Mission Yearbook: Partnership preserves Ghost Ranch landscapes for future generations

The National Ghost Ranch Foundation and the Presbyterian Foundation jointly announced plans to preserve the landscapes and vistas made famous by artist Georgia O’Keeffe through a new partnership with the State of New Mexico and the New Mexico Land Conservancy.

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Georgia O’Keeffe portrait. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The Ghost Ranch Conservation Plan will protect 6,000 acres of pristine land, water and wildlife habitat in Northern New Mexico through conservation easements while ensuring sustainable operations for Ghost Ranch’s educational programs for years to come. A conservation easement is a voluntary agreement to preserve land for conservation purposes while allowing landowners to retain ownership.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect one of the most iconic landscapes in New Mexico,” said David Evans, CEO of the Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center. “We’re excited this new partnership will help preserve this special place of history, culture and nature for future generations.”

“We are pleased to welcome this new era of conservation for Ghost Ranch,” said the Rev. Dr. Tom Taylor, CEO of the Presbyterian Foundation. “For more than 70 years, we’ve taken seriously our responsibility to steward these lands for the public good, and we’re confident we’ve found the right partners to carry out that longstanding tradition.”

The State of New Mexico is devoting $930,000 through the Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources’ Natural Heritage Conservation Act Program for the initial phase, which will help cover transaction costs. Funding comes from the Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund, the state’s first funding source for land and water conservation, agriculture and outdoor recreation.

The New Mexico Land Conservancy will hold the conservation easements in trust for the public benefit and traditional land users on behalf of the Presbyterian Foundation, which owns the land, the National Ghost Ranch Foundation and the State of New Mexico. The easements will not affect the 550 acres of the main Ghost Ranch facilities, which include the visitor’s center, trails, lodging, stables and museums, thus maintaining the Ghost Ranch experience for the thousands of people who visit every year.

"This conservation plan is a great example of what can happen when people work together to preserve what we love about New Mexico,” said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. “We're excited to leave a lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy the stunning landscapes and vistas that drew Georgia O'Keeffe to Northern New Mexico and continue to define this region's incomparable beauty. I'm grateful to my administration and our nonprofit leaders for their hard work to make it happen."

“This effort embodies the spirit of our work to conserve land and preserve New Mexico’s heritage,” said Jonathan Hayden, executive director of the New Mexico Land Conservancy. “We’re especially excited to see Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund dollars put to good use through our partnership with the State and hope it will be a catalyst for future land conservation efforts.”

Ghost Ranch, nestled amid the breathtaking red and yellow cliffs of the Piedra Lumbre, was a well-known place of solace and inspiration for visionary artist Georgia O’Keeffe, whose depictions of the majestic areas are some of the most recognizable paintings in art history.

O’Keeffe owned a small house and seven acres on Ghost Ranch and a larger home and studio in the nearby village of Abiquiú, which are now owned and managed separately by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. While the conservation plan does not directly affect these properties, the easements help preserve the landscapes and vistas made famous by O'Keeffe’s paintings for future generations. This includes the mesas that overlook Abiquiú Lake, the Rio Chama and Cerro Pedernal (Tewa: Tsip'in).

Ghost Ranch, located 65 miles northwest of Santa Fe on U.S. Route 84, is owned by the Presbyterian Foundation and leased to and managed by the National Ghost Ranch Foundation, an independent, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that operates the Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center. Arthur and Phoebe Pack donated the land to the Board of Christian Education in 1955, which is now part of the Presbyterian Foundation. The Packs wanted to see the surrounding lands protected and Ghost Ranch preserved as an educational and retreat center.

Presbyterian Foundation (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Anish Sharma, Software Developer, Digital Strategy & Information Systems, Administrative Services Group
Jeanie Shaw, Senior Accounting Clerk Controllers, Administrative Services Group  

Let us pray:

Gracious God, protect those who work to proclaim and demonstrate your peace and love as well as those who inspire others to do the same. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Hundreds gather to hear Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde speak in Minneapolis

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The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde

The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde recently packed them in at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis for the Westminster Town Hall Forum, delivering an engaging and insightful talk she called “Courage is Contagious.”

Bishop Budde was the first woman elected as spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She exploded into the nation’s consciousness with a sermon she preached in January 2025 to President Donald Trump and others at the Washington National Cathedral.

Watch the recording of Budde’s Westminster Town Hall Forum talk here. 

Budde served 18 years as a priest in Minneapolis. For her, a favorite Westminster talk was in 2003 by the late Rev. Peter Gomes, a Harvard ethics professor and the minister at the university’s Memorial Church. During that talk, Gomes described the sermon he delivered every year to incoming Harvard students called “How Are You Going to Live After the Fall.”

“Innocent pagans that most of them are, they assume that I am asking them what their plans are after September,” Budde said, quoting Gomes. “But I’m not. I’m asking them what they’re going to do after their first dreams fall from the sky. What are you going to do when you don’t get that job? When you don’t get the girl or boy? When you are brushed aside and hurt? When your children rise up to treat you as poorly as you are treating your parents?”

“The good life that you rightly seek must serve you in your most difficult, desperately hard times,” Gomes said that day. “If what you live by does not serve you then, it is no good for you, even in the good times.”

Budde got around to talking about courage, but first she spent some time on hope. “Our understanding of hope is critically important in the times we’re in,” she said. “We’re understandably disappointed when our hopes don’t come to pass. … When what we long for really matters to us, to the people we love, to the fate of our communities,” the disappointment is “devastating” when our hopes are dashed.

“That’s precisely why we need to tap deeper wells in search of a more resilient hope that enables us to persevere in the face of disappointment and prolonged adversity,” she said. 

This practice of hope “has become increasingly important to me as I get older, because Lord knows the last thing the generations coming up behind us who are elders now need is our cynicism and our despair,” Budde said. 

“What they need is wind in their sails. They need us to hold fast to all that is good. They need us to provide places of respite and encouragement,” she said. “They need us to write checks, to give sacrificially of our time and resources, and to keep the light of faith burning, just as our spiritual forebears did for us.”

That brought Budde to the topic of courage “and the simple observation that courage is contagious. It’s like hope: it’s mysterious and communal. It passes through and among us like electricity, helping us to accomplish, as the Apostle Paul once wrote, ‘far more than we could ask for or imagine.’”

As Budde was preparing her January 2025 sermon for Trump and others, she read an account of Roman Catholic bishops in California who had taken a strong stand of support for migrants in their communities. “Their courage to say what I knew, what we all knew to be true, that the vast majority of immigrants and migrants and refugees are not dangerous criminals but are active, contributing members of our society — their courage inspired me,” she said.

A sermon or a speech “is not consequential on its own,” Budde said. “It’s only decisive to the extent it is linked to lives of integrity, faithfulness and sacrificial love, and part of communities and movements that are dedicated to a higher purpose. That’s why you’re here,” she told those in the packed church. “The primary reason I accepted this invitation to speak was to say thank you to the people and the communities that taught me so much about courage.”

Learn more about the Westminster Town Hall Forum here. 

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Michelle Schulz, Administrative Manager, Information Technology Infrastructure, Administrative Services Group
Robyn Davis Sekula , VP, Marketing and Communications, Marketing, The Presbyterian Foundation 

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, please hear the outcry of your children in need and provide a lighted path for them to find their way. Please empower those who serve them with the resources and energy needed to lift spirits and hearts. Amen.

Resources for the World Communion Offering

World Communion Offering Resources Get started planning and preparing for the first-ever World Communion Offering with the resources below. Start with the Leader's Guide and other helpful resources from the curated list below.  Leader’s Guide Everything you need to know about the World Communion Offering is found in the pages of the Leader’s Guide. Ideas for World Communion Sunday, how to involve all ages in your congregation, a checklist for receiving the offering, how gifts from this offering are used, and even minute for mission scripts you can use to share with your congregation are included in this Leader’s Guide. Download the Leader’s Guide Social Media Images Premade social media images you can schedule on whatever platforms your congregation uses to help share information about the World Communion Offering. Download Social Media Images PowerPoint Slides Great for displaying at gatherings of any size such as committee or session meetings; but also use this customizable PowerPoint presentation as announcements prior to worship if your congregation has the technology. Download PowerPoint Slides Media Tool Kit Design your own World Communion Offering announcements and images in any size or configuration you need with the Media Tool Kit. Drop the logos, backgrounds and other images in this kit into your favorite design software such as Canva and create your own media. Download Media Tool Kit World Communion Sunday Liturgy Plan World Communion Sunday Worship using our prepared liturgy. This entire worship service was curated for you by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM) Board Member Jonathan Hehn who also is the term assistant professor of sacred music at the University of Notre Dame. Download World Communion Sunday Worship Liturgy See the full list of World Communion Offering Resources on our website. World Communion Offering grant information is also available on our website.  Thank you for generously supporting the World Communion Offering.   If you have any questions, reply to this email or call us at (800) 728-7228, Ext. 5047.

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United Mission Matters

United Mission Matters "The Kansas Plan: Partnership and Purpose in United Mission" Written By: Rev. Dr. Gregg L.J. Hemmen Executive Minister American Baptist Churches of the Central Region One of the unique ways that United Mission works in the Central Region is through the Kansas Plan. The Kansas Plan was created in 1936 in the midst of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl calamity. At this time, institutions in the Central Region were often getting the leftover donations, if any at all, and were suffering. American Baptists in the Central Region were not willing to see these ministries fail and addressed the problem by creating the Kansas Plan. Since 1936, a portion of every United Mission dollar has gone to support six institutions in the Central Region: Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Homestead Healthcare, Murrow Indian Children’s Home, Ottawa University, Prairie Homestead Retirement Community, and Sunset Homes Retirement Community. These are our partners in ministry and quite often are ministering to under-served demographics of our population. The Kansas Plan representatives meet quarterly through the year to share updates on their ministries, voice prayer requests for the challenges they face, and provide opportunities for collaboration when it makes sense. While the Kansas Plan provides only a portion of the support each institution receives, American Baptists in the Central Region have been steady and faithful through this United Mission vehicle for support. This is one important way that United Mission works in the Central Region. "In This Great City, Hope in the Hardest Times" Written By: Rev. Dr. TaNikka Sheppard Executive Minister Cleveland Baptist Association “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God… God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.” - Psalm 46:4–5 ESV These are the hardest of times and still the holiest of times. In the great city of Cleveland, we are witnessing the light of Christ shine through Cleveland Baptist Association (CBA) congregations, not because the road we tread is easy, but because the love we share is daily becoming more tangible for our neighbors who feel forgotten and too often live in harm’s way. I am profoundly thankful for the generosity demonstrated through United Mission giving, which is a wonderful opportunity to invest in impactful endeavors that are larger than any one congregation can do alone. It is through this cooperative and collaborative spirit that we recently launched our 2026-2028 CBA Strategic Vision with great expectation and hope. In the last two years, nearly one-third of our churches have navigated pastoral transitions. While we honor the leaders who built what we stand on, we also welcome emerging leadership that is asking brave questions and bringing fresh energy to Greater Cleveland. Together, we are listening, praying, and refusing to be hindered by traditions and practices that were once innovative but are no longer necessary. This work matters tremendously in Cleveland, a city that has continuously ranked highest among large U.S. cities for child poverty, and that was named the worst place in America for Black women based on outcomes and livability measures. We also face widening economic and educational disparities, and persistent inequities that impact poor families and people of color. Yet these realities do not cause us to despair. They actually fuel our collective determination. United Mission dollars are steadily at work in the CBA. We are nurturing healthier churches by strengthening youth through enrichment and certifications, developing leaders through cohorts, coaching, and education, expanding region-wide training and congregational support, creating pastoral retreats for renewal, and forging advocacy-minded partnerships that advance equity, hope, and justice. The CBA is not pursuing notoriety or success. We are following the Holy Spirit, trusting God’s river to keep flowing through this city until righteous justice and real joy are experienced on every street. The Generosity Project Discover a Fresh Approach to Stewardship with The Generosity Project Talking about money in the church can be challenging—but it doesn’t have to be! The Generosity Project is designed to help pastors reframe the conversation around stewardship, making it more about joy, gratitude, and faith rather than obligation or stress. This program brings together cohorts of pastors to learn, share, and grow in their leadership around generosity. Whether you’re leading a small rural church, a thriving urban congregation, or something in between, this experience will give you tools to cultivate a culture of generosity—one that can transform both your ministry and your church’s financial well-being. What Pastors Are Saying: “For years, I struggled with how to talk about stewardship in a way that didn’t feel like a ‘necessary evil.’ The Generosity Project helped me shift the focus to gratitude, faith, and mission—without guilt or pressure.” “This project has changed the way I think about giving. My congregation is experiencing a greater sense of joy and purpose in generosity, and I’ve seen a real shift in our approach to stewardship.” “I love that this program keeps generosity in front of me all year long, not just at budget time!” Who Can Join? We’re inviting pastors, church leaders, and stewardship teams to be part of this journey. Each region can form its own cohort of pastors, meeting online once a month for guided discussions, practical learning, and resource sharing. If you don’t have enough participants locally, we can connect you with a wider group of pastors from other regions. How It Works: 6 Monthly Virtual Gatherings – No travel required! Meet with fellow pastors in flexible, supportive online settings led by a trained facilitator. Practical Tools & Resources – Participants receive free books, articles, and learning materials to help them lead conversations about generosity with confidence. Encouragement & Accountability – Stay engaged with ongoing support from your cohort as you try out new ideas in your church. Topics We Cover: Moving from scarcity thinking to a culture of abundance Leading stewardship conversations with confidence and authenticity Shaping a joyful and mission-driven approach to giving Apply Now: Applications for January 2027, can be submitted in the Fall. Have questions about the program or the application? Contact GenerosityProject@abc-usa.org to learn more. The Generosity Project is a collaborative effort between ABCUSA, regions, and local congregations. The Generosity Project aims to help pastors re-frame the conversation around stewardship and generosity in their congregations. Bi-monthly blogs help support new growth and understanding as we deepen our ministry and discipleship. What is United Mission? United Mission is a simple yet intentional way that American Baptists contribute to a shared financial fund that is designed and used for mission and ministry that has an impact across the whole American Baptist family. With a large portion of United Mission funds contributing directly to the mission efforts and ministries of the 33 ABC regional entities, the Office of the General Secretary, and the Board of General Ministries, all of which are accountable to and informed by our member congregations, United Mission funding supports efforts on all levels of our denomination as well on our shared mission fields. Portions of United Mission also support services provided by our national ABC partners. United Mission Toolkit  Check out all of the resources at the United Mission Toolkit. You can find it on our website at www.abc-usa.org/united-mission-toolkit How to Participate in United Mission: United Mission Basics are undesignated contributions from local churches to the vital mission and ministry of American Baptists. Basics provide support for the extensive foundation of American Baptist missions. United Mission Love Gifts are contributions from American Baptist women in support of American Baptist ministry, given over and above United Mission Basics. Whether congregations and individuals give to United Mission via regularly scheduled contributions throughout the year or annual one-time gifts, through church budgets or special offerings, your faithfulness shows your commitment to being United in Christ, Together in Mission as an entire American Baptist denominational family. Explore the Resources at the Lake Institute We have had several of our Regional Executive Ministers as well as pastors and leaders attend the Religious Fund Raising cohort through the Lake Institute. Check out the resources the Lake Institute offers: https://lakeinstitute.org/ (Used with permission from the Lake Institute) Upcoming Events

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