Linda Valentine, Evelyn Hwang, and Gradye Parsons standing togetherATLANTA - A buoyant gathering of grateful well-wishers packed the Peachtree Suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel here to celebrate the retirement of Evelyn Hwang after her more than 48 years of service on the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) both in New York City and Louisville.
ATLANTA -- Glen McDonald challenged 42 workshop participants at the first ever Big Tent event here to become sacrificial in moving their congregations from "maintenance mode to missional mode."
ATLANTA – In some ways, these tumultuous days feel like a perfect storm for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
ATLANTA – Young adults in their 20s and 30s see the world through different lenses than do many older folks – and churches trying to answer the questions “Why don’t they stay with us?” and “Why do they give so little?” would do well to pay attention.
ATLANTA – “As the Blues Brothers said, we’re on a mission from God,” said the Rev. Robert Chestnut, in a workshop entitled “Growing the Church Deep and Wide: Spiritual Practices of Multicultural Outreach” here at the 2009 National Multicultural Conference, part of the first ever Big Tent event of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) June 12.
ATLANTA — “The office of elder is not just some job in the church.
ATLANTA — “How we treat people should never be up for discussion.
ATLANTA, June 12 -- When someone asks a Christian “ `Why do you believe in all that God stuff?’ they’re not looking for an intellectual answer,” said James Mead, associate pastor of Chapel Hill Church in Gig Harbor, Wash.
ATLANTA, June 12 – Eric Hoey knows that Presbyterian evangelism isn’t working; he has every intention of reversing that.
ATLANTA — Cláudio Carvalhaes’ parents met at a small independent Presbyterian church in Sao Paulo, Brazil, married, and then raised their four children in the heart of that same church.
How big a tent does the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) need?[caption id="attachment_20625" align="alignright" width="360"]
Anna Carter Florence tells participants at the opening worship service of the Big Tent Conference in Atlanta Thursday night (June 11) how “big” the church’s tent should be. She is an associate professor of preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga. OUTLOOK photo by Erin Dunigan.[/caption]
“You are artwork. You are artists. You are curators,” Troy Bronsink, pastor of an emerging church new church development in Atlanta, told the Alt7 gathering of clergy under 40 at Montreat Conference Center on June 10.[caption id="attachment_20621" align="alignright" width="360"]
At the emergent worship celebration at the 2009 alt7 Conference at Montreat, participants prayed, sang, shared the bread and cup. Troy Bronsink, pastor of an emerging church new church development in Atlanta spoke to the group about creativity as an expression of faith and faith community while another young pastor, Aaron Doll of First Church in Brockport, N.Y., accompanied Bronsink’s words by creating a clay vessel. OUTLOOK photo by Erin Dunigan.[/caption]
Editor’s note: This is the second of three reports from the Alt7 Conference at Montreat Conference Center, North Carolina, June 8-11.
ATLANTA – How big a tent does the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) need?
A new online resource center from the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) was launched June 1.
MONTREAT — “It’s time to step into being the church that we’ve been called into,” Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow told a gathering of younger Presbyterian pastors June 8 at the opening worship service of the 2009 alt 7 Conference.[caption id="attachment_20615" align="alignright" width="338"]
Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow shares a laugh with conference organizer Shawn Coons. [/caption]
LOUISVILLE — Stewardship. "It's an odd word that garners mixed reactions from people," admits Jon Brown, director of mission interpretation for the General Assembly Council's Communications and Funds Development office and organizer of the Stewardship and Investment Conference that's part of the first-ever Big Tent event, June 11-13 in Atlanta.
LUSAKA — (ENI) Church leaders in Zambia have joined a media watchdog in expressing concern about "deteriorating freedom of expression" in the country stemming from harassment of journalists belonging to The Post newspaper by supporters of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy party.
GENEVA — (ENI) It is important to remember that "many people in Israel belong to the peace movement", a group that should not be forgotten, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said this week.
LONDON — (ENI) Christian leaders in Britain have deplored gains made by the extreme right-wing British National Party in elections to the European Union parliament.
LOUISVILLE — The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has announced a staff reduction. Three staff members accepted voluntary separation packages, another three positions were eliminated, and two new positions were created, to be filled in 2010.
“There is a new wind blowing through the sometimes musty halls of American Christian churches, and it is sweeping away the hypocrisy, lack of social concern, and unnecessary cultural baggage accumulated by the mainstream churches through the years.
People sometimes speak of the General Assembly as the Presbyterian family reunion, as if everyone there grew up in the same general neck of the woods – or at least knows most of the branches of the clan.
This is their goal: to bring a worldwide end to nuclear weapons.
During its second broadcast, the new “God Complex” radio show, a brand-new, bicoastal Internet radio venture featuring General Assembly moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow and blogger Carol Howard Merritt, took on the question of whether small churches can continue to afford an educated clergy.
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