Since Jesus calls Christians to make disciples of all nations, in this blog we'll consider how we might better share the gospel to the world around us.
As I write, I have just returned from the Call for Clergy in Minneapolis to witness and resist their extrajudicial authoritarian occupation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Instead of facing our demons in a desert, religious leaders from across the nation faced them on the prairie, wrapped up in ski pants and foot warmers, thermal underwear and stoles safety-pinned to parkas. With negative thirty-four degree wind chill temperatures, Mother Earth herself screamed, “If you really want ICE, I will give you some ICE!!”
Jesus in our midst, among the least of these members of his family — strangers unwelcomed by our federal government but companioned by all who see in them the face of Christ — faced down those demons with us, in a story of reverse temptation:
Mutual Aid societies proving the miracle of loaves and fishes for families left behind after the abduction of their loved ones, including the delivery of breast milk to a three month old left unattended after ICE broke down her door without a judicial warrant and kidnapped her mother.
Movement chaplains, including a colleague from seminary, rushing to the scenes where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, offering prayer and comfort while being pummeled by pepper spray and sound cannon.
And civic leaders refusing to cave to external demands that would protect them from judicial probes at the expense of their citizens.
Over and over again, with every reason to give up, these Beloved of God, baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, show up for one another and for God in this crisis. This same level of urgency, demon-confronting, and long haul commitment can be ours for earth care. Let us begin!
Prayer: Holy One who overcomes horror with inspiration, grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the facing of this hour.
It began, as so many things do in the Church, with a dream.
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Emily Martin (Photo by Alex Simon)
Three years ago, we stepped into the 225th General Assembly (2022) as Young Adult Advisory Delegates (YAADs). We arrived with wide eyes and open hearts, expecting a single week of conversations about the Church’s future. If only we knew what the Holy Spirit had really signed us up for!
During that Assembly, we learned about a significant proposal: to create a commission to unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency. It was an important item of business, shaping how our national Church would be organized for years to come.
But when we read the charter, we noticed something missing. The commission was designed to include a wide diversity of representatives across the Church — except young adults.
In late-night YAAD Zoom calls across time zones, a dream began to take root. What if young adults had seats at the table, too? What if the church’s youngest voices, full of creativity and passion, could help shape this future?
With the encouragement of the Spirit and the support of commissioners, the Assembly amended the proposal to add two YAAD representatives who would bring a different perspective to this work.
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Carson Brown (Photo by Alex Simon)
Neither of us had any expectation that we’d be the ones to serve. Yet, with the encouragement of friends and others in the Church, we applied — and were invited to serve on the commission!
Walking into our first commission meeting was overwhelming. The task of unification felt so big, and we were the youngest people in the room. We did not have decades of Church service or deep knowledge of national governance structures.
But we quickly discovered that being new was not a weakness. Our questions were welcomed. Our fresh eyes helped us see possibilities that others sometimes overlooked. And we realized that our fellow commissioners — wise, faithful and gracious — were also asking questions, learning and growing.
We learned that everyone, no matter their experience, has something to learn. And when we learn together, the work gets stronger.
As YAADs, our lack of a long history in Church politics became a gift. We were not weighed down by “the way things have always been.” We could focus on the present moment and the future needs of the Church.
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Young Adult Advisory Delegates participate in a prayer walk through United Nations-related sites during the United Nations' High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held July 2025. (Photo by Kristen Gaydos)
For 2,000 years, the Church has adapted to the Spirit’s call, evolving to meet the needs of the time while holding on to the good news of Christ. By including young adults in the commission, the Assembly chose to embrace change with courage instead of fear.
By welcoming new perspectives and change, the Church shows that the love and truth of Jesus Christ is embedded in everything. It transcends time, space or a singular governing structure. By embracing this, we can make sure that the current Church is what God has called it to be now, and that it has the tools to become what God will call it to be in the future.
What we have learned is that the Church is strongest when it welcomes unlikely voices.
God has always chosen surprising people — the too young, the too old, the inexperienced, the uncertain — to carry out the work of building the kingdom. What matters is not perfection or résumé. What matters is willingness: the willingness to show up, to offer your gifts and to let God use you in unexpected ways.
We came to the table as outsiders. Along the way, we were welcomed, respected and thanked for contributing in ways we never imagined. That has convinced us of something we now believe deeply: Voices like ours belong at the table. And so does yours.
We have immense gratitude that the Church has invited our voices to this work. We never expected to serve in this way. But God’s plans for us were bigger than our own.
Now, as we look ahead, we ask: How is God calling you to be part of this work?
Brendan Schuster and the Rev. Bill Davis lead music during opening worship Wednesday at "Bridging Generations," the annual conference of the Presbyterian Older Adult Ministries Network. (Photo by Mike Ferguson)
Conference musicians the Rev. Bill Davis and Brendan Schuster added to worship with voices, guitar and shruti box. Worshipers wrote their prayer concerns on ribbons, which they wove through chicken wire sandwiched by wooden frames, all of which were on their tables.
“My hope is that you will take a peek behind the veneer,” Spurlock said after reading most of Isaiah 43. When God tells the people “I know you” and “I love you,” “those are words that mean a lot to people who don’t have those connections, who aren’t rooted in that place,” such as the people of Isaiah’s time. “Particularly as we work with older adults, so often they have come from a place where they were rooted and are now in a place that feels quite different, a place where they don’t have those connections. They begin to think — and we leaders push it on them — that those eyes that have seen a lot cannot be trusted anymore.”
Then Spurlock asked: “When people are pushed to the side and told their memories and experiences don’t matter anymore, what happens to their sense of identity? They begin to feel they’re not loved and not known, that their faith from the past is no longer valued and perhaps no longer matters.”
“We call this space ‘wilderness,’ friends,” he said. “What if God is about to do something new in your wilderness? What if your eyes, that have seen so much, might actually be tuned to see the true new thing that God is up to in our midst? What might that mean?”
Those who have seen a lot “can see what’s coming next,” Spurlock said. “They can perceive what might be new, that these are streams flowing through these wilderness places.”
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The Rev. Justin Spurlock
The opportunity in the desert that many churches are experiencing “isn’t with families with kids. It’s with older adults. I’m speaking to the choir here,” he said. “Our senior adults among us feel like they aren’t the places where God is going to bring a flowing river, yet they have the experience to know what might actually be new. They have literally seen it all, and they can come alongside us and say, ‘let me help you dream something new. The thing you are handing us is something we tried 27 years ago, and it didn’t turn out like you leaders had hoped. Let’s try something together.’”
“It’s in these spaces,” he said, “where God does something new.”
Wind Crest Senior Living is “a stone’s throw” from Grace Presbyterian Church, Spurlock noted, and about three years ago he and others formed a new worshiping community there called Winds of Grace, part of Denver Presbytery’s rich tapestry of new worshiping communities. Even after preaching two sermons on a Sunday, Spurlock looks forward to a third sermon once a month at Winds of Grace.
“There aren’t the typical expectations a congregation brings,” he said. “I sing some songs and pray some prayers on a Sunday afternoon. They don’t care if the sermon is a little tired or I am a little tired. They accept us for who we are and we are excited to be in this space together.”
He comes out of afternoon worship “believing I have encountered the holy in the wilderness. It’s anything but a desert,” Spurlock said. “I wonder if that’s what all our church communities should feel like? They have arrived at that place because they have seen so much, experienced all of it, and they actually know what is new and what is from God.”
“We have the opportunity to lift these experiences up to provide value, to say, ‘you are known and loved, and God is not done with you yet. God is going to make a way in the wilderness.’ Amen.”
Serrita Bell, Directory of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation Barbara Betts, Manager, Presbyterian Distribution Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation
Let us pray:
Gracious God, you have called us to bring your good news to all people. Help us to minister faithfully in our congregations and neighborhoods to your children of all ages, so that all will know of your love. In the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.
From the banks of the Genesee River to South Carolina’s sunny shores, God’s love is on the move.
And in the mail.
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Members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of East Avon, New York, lay hands on a prayer blanket they will send to bless the recipient. (Screenshot)
The latest in a wealth of colorful prayer blankets — lovingly handcrafted by a group of faithful volunteers at the First Presbyterian Church of East Avon (New York) in the Presbytery of Genesee Valley — was recently dispatched to a South Carolina woman who had likely never heard of the hamlet south of Rochester, but whose life would be touched by it.
“We blessed a blanket for a woman named Cas,” said Cathy Garrett, a relatively new church member who launched the prayer blanket ministry at East Avon, where she is thrilled to see it flourishing.
“Our friends met Cas while they were serving at the food bank in their hometown in South Carolina,” she said. “When they noticed that her leg didn’t look healthy, they encouraged her to seek medical attention. Because she has no health insurance, she was resistant to go to the doctor. They, however, continued to encourage her, and when she did finally seek medical attention, the doctor stated that although it was not cancer, the leg would have to be amputated. It’s our prayer that she will receive the blanket as a physical symbol of God’s love, peace, comfort and healing.”
Garrett explained that whenever the congregation receives a request for a prayer blanket, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Michelle Allen, invites worshipers to come forward, as they are able, to lay their hands on the blanket and pray as a witness that everyone shares in the ministry.
Since East Avon is a small congregation with some 50–60 members and friends worshiping each Sunday in person or on Zoom, Garrett decided that the best way to introduce the prayer blanket concept to the church was to connect with Alice Malin, who leads the Crafters, a longtime weekly ministry group.
“Alice immediately came up with a pattern for people to knit for prayer blankets,” said Garrett, who first learned about prayer blankets when she received the prayer shawl that had comforted her mother-in-law at the end of her life.
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First Presbyterian Church of East Avon, New York, has a thriving prayer blanket ministry. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom)
“As soon as the idea took hold with the Crafters, soon others in the church stepped forward to offer to teach crocheting and knitting,” Garrett recalled. “Now everyone in church is involved with the prayer blanket ministry in one way or another, including the children. We have been honored to send blankets all over the world to people we’ve never met. The stories we receive are incredible.”
Peggy Stallworth, a quilter who leads the pack in donating her beautiful, handmade quilts, shared with Garrett how the ministry has brought new meaning to her handiwork.
“Peg, who is one of those who has quilted many of the blankets,” recalled Garrett, “said to me, ‘I can’t thank you enough. I love to quilt, but I ran out of people to give them to, and now I have purpose for my quilts.’”
Whenever a blanket is hand-delivered or mailed, the church encloses a laminated photo of the congregation praying over it with text on the back to let the recipient know that the church will continue to remember them in prayer. They also invite them to email the church with updates, should they wish, and to join the congregation on Sunday mornings for worship.
“We sent a blanket to a woman who wasn’t expected to live after a stroke,” said Garrett. “She told us that when the blanket isn’t on her, it stays in her windowsill with a picture of the congregation next to it. She said she looks at it all day long, and that it has given her strength.”
Today, Garrett said, the woman is able to speak and eat and is learning to walk again.
“What a blessing it would be,” she exclaimed, “to have other churches pick up on this practice and just let the Holy Spirit fly!”
The East Avon Church invites readers to contact the church via email to learn how to start a prayer blanket ministry in their congregation or if they — or someone they know — is in need of a blanket.
Doug Batezel , Senior Vice President & CIO, Information Technology, The Board of Pensions Jon Baxter, Chief Engineer, Building Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation
Let us pray:
Thank you, Lord, for opportunities to share our gifts and learn from one another. Please give us the strength and courage to remain faithful to you while working hard to care for the rest of your children. We pray all this in your precious Son’s name. Amen.
Well-known Peruvian documentarian Javier Corcuera hosted a special screening over the summer of his newest documentary, “Escuchar,” about the state violence that took place in Peru between December 2022 and March 2023, resulting in the deaths of 49 protesters.
It’s a story about people like Marco Antonio Samillán, a young doctor who was shot in the back while attempting to offer medical care to protestors. It's a story about Marco’s sister, Milagros, who was thrust into the role of justice advocate and activist for victims’ families after her brother’s murder. And it is — in a way — a story about the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program in Peru in which Milagros participates.
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The Peru YAV site coordinator, Jenny Valles, stands with eight of the nine YAV program participants for 2025-2026. (Contributed photo)
A few years ago, even the most gifted prognosticators would have been unlikely to predict that Milagros Samillán and the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program would cross paths. Prior to her brother’s assassination, Milagros was a young university student, still living in Juliaca, the rural Andean context where she’d grown up.
“I was just another citizen of this country, living my own life — business, university, and family life — trying to share as many moments as possible with my siblings because we had already lost my mother and were dealing with a very heavy loss for the family,” Samillán said.
Meanwhile, participants in the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program have historically been from the United States. The program offered them a disruption to “regular life” — a chance to encounter a different context in another city or another country and spend a year living in intentional Christian community while serving the church and the world. Currently, the program offers sites in four U.S. cities and cities international locations.
When Covid made it impossible for the YAV program in Peru to accommodate young adults from the U.S., site coordinator Jenny Valles made an innovative shift: She brought on two Peruvian young adults instead. What began as a creative solution born of necessity became a new vision for the YAV program, and Valles continued to invite volunteers from Peru and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean alongside U.S. young adults.
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Milagros Samillán talks with pastor and AETE professor, Efraín Barrera.
“I believe having a more diverse YAV community is a more faithful approach to meeting the needs of the global church and addressing the challenges of the world today,” Valles said, noting that the diversity among volunteers also includes faith traditions, social location and life experiences. Samillán is one such example.
As state violence erupted in late 2022, Samillán and her family weren’t oblivious to the escalating situation, but they were focused on their own grief at their mother’s death. Then, on Jan. 9, police in Juliaca killed 18 people in a single day.
Samillán’s brother Marco was a doctor who had heard that protestors were being injured by police and went to offer medical care. Instead, he became one of those murdered, and Samillán’s life changed forever.
In the months after her brother’s death, Samillán felt a growing responsibility to speak up for her brother and the others who were killed, as well as 1,500 survivors, and the family members of those murdered with whom she had bonded.
“I had two options: lie in bed and cry for my brother's death or use my brother's memory and my brother’s name to help and support the family members’ struggle, which is also my struggle, which is not only Marco’s, but also part of the 49 families who are demanding justice today.”
Family members of the victims, including Samillán, came to Lima in the spring of 2023 and slept on the streets — a demonstration that became known as the “Lima Occupations” according to Efraín Barrera, a pastor and professor at an ecumenical theological school in Lima called AETE. Barrera said that, in response to the murders and victims’ families coming to Lima, AETE formed the Evangelicals Presente Collective made up of students and faculty who provided material support to the families and also organized a work of “prophetic denunciation” of the violence done by the government. Through this work, Samillán became involved with AETE and Barrera.
AETE has been in relationship with the PC(USA) since 2000 through various Presbyterian faculty members as well as the Joining Hands Network in Peru.
Andrew Kang Bartlett, Associate, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Interim Unified Agency Dwayne Batcho, Production Clerk, Presbyterian Distribution Service, Administrative Services Group
Let us pray:
Holy God, upon you we depend. Help your church to stand strong — shining the light of your goodness in a troubled world and our often-troubled lives. Empower us to proclaim your salvation and new life in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Members celebrate Easter at Westminster Presbyterian Church in 2025.
Members from Westminster Presbyterian Church in New Jersey’s capital city understand themselves as “A House of Prayer and Praise for People of All Nations” that continually seeks “the Shalom of the City.” These phrases describe how the congregation sees itself as a body, committed to faith, loving unconditionally and doing the work where they are with whomever needs it wherever they are. One member observed:
We “love thy neighbor” every time we joyfully show up and shout out for our members, our city, our nation and our world. We attend local drive-by graduation celebrations and march for racial and social justice. We distribute food to local families and teach English in a village school in the Dominican Republic. We celebrate our God-given gifts and use them for the glory of God. We shine our light and encourage others to shine theirs, with love, commitment, patience and forgiveness. For such a time as this ...
Westminster Presbyterian Church is a historic, urban church located in the East Trenton/Wilbur neighborhood of Trenton, New Jersey. The history of the current Westminster began in the 1980s, almost a century after it was founded, when congregants of the predominantly white church were faced with deciding on a course of action when it was becoming clear that no change meant the permanent closing of the church.
Over the course of the past 40-plus years, as the congregation went through a major transformation due to white flight, Westminster has worked to better reflect the image of their community, particularly by matching their community’s complexion. They have continued to strive to be better at seeking justice and always looking to a future with more caring and love. With partners, Westminster continues seeking the Shalom of the City through a ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18). They currently dedicate their church facility and resources in service to:
promoting racial reconciliation
becoming an intercultural, multigenerational worshiping congregation
improving the quality of education in public schools in Trenton
working to dismantle mass incarceration
ministering to people and their families
providing Trenton Microloan Collaborative loans to reentry/returning citizens
reaching out to young adults who feel disenfranchised by the traditional church yet called to live and serve in the city of Trenton
assisting immigrants to acquire English proficiency to support the education of their children and to secure gainful employment
becoming an open and affirming congregation for the LGBTQ-plus community
and becoming the home of Interfaith Refugee Immigrant Services and Empowerment.
Pastora Karen admits that the church is not “self-sufficient financially,” meaning they rely on grants and donations to not just meet their own budget but also to sustain their enormous array of community events, services, and missions for folks in Trenton; our Westminster missionaries serving the Misión Tú Puedes in Najayo, Dominican Republic, and Monrovia, Liberia.
Westminster operates almost like a nonprofit, hosting community programs out of its building, and taking in donations from other churches and organizations and dispensing them to the city of Trenton.
Trenton may appear to be a dying city, but Westminster considers its mission to pour out the love of Christ regardless of how Trenton may be able to invest or make good on such gifts, persisting in the radical practice of “seeking shalom in the city.” There’s both a work-a-day and a Kin-dom mindset to Westminster’s ministry: they may find themselves pressed in by the brutal realities of urban life, but God’s love compels them to imagine beauty and possibility.
Angie Belmont; Clerk of Session; Westminster Church; Trenton, New Jersey
Let us join in prayer for:
David Barnhart, Associate, Story Ministry, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Interim United Agency Jenny Barr, Reference and Outreach Archivist, Presbyterian Historical Society, Interim Unified Agency
Let us pray:
Westminster’s Passing of the Peace in five languages is our weekly prayer.
In a new book, Dr. Jamal Watson explores one of the nation’s most pressing civil rights questions: Who gets to go to college?
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Watson, author of “The Student Debt Crisis: America’s Moral Urgency,” was a recent guest of Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to their 53-minute conversation here.
Watson called student debt “a complicated issue. We all know education is, or tries to be, the great equalizer in our society. Yet there are many people grappling with this whole question of, should I even go to college? I’m concerned I won’t be able to get married or be able to afford to buy a house or a car because I’ll be so much in debt.”
For people of color and Black women in particular, “who are impacted more than any other group, these are even more challenging issues to discuss,” Watson said. Legislation and executive orders by the Biden administration to forgive student loans and make them easier to repay have “imploded under the new administration,” Watson noted, “but I think there are other ways. You have the private sector,” which has “basically stepped up to the plate to say, ‘we will try to provide opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and give them a leg up so they can access education.’”
Watson grew up in a church in Camden, New Jersey, which every year took an offering to help its high school seniors attend college. For Watson, that meant the gift of $9,000, secured in a plastic trash bag. A grateful Watson took the bag home and counted the offering after worship.
“These were working-class people. They were not wealthy, but they believed in education so much that they wanted to send me off,” he told Catoe and Doong. “These are what I call invisible forms of philanthropy, and they’re taking place in ways people don’t often understand.”
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Black women face even more financial barriers because they can be caregivers of children and their parents and they’re also “battling with racism and sexism,” Watson said. “The sexism piece is they’re often underpaid and undervalued. They’re often trying to shoulder work responsibilities in which they’re not making enough money to pay back their debt.”
“One of the things I argue in the book is we ought to think of student debt as a civil rights issue,” Watson said. In many other developed nations, “education is less expensive or even free.” In the United States, “we tell young people that when they graduate from high school, they ought to go to college. Shouldn’t we be cultivating a society where we make [higher education] much more accessible without people having to go into debt?”
Add to those barriers “the lack of accumulation of generational wealth because of racism and white supremacy and the way it’s been instituted into our financial system,” Doong said, adding that many students who can’t afford the cost of a four-year institution are instead earning an associate’s degree, then transferring to a state-supported university because that’s what they can afford. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Doong said. “Some folks give them a hard time, but they were doing what they can do with the means they have. They should be proud of that.”
The reality is that “the vast majority of students in this country are at community colleges, and yet community colleges are treated like second-class institutions,” Watson said. “They often don’t get the funding they need even though they are servicing traditional-aged students who are coming right out of high school and many older individuals or those who have been laid off and are coming back to get reskilled.”
The PC(USA) provides student loan support and guidance for public service loan forgiveness through a partnership between the Office of Financial Aid for Service and the Board of Pensions. To register for the service and find out if you are eligible for free student loan coaching, visit pcusa.org/loanassist.
Listen to previous editions of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” here.
