Mission Yearbook: SDOP ministry team co-chair discusses ‘Working for the Common Good’

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Photo by Sincerely Media via Unsplash

The Rev. Dr. Jermaine McKinley, the co-chair of the Self-Development of People Ministry Team for Pittsburgh Presbytery, recently spoke to PC(USA) staff as part of the weekly online Chapel Service about SDOP Sunday. Learn more about SDOP’s “People Investing in People” toolkit here. The “Working for the Common Good” meditation by McKinley is included in the resource.

McKinley based her meditation on 1 Corinthians 1:10 and 1 Peter 4:10. She told those worshiping online, “One should never give a preacher the opportunity to speak” because “they’re going to engage in what is referred to as ‘the foolishness of preaching,’” which McKinley called “the interconnectedness of humanity.”

“God intends for all of us to work for the common good,” McKinley said. People “thrive best when we all maintain an environment of respect and love.”

The gifts we’re given by God enable us to contribute to the common good, McKinley said. “When I look at the world, I believe our beloved world would work a whole lot better if we acknowledged that all we have or ever hope to have is good and that God gave it to us. We should be generously sharing it.”

As one committed to working to empower others, “I firmly believe in looking at what we have and working on what we can do to make [things] better,” McKinley said. Asked a few years ago to serve on Pittsburgh Presbytery’s SDOP team, “I thought, ‘That’s what God is calling us to do!’ God calls us to use our skills, grace and talent.”

McKinley acknowledged her own gifts as a baker and a cook, but not so much as someone who grows the ingredients that bakers and chefs need to work their magic. God gives us gifts “to share equitably,” McKinley said. “We each have a need, and we would be better off if we understood we are not to selfishly hoard” our gifts. “We all ought to be doing something to contributed to the common good.”

As an advocate for empowerment, “I love the Self-Development of People,” McKinley said. At Pittsburgh Presbytery, “we work and we coach groups to help them understand all the voices that need to be heard. We understand that some haven’t had the education and skills that others have, but they do have the skills, grace and talent” needed to establish and grow a business.

That got McKinley to thinking of “Face” or “Faceman,” the part Dirk Benedict played on “The A-Team.”

When the need arose, Face, a police detective, would go into a business setting “and work things out,” McKinley said. All of us have our gift, and “I appreciate what can be done to improve socio-economic conditions for everyone” when we use our gifts.

“We are called to love one another as God loves us. I want to invite you to read these two passages” found in 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter, McKinley said. “If you’re a preacher, go ahead and engage in that foolishness of preaching. Preach on the difference SDOP is making.”

McKinley also suggested those in worship read the many articles that are found in the Sunday yearbook and toolkit. “God has prepared something that will touch your mind, your heart and your spirit,” McKinley said. “We as the people of God — we as humanity — are called to live a life of unity, caring for and seeing one another. To God be the glory! Amen.”

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

Let us join in prayer for:

Kendra Bright, Operations and Accounting Associate, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
McKenna Britton, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Life & Witness 

Let us pray:

God, you called us before we knew our names; you walk beside us when our steps are uncertain; you whisper before we know the words to speak. Continue in your teaching and help us to bear witness to your unfolding story among us. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian ministry is focus of re-imagining encounters

As Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian Presbyterians gathered in Puerto Rico for the last of six regional re-imagining encounters across the denomination over five months, organizers were clear about where the work began.

Latin American liberation theology famously emphasizes “theology from below” — prioritizing the faith and lived experience of everyday people, particularly those on the margins, over top-down authority within the institutional church. For Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), re-imagining the church has likewise begun with listening to the wisdom of the people in its pews.

From 2022 to 2023, more than 70 Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian Presbyterians engaged in a comprehensive discernment process that began with grassroots conversations about the needs, gifts, and available resources of their communities as they looked toward the future of ministry. This deep communal work led to RSG-05, “A Resolution Addressing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and the Realities of Hispanic Latino-a-e Ministry,” which was overwhelmingly approved by the 226th General 

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Assembly in June 2024.

According to a report written for this past summer’s 227th General Assembly, the goal of these conversations and eventual resolutions was “re-imagining before God how to serve during a time when the Hispanic/Latino/a/é and Brazilian constituencies face unique realities shaped by the U.S. sociopolitical context.”

The resolution directed the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Office of the General Assembly (since jointly succeeded by Presbyterian Life & Witness) to organize an in-person gathering to re-imagine Hispanic Latino ministry in the PC(USA), develop resources and follow-up plans, and allocate $180,000 in additional funding over the course of 2025 and 2026 to that work. With the institutional church officially on board, the Re-Imagining Coordinating Team returned to where the work started: the Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian congregations within the PC(USA).

In partnership with the National Presbyterian Hispanic/Latino Caucus and IUA staff, the coordinating team organized and facilitated five Re-Imagining Hispanic/Latino/a/é Ministries Regional Encounters in synods across the United States along with the final reimagining event in Sínodo Boriquén in Puerto Rico.

The previous gatherings have taken place in Synod of the Pacific, Synod of the Northeast, Synod of the Sun, Synod of the South Atlantic, and Synod of Southern California and Hawaii.

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The Rev. Rosa Miranda serves in the Interim Unified Agency as the US-based Global Ecumenical Liaison for Hispanic and Brazilian Ethnic Groups.

The Rev. Rosa Miranda, who serves in Presbyterian Life & Witness as the U.S.-based Global Ecumenical Liaison serving Hispanic and Brazilian ethnic communities, says they were intentional about calling these events “encounters” or “Encuentros” in Spanish to emphasize the contextual and collaborative nature of the re-imagining process. Organizers also wanted participants to feel empowered to lead and take ownership of the re-imagining work in their own communities.

Each regional event has been unique, informed by the particular identities, communities and realities of the various contexts. Miranda points out that Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian ministry— while a relatively small percentage of the overall denomination — is actually a large umbrella. In fact, Miranda says that diversity of context and needs informed the decision to facilitate multiple regional gatherings rather than one large national event.

“It’s not the same to do ministry in Puerto Rico as it is in Alaska or North Carolina or Texas or California. It’s very different,” Miranda said. “This is also a way to break away from paternalism and colonialism. It’s not one program fits all — this is our program, in our own context and in our own realities. It’s not a translation or adaptation.”

Organizers developed a Re-Imagining Toolkit to help regional encounter participants. The toolkit includes foundational essays with questions for critical reflection. Participants were challenged to identify two priorities to pursue in the re-imagining process with their faith communities, and then share their learnings with others, inviting collaborators into the ongoing process of discernment and transformation.

Nearly 300 people participated in the regional encounters, with an estimated impact reach of 5,800 Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian Presbyterians.

Miranda points out that while Hispanic, Latino and Brazilian churches are the emerging majority among Christians globally.

“This is a time in which the PC(USA) needs to — in Spanish we say ‘turn around the tortilla’ — turn around and say ‘OK, you are the experts doing this. You know what you need. How can we come along, journey and support our Hispanic Brazilian Ministries in the PC(USA)?’”

Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Life & Witness (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Dan Braden, Managing Editor, Publishing, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Tara Brannigan, Financial Administrative Assistant, Stony Point Center, Presbyterian Life & Witness

Let us pray:

Gracious God, you call us as partners in Creation. Through your Son, Jesus Christ, fill us with blessings and grow in our lives, that by the Holy Spirit we may go out into the world to do your will. Amen.

Minute for Mission: World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

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Water credit: Kayla Eickholtz

Each year, starting on Sept. 1 (World Day of Prayer for All Creation) until Oct. 4, the ecumenical community unites for the Season of Creation, a worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home. In this season, we celebrate God as Creator and acknowledge Creation as the divine continuing act that summons us as collaborators to love and care for the gift of all that is created. 

The Season of Creation Biblical text for this year is drawn from Ezekiel 47:1–12, which portrays God’s life-giving water flowing from the temple of God. The river grows deeper and deeper restoring barren land, reviving waters, and sustaining flourishing ecosystems. This vision invites human responsibility: recognizing ecological damage, embracing interconnectedness, we are called to immerse ourselves in the water, and actively safeguarding and working for the renewal of Creation so that environmental healing and human well-being may flourish together.

The Season of Creation is a perfect opportunity to include the entire congregation, from the oldest to the youngest members. Some ways to do that could be:

Nature Walks and Exploration: Encourage participants to observe the natural world around them, noticing changes in plants, animals and the weather. 

Creative Expression: Invite participants to draw, paint, or sculpt representations of Creation, or to write poems or songs about nature. Collect leaves, rocks, sticks or flowers to make nature-based art works.

Acts of Service: Engage in simple acts of caring for Creation, like planting seeds, making bird feeders or cleaning up litter. 

Prayers and Reflection: Pray together for the protection of Creation and for those who are most affected by environmental problems. 

Creditto the Celebration Guide for the Season of Creation, which is available to help congregations and can be downloaded here.

Please join the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Creation Justice Ministries on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026 at noon Eastern time for a webinar to launch the Season of Creation with special guest Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. 

Jessica Maudlin, Associate for Sustainable Living and Earth Care Concerns, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Life & Witness

Let us join in prayer for:

Shonita Bossier, VP, Operations, Presbyterian Foundation
Terri Bowman, Customer Service Lead, Hubbard Press, Administrative Services Group (A Corporation)  

Let us pray:

Holy God, whose Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning, we gather as part of your community of all Creation, thirsty for your grace. May God who brought water from the rock sustain us in the desert. May Christ our Lord who is Living Water refresh us for the work of restoration. And may the Holy Spirit carry us on currents of grace until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amen.

Ending Gun Violence by Supporting the World Communion Offering

The World Communion Offering Supports Ending Gun Violence The World Communion Offering supports reconciliation efforts such as racial justice, gender justice, peacemaking, global witness, ecumenical and interfaith relations. One of the ministries that falls under this umbrella is the commitment by the PC(USA) to End Gun Violence. The PC(USA) urges congregations to take action of their own to end gun violence, such as promoting secure gun storage, taking part in the Guns to Gardens initiative, or praying for the emotional, mental, and spiritual health of children growing up in an era rife with gun violence.

The Office of Public Witness created a prayerbook on ending gun violence. You can learn more about this prayerbook How Long, Oh Lord on the PC(USA) Store.

The impact we have when we all do a little can add up to a lot through the World Communion Offering.

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.

Mission Yearbook: Sojourners magazine’s editor in chief discusses ‘Light for the Way’

Betsy Shirley, the editor in chief of Sojourners, recently told the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” that resilience in difficult times such as the present can be strengthened by knowing what our forebears went through, and what helped them to stand.

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Betsy Shirley

Shirley joined the podcast, hosted each week by Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe, to also talk about the Sojourners compendium, “Light for the Way: Seeking Simplicity, Connection and Repair in a Broken World.” Listen to her 53-minute discussion with the hosts here.

When Shirley hears a reference to “resilience,” she said she thinks about “the Christians who have come before us who have been through, maybe not the exact same issues we’re facing today, but have lived through issues or timelines … where people seem to have forgotten how to share, whether that’s power or resources.”

“We’re not the first people to experience that,” she said. “God has been faithful through those people and those situations, and that gives me a little more confidence to say, ‘This is not the world as we would prefer it to be, and yet God is present, as God has ever been in the past.’”

For months now, “our readers and our staff and I have had this feeling of anxiety,” Shirley said. “Are we doing enough to protect the people being harmed by this onslaught of policies? Are we showing up in the right ways?”

One thing that’s important to remember is “the United States has never been a place where the national ideals of liberty and justice for all have ever been realized,” Shirley said. “We can look at people in our church and in our cities who have not experienced radical flourishing for themselves or their communities.”

Catoe asked Shirley to describe some of the impacts that Sojourners articles have had on readers and on others.

She noted that the word “magazine” comes from the root for “storehouse.” Shirley said in her mind, a magazine is like “a pantry full of all kinds of snacks. The variety is an important part of what it means to have a magazine.”

Sojourners includes reporting, opinion pieces, Bible studies and more. “We have spiritual reflections and the fun stuff that happens in our culture. It’s a real intentional mix,” she said. “We have a mix of authors who write for us, and I’m grateful for that.”

The mission at Sojourners is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, she noted. “We don’t want to be the journal of the right opinion on Christian justice. That’s impossible,” Shirley said. “We are a table around which a lot of people are gathered.” The editors try to “bring conversations we think are important to this ongoing conversation and to be in dialogue with others who are asking these questions and living these issues.”

As a reader, “that’s what I want from publications,” she said.

Last summer Shirley interviewed Jarvis Williams, a former pastor who’s now a pro-democracy organizer. “I was sharing with him some of these anxieties,” including worries around “are we doing enough?” she recalled. “He very kindly answered my questions, and then he said to me, ‘Let me put on my pastoral hat for a second.’” Then he said, “If you think the world is all evil and you are just bringing the goodness to help it, you have thought a thought that is not Christian. You are telling yourself a story that’s not even authentic to the Christian faith. Humanity didn’t just start having these problems this election cycle.”

“Whew!” Shirley told the hosts. “I thought that was really powerful and important.”

“I have moments of greed and prejudice and disliking things and not being true,” she said. “It’s not, ‘Let me and my posse come and help with these problems or solve the issues those people have caused.’ It’s more a sense of, ‘We are all facing these, and yes, certain people bring different things to the conversation, but we’re all in this together’” in an effort to bring about “mutual flourishing and liberation.”

New editions of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast" drop here every Thursday.

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

Let us join in prayer for:

Teresa Bidart, Mission Specialist, Self-Development of People, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Ricky Blade, Customer Service Representative, Constituent Ministry, Presbyterian Life & Witness

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, we lift up your children who are burdened with the trauma of their childhood. We pray that your healing peace might wash over them, so that they might overcome their history and become light for others. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Presbyterian Higher Education

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Agnes Scott Library Student (Jeff Arnold)

Because our colleges and universities are Presbyterian-related, we value learning, faith, service and connection to each other, the Church, and the world, honoring the dignity and worth of every person.

We don’t value learning and all faith traditions represented on our campuses in spite of our church-relatedness. It is because we are church-related that we value and cherish all inquiry and welcome and encourage all faith communities.

Learning, faith, service — the order is important. We are schools, not churches, and our primary mission is education. Learning comes first. Nevertheless, as church-related institutions, we are concerned to educate whole people for the whole world. We strive to graduate students who are not only academically well-prepared but also spiritually and socially mature participants in the religious and civic communities of which they are a part.

We value our relationships with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and with other schools who share a similar relationship. We are not, and do not wish to be, identical institutions. Yet we appreciate our common connections and commitments. We benefit from our mutual relationship, we are all grateful for the historic and ongoing support of the Church, and we are committed to maintaining that relationship.

Our connection to the world is both social and environmental. We seek to serve the whole world through our service to each student. We understand ourselves to be part of a global community of teaching, learning and inquiry. We also work to exhibit, embody, and encourage environmental responsibility on our campuses and beyond. As stated above, we strive to educate whole people for the whole world.

Honoring our efforts to live out our commitment to learning, faith, service and connection takes place in the context of our ongoing and pervasive commitment to honor the dignity and worth of all people. Our schools are resources and instruments through which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) serves the world as we serve each of our students in all their magnificent variety and particularity.

Jeff Arnold, Executive Director, Association of Presbyterian Colleges & Universities

Let us join in prayer for:

Barbara Betts, Manager, Presbyterian Distribution Services, Administrative Services Group
Beverly Bewley, Customer Service Representative, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation    

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we are grateful for the Presbyterian emphasis on education and for the many blessings that allow Presbyterian-founded colleges and universities to faithfully serve more than 140,000 students each year. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Professor leads compassionate preaching webinar

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The Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes

Exploring the ways that preachers’ prayers impact their preaching was the task recently for the Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship and practical theology at Union Theological Seminary. Carvalhaes spoke for about 90 minutes as part of the Synod of the Covenant’s monthly preaching workshop. Watch his presentation here.

“What a world we’re living in! In a time of fascism, prayer is more important than ever,” Carvalhaes said. We either “want to go to the streets and fight or coil back in our beds and never leave.”

Taking in news reports from places like Gaza, which Carvalhaes called “a laboratory for cruelty,” can leave us feeling paralyzed and hopeless, he said. “We need to create opportunities for our people to do something,” he said, showing a recorded clip of a line of Buddhist monks on a 123-day prayer walk for peace. “We could do something like that. We could have a peace walk around the block every Sunday before worship,” he said.

From people in cities such as Minneapolis, we are learning the importance of group singing as resistance, he said. “St. Augustine said that singing is praying twice,” Carvalhaes said. “There is a whole theology being developed on the streets.” Our lives, he said, “are one whole prayer, and our prayer ends only with our last breath. Our spirituality comes from the breath of God, so while we’re breathing, we’re praying.”

Five years ago, Carvalhaes published “Praying with Every Heart: Orienting Our Lives to the Wholeness of the World.”

“Today, I want to develop this notion of ‘praying with,’” he said. It’s a title given to him by a Buddhist friend at Union Theological Seminary.

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The Rev. Dr. Dave Davis

Most Presbyterian worship services begin by calling people to worship. “We start with the belief that God is already there,” he said. “But so many other traditions believe you have to call upon God to come [to the service]. They have prayers or singing to ask God to come.”

Capitalism has taught us that “we are on our own” and “have the freedom to be ourselves,” he said. If all the people on the call were applying for the same job, the one who got hired “would be praised for the strength and power” that got that person hired, Carvalhaes said. “The rest of us, our families would tell us ‘you’re not good enough.’ The system blames us individually for what the social system can’t give to us, and we just buy into it.”

In our churches, if something happens that “takes us off the grid of living well,” such as a job loss, we may survive for a few months off our savings and our unemployment checks. After that, in an example Carvalhaes presented, we may get anxious about paying our bills, and so we go to our church for financial help. The pastor may ask the session to authorize some money to help us, but it’s not enough, and we begin to ask for prayers each week during worship, which annoys our fellow worshipers. “You can do better,” they tell us. “Why do you have to ask each week?” Eventually the pastor tells us, “Sorry. We have already helped you. The session says that we don’t have enough money for everybody.”

“In this example, I am trying to show how committed we are to each other, but capitalism keeps us from going all the way to help people,” he said. “There are limits and boundaries we have clearly posted but we don’t talk about.”

He concluded his talk with thoughts on mercy and gratitude.

“We say, ‘God have mercy,’ because we have gone too far, or don’t know how to return, or we have lost all hope. The prayer is the hope we will find the God who lives in those far places as well,” Carvalhaes said. “At the end, God will be with us — either for new beginnings or a full end. It’s a scream to a God who lives outside the gates and can provide us a welcome no one else will.”

The Synod of the Covenant’s monthly preaching workshops are available to frequent preachers living and working both inside and outside the bounds of the synod.

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

Let us join in prayer for:

Jon Baxter, Chief Engineer, Building Services, Administrative Services Group
Serrita Bell, Director of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation    

Let us pray:

Our loving God, thank you for the gift of those who reach out to others in a spirit of love. May their example be a light to the world, that all may live in peace. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.