The Presbyterian Outlook

News and Articles from the The Presbyterian Outlook

Top Search/Contact Area

God’s love knows no borders

by Leave a Comment

Whoever welcomes children welcomes Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself. Who do you think was a neighbor to the man? The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. Perfect love casts out fear. They will know we are Christians by our love. In Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek. Whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to Jesus. I could keep going. The Bible is chock-full of texts that could be used as a lens through which to view those seeking to cross our borders. None of which justify separating families or arresting people for seeking asylum. If we assume immigrants and refugees are our neighbors, our call is to love them as ourselves. If Jesus’ instruction to welcome children is literal, then we should be welcoming children and not putting them in detention centers. If we want to say that those from other countries are … [Read more...]

Tagged With: immigration • refugees

Granny on a mission: A ruling elder raises awareness of how immigrants are treated

by Leave a Comment

Guest commentary and photos by Sharon Kutz-Mellem Zero tolerance. Human beings seeking asylum from dangerous situations in their own countries, yet denied due process in ours.  Children as young as 11 months old ripped from their parent’s arms, separated and screaming in terror.  Children in cages covered in shiny Mylar blankets sleeping on cement floors – in the United States of America – in 2018. By now, we have all seen these disturbing images. Thankfully, a federal court judge ordered the U.S. government to halt family separation of immigrants.  But the damage had been done. One official with U.S. Customs and Border Protections said from May 6 to May 19 of this year, 658 children were separated from their parents due to the zero-tolerance policy.”  However, we really don’t know the true tally. The numbers of children seem to change daily.  Even with a court order to reunify the children, the deadlines have come and gone. Families are still separated. Some parents were … [Read more...]

Tagged With: immigration • refugees

Welcoming refugees and immigrants: Loving others because God first loved us

by Leave a Comment

90-minute Presbyterian Outlook webinar Presented by Kent Annan Recorded Tuesday, August 28  On-demand video replay — $29.95 (1-6 participants from the same church/ministry) Purchase the Webinar In this webinar, we will focus on how to become more welcoming to refugees and immigrants — personally, as a church and as a country. The presentation will look at the theological and scriptural reasons for welcoming, while also specifically addressing real concerns that many people have. We’ll explore practical ways to help locally, nationally and internationally. And, you’ll be introduced to spiritual practices that can help a church and its members go deeper on this issue, wherever they are along the political spectrum. Kent Annan will also share stories that encourage the church to be more welcoming. After participating in this webinar, you will: Be able to address real concerns that people have about refugee and immigration issues. Know spiritual practices that can be … [Read more...]

Tagged With: immigration • refugees

Help us – A prayer for such a time as this

by Leave a Comment

Lord God, Help us. How did we get to this place? When was it we made our personal security an idol and differences our scapegoat? How is it we have used your name to bar children of God from our borders and forgotten that in so doing we keep ourselves from entering your kingdom? At what point on our journey did we decide to leave Jesus’ Way and go our own direction? Help us. The false prophets have taken over palace and temple, households and town halls. They speak what we most want to hear no matter that their utterances counter your Word made flesh. Help us. You rescue us from Egypt but we quickly imagine we got to the Promised Land by our own abilities, forgetting your declaration that the alien who resides with us shall be as a citizen among us for we were once aliens, too. Help us. Your good creation groans under the weight of the domination we’ve substituted for dominion and stewardship. We’ve traded whole peoples for cheap fuel, profits for a few in exchange for … [Read more...]

Tagged With: refugees

“Mission outposts” in Lebanon and Syria

by Leave a Comment

This fall I took a 2-week trip to Lebanon and Syria. One fact I learned on that trip is that a congregation in the Presbyterian church in Lebanon or Syria with less than 30 members is not called a “church,” it is called a “mission outpost.” Keep that idea in the back of your mind as you read this article, and I will come back to it. The trip was organized by Presbyterian mission worker Elmarie Parker. Our group of 12 was a cross section of pastors and members of Presbyterian churches in Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, New York and Ohio. The trip was framed around the theme of “encountering hope in the midst of lament.” The first four days of our trip were spent visiting Presbyterian congregations in southern Lebanon. This is an area where the tension is still thick from the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria and the tenuous peace between Lebanon and Israel that erupts into cross-border shooting or shelling almost monthly. The United … [Read more...]

Tagged With: refugees

A New Father, Awestruck (A new hymn for refugees)

by Leave a Comment

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, a Presbyterian pastor and author of more than 300 hymns, has written a new hymn in response to the refugee crisis in the Middle East. Gillette is offering it for churches to use, saying that "the new hymn would be very appropriate for Christmas Eve, Christmas Sunday and New Year's Day (the First Sunday after Christmas' lectionary gospel reading is Jesus and his family being refugees fleeing Herod)." Tune: MUELLER   11.11.11.11  ("Away in a Manger") Biblical references: Luke 2:1-20; 22-24; Leviticus 12:6; Matthew 2:13-18; Luke 1:46-55; Matthew 25:31-46 and Micah 6:8. Text: Copyright © 2016 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved. Gillette also has written this hymn note: Hymn Note:  This hymn begins with a traditional image of a manger scene, and becomes a prayer that we may look deeper— at our loving God who chose to come into this world as someone who was poor, powerless, in danger, and a refugee.  It is a prayer for the church to … [Read more...]

Tagged With: refugees

CONTACT US: