason for being -- has declared that "we are no longer primarily a governing body," and that "we are a relational community and that we are becoming a mission agency."
The presbytery also has voted to affiliate with the Presbyterian Global Fellowship -- becoming the first presbytery to do so, as one step in an effort to form a "missional identity" in a post-denominational setting.
The library at Princeton Theological Seminary -- home to one of the largest collections of religious material in the United States, with more than 1.1 million books and other items -- will begin making some of its books available online starting in about a year.
Princeton has struck an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to digitize some material that is out of copyright, generally meaning works published in the United States before 1923. While the seminary's agreement with Microsoft prohibits releasing specific information on the number of volumes involved, Donald Vogt, the seminary's collection development librarian, described it as "many thousands of volumes," that then will be available to users around the world.
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