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The 223rd General Assembly: News in brief

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ST. LOUIS – Fourteen committees addressed a multitude of issues over the course of the 223rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) meeting in St. Louis June 16-23, 2018. The consent agenda alone brought and quickly passed 80 items of business on the floor of the assembly. Hours of discussion and debate ensued as the GA created task forces, made statements, passed budgets and much more. Below is a sampling of some of what they accomplished. For more coverage, analysis and commentary, visit pres-outlook.org/tag/ga223. For all of the business conducted, go to pc-biz.org. Small churches. An item of business concerning small churches in the PC(USA) called for establishing a new department within the Presbyterian Mission Agency with a multi-million dollar financial implication. The committee amended the resolution to instead require a report to the next General Assembly that would report on the existing and new programs designed to help smaller churches. The alternative … [Read more...]

Tagged With: GA223

Celebrating 200 years of the Presbyterian Outlook at GA

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Each year, the Presbyterian Outlook hosts a luncheon on the first Saturday of General Assembly. The gathering gives participants an opportunity to hear from each of the candidates standing for moderator and listen to some thoughts from the editor on the critical issues facing the church. This year, the luncheon was held in St. Louis on June 16, 2018, and celebrated the Outlook’s 200-year anniversary.  Here are the remarks from the event. Jill Duffield, Outlook editor and publisher Researching one’s ancestry seems to be in vogue right now. The ability to swab our cheek, put it in the mail and – “presto!” – discover the journey our DNA has taken that leads to us seems irresistible. We long to know to whom we are connected, what hardships and triumphs they experienced, what kind of people are “our” people. I have not sent my DNA to ancestry.com or 23andMe or any of those services. My sister, however, has done them all. She has also researched parts of our family … [Read more...]

Tagged With: GA223

Life, love, parenting … and social media

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I was married for about five days the first time my body gave me an inkling that something might be up with my reproductive system. Four months later, after extensive testing, I listened to my doctor talk to me about my diagnosis. These were the words that stuck with me: “It will be difficult for you to have children.” Five years later, our daughter was born. She was born during the rise of social media. My mom was in town the first time we planned to take our baby to church, and she was horrified that we would expose her to all those people and all those germs. It was important to us to go because of how we see our daughter: as a gift. Not knowing if a baby would ever come changed how we think and pray about parenting. When we first learned I was expecting, we told no one; there was too much risk. My husband I wondered about if this pregnancy made it to birth, how would we parent? Breastfeeding? Day care? Formula? Stay at home? I have said she is a gift from God (I hesitate to … [Read more...]

Tagged With: family life • parenting

A visit with Mister Rogers remembered

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Guest commentary by Richard Austin Thompson Fred Rogers was the hallmark of a good neighbor. With 2018 marking the 50thanniversary of the launching of the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood TV series, there has been revived interest in Fred Rogers himself. From the making of films about him – the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and the forthcoming biopic with Tom Hanks portraying him, not to speak of the recent PBS special about him – to the post office issuing a stamp featuring him, there has been nothing else like this renewed attention to his life and work since his death in 2003. As it happens, we are being reminded of him in the year of the “separation of families.” His gentle, loving, always respectful relationship to children is suddenly perceived in stark contrast to the government’s heart-breaking policy of taking children from their parents and placing them in anonymous institutional settings without any guarantee of their being reunited with their mothers or … [Read more...]

Practicing Pilgrimage: On Being and Becoming God’s Pilgrim People

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Brett Webb-Mitchell Cascade Books, 220 pages. Reviewed by Kenneth E. Kovacs Like Brett Webb-Mitchell, I have long viewed the Christian life as pilgrimage. A Christian is a pilgrim – a wayfarer – on a journey. We are people of the Way. We follow, as Webb-Mitchell says, “Jesus, the Pilgrim God,” walking with him and being transformed in the walking. We are people on the way, leaning into God’s future, moving toward the horizon of God’s advent. It’s said that pilgrimage is belief in action. My beliefs about pilgrimage were put to the test several years ago when I became a peregrino (pilgrim) and walked over 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Since then, the pilgrim life has become even more precious to me, continually informing my life and service as a pastor. Webb-Mitchell’s “Practicing Pilgrimage” is an excellent guide for those wanting to explore the importance of pilgrimage in the Christian tradition. This book won’t tell you what to pack or … [Read more...]

On being an outsider

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My brother was thrilled when my siblings, our spouses and I agreed to join him for a Seattle Sounders soccer match against the Portland Timbers at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field. After climbing up endless steps, we sat at the very top of the “Hawk’s Nest” bleachers. Even on a rainy, cold afternoon, the full stadium lit up with the Sounders’ colors. Fans donned green and white jerseys, jackets, hats and scarves, and waved six-foot-tall flags. The one exception was a rowdy section of Portland fans, who donned their team’s colors and waved their own flags. This was my first experience at a live soccer game and it jarred me. Fan culture was the most intense I’ve ever experienced. It’s nothing new to compare sports fandom with religion, so I won’t rehash how clearly I witnessed the religious fervor of the game’s fans, or how the game felt like a worship service. Instead, I came away pondering what it’s like to witness a religious experience as an outsider. I’m not an outsider when it … [Read more...]

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