Today in the Mission Yearbook - Playground behavior

Believe it or not, God’s people often resort to name-calling and wall-building

December 31, 2021

Bryan Delgado via Unsplash

If you think churches are divided today, reread Ephesians 2:11–22.

That, said the Rev. Samuel Son during the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School worship, is the place Paul reminded believers they once reverted to childish name-calling: “The Uncircumcision” and “The Circumcision.”

“’The Uncircumcision’ certainly didn’t define themselves that way. ‘The Circumcision’ created the category, and that name-calling became their essential definition,” said Son, Manager for Diversity and Reconciliation in the Presbyterian Mission Agency. “It’s like what happens on the playground.”

The trouble with name-calling is that it creates artificial barriers that are barriers, nonetheless. In the United States, white people historically used the court system to determine that a person with at least one Black ancestor was considered Black. “It is self-justification,” Son said. “Once you start using racial slurs, you are given emotional liberty to judge others and to impute moral judgment on them.”

In this pericope, Paul employs temple imagery: “In [Jesus] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

But consider Herod’s Temple, Son said, displaying an illustration of how scholars believe the temple was laid out. Those who are uncircumcised can only go so far, Son pointed out. There are areas for gentiles and women, and for the priests, of course.

“Paul uses temple imagery because back then, the name-calling, strengthened through laws, was rounded out by theology,” Son said. The implicit message to those being oppressed was, “This is God’s design.”

In this country, Jim Crow laws “were all about that,” Son said, with such features as separate drinking fountains relegated for whites and Blacks. “We use laws and structures,” Son said, “to make our name-calling into reality.”

Here’s the good news, according to Paul: Jesus came to dismantle those walls.

“How did he do that?” Son wondered. “The cross was supposed to be the judgment of God. ‘He is a false messiah, cursed by God, thrown out of the temple and Jerusalem and nailed to the cross.’ That should be the end of it.”

But instead, “Jesus rose from the dead. He is the blessed one, the chosen one, the Messiah. His death and resurrection exposed the fallacies of name-calling.”

Herod’s Temple “is not God’s design,” Son said. “The new temple is for all of us. We are the temple of God.”

One day a church member told Son about her plan to begin the transition to becoming a man. She asked her pastor, “Can you accept me?”

“I said yes without thinking about it, but I was wrestling with it, to be very honest,” Son said. The woman said she’d have her parents call Son.

Her mother did indeed call. She was crying because “she felt like her daughter was doing something God might not be pleased with,” Son said. “Please have a fuller conversation with her,” the mother implored Son. “Maybe there’s something going on we can’t see.”

Son did, and the woman told him that when she was young, “I always knew I was a boy,” Son said. “Are there other things?” Son asked her, which “really hurt. Later I apologized.”

As she transitioned, she informed the church she “was no longer Natalie. I am Nate. Will you call me Nate?” The session met and accepted the name, but “still wasn’t sure about pronouns,” Son said. One ruling elder suggested calling Nate by his Korean name, which is gender neutral. “It seemed like a good down-the-middle compromise,” Son said.

Son later spoke to Nate’s mother and told her about the session’s idea.

“Please don’t do that. Please just call him Nate,” the mother replied. “He was still her child, and he needed a church who would call him by the name he wants to be called.”

“All these divisions, all this name-calling — God says, ‘No. No!’ We are all the people of God. What your name is is your name.”

“God says you are my temple, where the glory of God dwells. Amen.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Theresa Goodlin, Team Leader, Raiser’s Edge Gift & Data Entry, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Catherine Gordon, Representative for International Issues, Office of Public Witness, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Holy God, keep the eyes of your faithful always looking for those in need, and make our hands willing to serve, so that others may glimpse your kingdom until it comes in fullness. Amen.

When Did We See You - Presbyterian Youth Triennium 2022

Today in the Mission Yearbook - What the church is called out to do

Synod School worship service explores the ‘why’ of the church’s mission

December 30, 2021

The Rev. Samuel Son leads worship during the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School. (Screenshot)

“Why?”

The favorite and persistent question of children everywhere may exasperate parents, grandparents and caregivers, but it’s an important question, the Rev. Samuel Son told the 450 participants during worship at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School.

As a parent, “I have attempted to answer every ‘why’ question,” the manager for Diversity and Reconciliation in the Presbyterian Mission Agency said during a sermon on the theme of “Called out to be the church.” “I’ve come to realize it’s not to understand the purpose of things, but because [Son’s children] wanted to tire me out.”

“But ‘why’ is an important question,” Son said. “If we know the purpose of an action, we are motivated and committed to that action.”

Before his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul — then Saul — “knew his life’s purpose and the privilege he had,” Son said. To Saul, his life’s purpose was to nip in the bud this fledgling movement called The Way, according to Son.

After his conversion, Paul understands the real purpose of his life. Writing to the church at Ephesus while in prison, as tradition has it, “Paul says, ‘Don’t worry about me,’” Son said. “The one who needed encouraging is encouraging the church in Ephesus. The purpose comes from God the Creator. Paul connects the purpose of the church to the purpose of Creation.”

The church “exists for the world, and God intended that,” Son said. “It’s about a shalom that puts everything in place.” It’s like a symphony with a brilliant violinist and trumpeter, Son said. “If they play what they want, no matter how good they are, it becomes noise. They look at one person [the conductor] as she is leading, and it becomes beautiful music.”

God intended the church “to be the very embodiment of that shalom,” showing “rich variety” of both Jewish and Gentile believers, Son said, and displaying “what the shalom of the world can be and will be because the church is already living it.”

The question, he said, is, “Have we been living it?”

Scholarship by Robert P. Jones and others indicate that “American Christianity has developed a theology at its core to protect white supremacy,” Son said. “I know that might be hard to hear,” but recall that before his conversion, “Paul was so sure he was doing God’s work.”

Paul’s words and actions often had riotous or near-riotous effect, Son said, and he read one such example, in Acts 19:25-34. That led to a brief discussion of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which included “a lot of Christian images,” Son noted, including the cross and prayer circles. It was reminiscent of calamitous actions in the temples at Ephesus and in Jerusalem, he said, including prayers to “the God they were sure was on their side.”

Why church, then? “If we are here just to justify and continue the brokenness of the world, we might as well close our doors,” Son said. Instead, we must see like Paul: even to die is not suffering, but glory.

He asked worshipers to turn to their seatmates and tell them, “We are the church. We are the shalom of God.”

“Go forth and be obedient to the lordship of Christ,” Son said during his benediction. “Show the world what the shalom of God looks like. Amen.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Thomas Goetz, Mission co-worker serving in Japan, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Edwin Gonzalez-Castillo, Associate, Disaster response for Latin America & Caribbean, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Great god, you have given us abundance in our lies, our work and our world. Help us to multiply your gifts so that your great goodness shines through us into your world, and so that all might live in your abundance now and in the world to come. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - An unexpected blessing

Synod School message: We’re called out to be a blessing

December 29, 2021

Photo by Salomè Jangulashvili via Unsplash

Blessings can come from unanticipated sources in places we might not expect. For the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield and her family, the place was outside a Goodwill dressing room, and the sources were two older women unknown to the Duffield family.

Duffield, the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, was the convocation speaker at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School, held online and in person at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. About 450 people are participating.

On the day of this blessing, Duffield’s husband took their then-middle school daughter shopping for a dress to wear to a school dance. After a number of unsuccessful forays inside retail stores, the two ended up at Goodwill, where the girl found dresses to try on, including one she ended up taking home and wearing to the dance.

“Ooh, you look so nice!” the two strangers told her outside the dressing room, “affirming my child who was struggling with her appearance,” Duffield told the Synod School crowd. Their daughter “was so pleased,” and her father thanked the women. Then the women offered the two shoppers these blessings, one after another: “God is good!” “And right on time!”

“We sometimes need reminders that God is right on time,” Duffield said. “Sometimes it’s kindness that can be lifesaving at that moment.”

Duffield labeled her talk “Called out to be a blessing.”

The dictionary tells us a blessing is a spoken word with an inherent force that participates in the reality of what is wished for. It’s a performative word, Duffield said, like “Let there be light,” “Your sins are forgiven” and “Let my people go.”

The blessing found in Numbers 6:24–26 — “The Lord bless you and keep you …” — is a blessing many Presbyterians hear at the close of worship. The Bible of course contains many other blessings, including Jacob’s famous all-night wrestling bout found in Genesis 32. Duffield asked her hearers what can be learned from such stories. “A blessing can leave you a little scarred sometimes,” said one. “Blessings transform us,” Duffield said, changing “our understanding of ourselves and of God.”

“Sometimes,” Duffield said, “we just have to hold on tight and ask for a blessing in the midst of a painful set of experiences. Wrestled blessings sometimes hurt. They can transform us in ways that bless other people.”

The priestly blessing in Numbers is a wilderness blessing, delivered to a people about to enter the wilderness. “It refers to God’s gifts, guarding and protecting people from evil,” Duffield said. “It’s the last piece of equipment offered to every Israelite before the journey begins. It’s relational to the core.”

God’s relationship with the people, the people’s relationships with each other and with the priests “remind people who they are and whose they are,” she said. “The same is true for us.”

“Have we been in the wilderness of late?” Duffield asked. “Have you felt God’s presence and experienced God’s provisions? I think so.”

The most memorable Old Testament blessing is probably God’s blessing given to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3. After reading it, Duffield asked participants what phrases came to their attention as she read.

“Go,” said one.

“You will be a blessing,” said another.

“All the families,” said a third.

“I’ve got your back,” said someone else, and while those very words aren’t necessarily found in Scripture, they’re a testimony that “God has blessed us and equipped us,” Duffield said. “I need that reminder a lot.”

She quoted the late Rev. Dr. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., an Old Testament scholar: “The commandments serve to define the good neighborhood … a place to call home and feel at home … a place where the primary practice is the love of God as a character-forming enterprising. It is a place of blessing, articulated in the provision of life and the provision of good.”

“Our neighborhoods should reflect who God is,” Duffield said, “goodness and mercy overflowing in the streets all around us.”

“That could be right outside the dressing room of Goodwill, friends. Wherever we are, our cup overflows.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Tammy Gish, Treasurer, Controllers, Presbyterian Foundation
John Glenn, Network Operations Manager, Information Technology, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Lord of abundance, help us to open our hearts and our pocketbooks so that we may pour out and receive blessings for you to multiply through your steadfast love. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘An amazing love story’

Synod School preacher: God chose us through Christ before laying the foundation of the world

December 28, 2021

The Rev. Samuel Son, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Director of Diversity and Reconciliation, preaches Monday during Synod School worship. (Screenshot)

Growing up in the City of New York, the Rev. Samuel Son said he remembers pretending that he didn’t care how early in the process he was selected to play in a pickup baseball game. “We would stand there, trying to look like we didn’t care,” Son recalled during evening worship at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School. “But at the same time, we tried to stand out. We definitely didn’t want to be the last kid [selected].”

Contrast that, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s manager for Diversity and Reconciliation told the 450 people or so gathered in person or online for Synod School, with how God selects the elect according to Ephesians 1:3–10: God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before [God] in love.”

At his crucifixion, “the Chosen One experiences rejection so that we can experience being the elected of the Chosen One,” Son said. “It’s an amazing love story. Before the foundation of the world, before any expansion of space and time, God had us in God’s mind. It seems too good to be true.”

Son likened that view to how he and his wife prepared for the arrival of their first child. “Before our first son was born, my wife and I were thinking about him and imagining our life together. We were planning. What should we name him? We even prepared a room. We wrote, ‘Welcome home,’ even though he didn’t know how to read.”

Election “is not about who goes to heaven and who doesn’t,” Son said. “It’s about the God who saves us and knows us even before our first breath, even before the first atoms” came into being.

Notice the language in that part of Ephesians, Son said. Paul’s word choices include “joy,” “pleasure,” “lavish” and “freely.”

“This is what being chosen by God is,” Son said. “God didn’t create us because God needed people to work the garden. God chose us because God desired us.”

Son urged his hearers to stop referring to Presbyterians as “God’s frozen chosen.”

“We’ve got to get rid of that term. There’s no such thing as being frozen when you’re chosen,” Son said. “Emotion is a full-body experience. … To be chosen, loved and desired by God — to be in Christ selected before the foundation of the world — you can’t help but jump for joy and do mission work out of the lavishness of the love of God, which is flowing.”

But many of our life experiences “say that we are not chosen. We have experienced so many hurts,” Son said. “But Paul is so sure that he’s saying to us, ‘You were chosen before the foundation of the world.’ What happens in the world doesn’t change that fact.”

Inviting worshipers to close their eyes for a moment, Son asked those gathered “to come before Jesus and just listen. He has been waiting to say this over and over, so hear what he’s saying to you: ‘Before you were born, child, I chose you. You are mine.’”

“Receive that,” Son said. “’My child, I have chosen you before the foundation of the world. You are mine.’”

Worshipers concluded the service by singing “Jesus Loves Me.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Sharon Dunne Gillies, Managing Editor, Presbyterian Women
Magdy Girgis, Middle Eastern Intercultural Ministries (field staff), Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

For bread that nourishes our bodies, we give you thanks, O God. For your Bread of Life to feed our souls, we pray. Strengthen us all for the tasks you have given us. Remind us that even what we believe to be a meager offering can satisfy the deepest hunger in others — and in our lives, too. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘It is very good’

Selfies and snaps of seatmates round out Synod School’s opening convocation

December 27, 2021

the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield

After telling the 450 or so people attending the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School that they’re co-creators with God and, as John Calvin once said, “little manifestations of God’s glory,” the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield proved her point by asking participants to use their cellphones to take first a selfie and then a photo of the people seated around them.

“Take a long, loving look” at the selfie and say, “it is very good,” Duffield asked those in attendance, both in person at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, and those joining online. Show the picture of your seatmates and say to them, “They are very good,” she said.

“It’s good to call this body and any body God created fundamentally good,” Duffield said, with a nod to the author and blogger Dr. Kate Bowler.

Duffield, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the former editor of Presbyterian Outlook, was the convocation speaker at Synod School. The theme this year was “Called Out!”

Duffield opened her talk with a “Palms Down/Palms Up” prayer, asking those praying to in turn give to God what we need to give to God and then, flipping palms upward, to ask from God whatever it is we need from God this day. “This is as much liturgical movement as Presbyterians can handle,” Duffield said with a smile. “Be not anxious.”

Duffield used Genesis 1:26–31 as the text for the first of her five talks. She wondered out loud: What did Synod School participants notice about how God is presented in the text? The answers they shouted out included God’s power, God’s generosity, that God delegates, (“From the beginning, God uses committees!”) God’s love (“This is a generous act in all manner of ways. God doesn’t need us” but “God wants to be relationship with us”) and God’s incredible diversity.

What does this Creation story say about human beings? We’re creatures, Synod School participants told her. We have limits. We’ve been given a job — a vocation and a purpose, “a pretty awesome one when you look at the text,” Duffield said. We are co-creators who can “participate in the new thing God is doing,” Duffield said, and we’ve been given responsibility “to reflect who God is by who we are in the world.”

What else?

We’re “priests of Creation” who have been “trusted to enact reconciliation in the world,” Duffield said.

As creators with God, will we like Mary, as the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Rigby of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary has written, “God-bearers” in the world, engaging, as Mary did, with the “pushing, active creative life of the Spirit that birthed, nurtured and stood by the One who is the salvation of the world.”

That Creator God is “the very same God,” Rigby has written, “who both enters into existence with us and who invites us to dance together in God’s own life.”

“We’re dance partners with God!” Duffield said. “There’s joy in that, friends, and we are called to be people of joy. Imagine if we displayed that kind of joy in the world, how people would be drawn to us.”

We’re also called to be “artisans and craftspeople of the evangelical infrastructure of the world,” Duffield noted. “We are to continue forming and finishing the Earth. We are junior partners with God, to be sure, but nonetheless true partners, invited to the business” of crucial responsibilities including caring for nature, showing compassion for and ministering to those who suffer. “We are partners,” Duffield said, “in this liberating work in the world.”

“The humanity we see fulfilled in Jesus,” Duffield said, quoting the theologian Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie Jr., “is the same humanity God originally intended and still intends for human beings. It is a humanity that uses whatever intellectual, spiritual, moral or physical powers we possess in and for the sake of fellowship with God and our fellow human beings.”

Duffield said she likes to ask session members debating whether to take a significant action, “Is this the best we can do for Christ’s church so that the church resembles its head?”

“That’s what it means,” Duffield said, “to be called out.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Ashley Gibson, Human Resource Assistant II, Human Resources, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

O God of steadfastness and encouragement, give us hope not in ourselves but in you. Remind us that you continue to call us to your work and that you work through us to share your love and grace, taking what we have and multiplying it that all may receive and have their deepest hunger satisfied. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Pandemic forces more Philippine families into poverty

Presbyterian Mission Agency partner feeds children’s bodies and spirits

December 26, 2021

The Children’s Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines purchased a tricycle to deliver supplies to children door to door. (Photo courtesy of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center)

As in many other places in the world, the global pandemic has pushed millions of Filipinos and their children further into poverty. But a global partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), has responded in creative ways not only to feed the children’s bodies but to deal with their psychosocial needs as well.

As part of the partnership with the UCCP, PC(USA) mission co-worker Juan Lopez has been working with an organization that defends children’s rights. Lopez facilitates trainings for staff and volunteers of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC). During the pandemic, the CRC continued its outreach to children with the Bulilit Pantry.

Lopez talked with Kim Vinzar Samania, who serves as deputy director and social worker for CRC. He said the UCCP is an important partner in protecting children. In a recent chat with Lopez, he said, “The UCCP churches have been longtime CRC partners in defending children’s rights. Different activities include hosting discussions or seminars about children’s rights, how to help communities, and how the Church can respond to the psychosocial needs of the children in the community.”

Samania said the first community food pantry was in Maginhawa, which started a movement. CRC’s “Children of the Storm” team already had the idea of making the community pantry inclusive of children but took it further. “What if we could put a Bulilit (“undersized”) pantry so the community could also help the children?”

The team decided to create a small pantry to give books, toys and coloring books to children.

The Children of the Storm task force is a consortium of five different child-focused organizations: Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC)’s Salinlahi (“generation”), Alliance for Children’s Concerns, Association for the Rights of the Children Southeast Asia, Batibot Early Learning Center, and Parents Alternative on Early Childhood Care and Development Inc. The consortium was formed in response to the devastation caused by Typhoon Ondoy. It has been responding since then to typhoons, floods and other calamities in the Philippines, providing relief efforts for children.

Getting supplies to the children presents challenges. Children are not allowed to line up at the pantry because of health protocols, so parents come on behalf of their children. The organization also purchased a large tricycle for door-to-door deliveries.

The Anti-Terrorism Act, enacted on July 3, 2020, by President Rodrigo Duterte, has complicated the ability of many organizations to provide aid to the people of the Philippines because it allows the government to broadly define terrorism to include anyone who speaks against the government.

“The pantry initiative inspired people from all across the country, despite the pushback from the authorities,” said Lopez. “Most of the neighborhoods had a temporary pantry to answer to the need of the most vulnerable. Most of them had quotes from the Bible to show that it was about compassion and care, and no law could stop that.”

Even before the food pantry began operation, CRC and its partners were vocal about their opposition to the law’s vague definition of terrorism.

“The CRC has been a victim of public vilification, red-tagging perpetrated by the state,” said Samania. “During the pandemic, the CRC had to delay their distribution of goods because of the threats and difficulty to travel due to the pandemic restrictions. At the beginning of the pantry movement, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict already released statements tagging the organizers of the community pantry in Maginhawa as terrorists and communist pawns. They said that those pantries were led by the Communist Party, because they were too well organized to be coming only from regular citizens.”

He said many community organizers have stopped providing help because of the threats.

“This pandemic impacts the body, mind, cognitive skills, education, development and mental health of the children,” he said. “The economic situation caused some families to engage in dangerous activities that threaten the welfare and rights of the children.”

Samania says there has been an increase in gender-based and domestic violence, as well as an exponential increase in sexual exploitation of the children. The structure was not in place for online learning, and many did not have access to computers.

Kathy Melvin, Director of Mission Communications, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

Kristen Gaydos, Communications Director, Presbyterian Historical Society
Michael Gehrling, Associate, Northeast Region & Assessments, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

God, you connect us to you and to each other in so many ways. Help us to inspire as we are inspired, to challenge as we are challenged to nurture as we have been nurtured, and to live in order to make Christ known to all the world. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Merry Christmas!

It’s a wonderful time to be the church

December 25, 2021

My Christmas ritual is viewing “Black Nativity: A Gospel Christmas Musical Experience.” Adapted from Langston Hughes’ Christmas classic “Black Nativity,” the production is a powerful rendition of the Christmas story. It is filled with thrilling voices, exciting dance, spectacular costumes and glorious gospel music. Hughes originally wrote “Black Nativity” in 1961, at the height of the civil rights movement; it is more moving with every production.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of my ritual of attending this play. Three decades. In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions kept me from attending in person. Hearing there would be no live performances felt like Christmas was not coming. Yet, I realized my disappointment paled in comparison to the many lost loved ones, jobs, homes and the ability to attend regular Sunday worship services.

Alas, the quarantine produced an unexpected gift. Atlanta-based Dominion Entertainment Group recorded an amazing production of the play, complete with all of my favorite Atlanta artists, at the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. The recording was made available for everyone to “attend” from the safety of their own homes.

Christmas came. I secured a copy of the production (and its soundtrack!) to enjoy from home. Not only did I enjoy the recording last year, but it was mine to enjoy for years to come.

While seeing it in person is its own joy, knowing that I have options that keep me and others safe is something that I truly celebrate. I also celebrate knowing that many of us now have these same options for Sunday worship. I’ve learned to enjoy crisp bacon and warm muffins while viewing a powerful message! Sipping a freshly brewed cup of coffee while viewing a spirit-inspired worship in my recliner is a beautiful alternative on cold rainy mornings.

I’ve also enjoyed sharing our church’s broadcast with friends and family who could not (or would not) have attended before. What a gift! Are you encouraging others to tune in to your church’s worship? Have you had a chance to visit other churches that you never had an opportunity to visit before? What about sharing your church with those who would never come inside?

Now the good news is available for everyone to enjoy in the privacy of their own homes with their family and friends. This is a wonderful time of year! What a wonderful time to be the church! Christ still comes to us. Christ comes to all! Behold, there are good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people (Luke 2:10).

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Rev. Carlton David Johnson, Coordinator, Vital Congregations, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Kevin Garvey, Funds Development Specialist, Presbyterian Foundation
Margaret Gay, Associate, International Property, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray
Thank you for keeping us
Through multiple pandemics
Through dangers, seen and unseen
Thank you for opening our eyes
To the many ways
That you are making yourself known
And available to all people.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - When the Word moves into the world

This Christmas Eve, may we be ready to bear Christ again and anew

December 24, 2021

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

We saw the glory with our own eyes … (John 1:14, MSG)

In the fall of 2010, two years of planning and work were coming to fruition. A group of leaders stood on the cusp of the opening of a new worshiping community. Many in the neighborhood were anticipating the arrival of a new gathering place and spiritual home. I had been shepherding the planning team and overseeing the ways we had been laying the groundwork for this launch. Because there was construction involved, the launch date was much like a birth. We knew roughly when it would happen, but not exactly. And as the days drew close, I felt very much like I did when the time for my children’s births approached. I was beyond excited and so very aware that life would never be the same once they arrived.

Growing up, my mother read the text of John 1 to our family when we returned home from Christmas Eve services at Morningside Presbyterian Church. When I was older, I discovered Eugene Peterson’s version captured in The Message. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. God moved in with us. For months, Mary had welcomed God into her own body. The Word moved into her womb. And on Christmas Eve, she knew this Grace and Glory would soon push its way out into the world, first in Bethlehem, then Egypt and Nazareth, to the towns of Galilee and Jerusalem. From there the world was never the same.

For weeks we have been preparing anew for the birth of Christ into our lives. Now our celebrations mark the movement of the Word into the world again. This time, God has made us the Body of Christ. May Christ be born again and anew in us that we might bear Christ again and anew into our own neighborhoods — so the world will never be the same.

Nikki Collins, Coordinator, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Ruth Gardner, Director, Human Resources, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Shelley Gardner, Chaplain, Board of National Mission, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

Still our hearts, O God, that we might be ready to behold your Glory.
Quicken our ears to your voice that we may not miss your burning cry.
And fill us, God of Wonders, with your Love that we might bear your grace into this world.
Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘Take Me to the Alley’

A song about serving people on the margins forms the foundation for a moving devotional during the mission agency board meeting

December 23, 2021

Ruling Elder James Parks of Baltimore is a member of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board. (Screenshot)

Ruling Elder James Parks of Baltimore, a member of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board who cut his teeth on community organizing, opened his devotional time with the board recently by playing the clip of Gregory Porter’s “Take Me to the Alley.” Porter’s poignant song includes these lyrics:

“Well, they guild their houses
In preparation for the King
And they line the sidewalks
With every sort of shiny thing
They will be surprised
When they hear him say

Take me to the alley
Take me to the afflicted ones
Take me to the lonely ones that somehow
Lost their way

Let them hear me say
I am your friend
Come to my table
Rest here in my garden
You will have a pardon …”

Alleys, Parks pointed out, are places “where rats, muggers, the homeless and dangers hang out. Or it’s a throwaway place. As I read my Bible, Jesus spent a lot of time with people pushed into the dark alleys of life.”

According to Parks, Porter’s song is based on an experience he had as an 8-year-old growing up in Bakersfield, California.

On one 110-degree day, Porter and his mother were riding with Porter’s brother, who’d recently purchased a Cadillac Eldorado. Porter’s mother spotted a smallish man passed out and lying on the pavement. The man, Parks noted, had soiled himself and was on pavement very hot to the touch.

The mother picked the man up, cleaned him off, placed him in the front seat of the Cadillac and ordered Porter’s brother to drive him to their house, where she sobered the man up and gave him some of Gregory’s clothes to wear. The man stayed with the family for a couple of weeks.

“Gregory was angry,” Parks said. “It took him a long time to realize she was teaching him a lesson,” and, as it turned out, giving her son a song to write decades later.

Clearly, Porter’s mother acted on loving instinct. The kind of due diligence that Presbyterians and others normally exercise while decision-making “is a useful tool, as long it doesn’t lead to paralysis by analysis,” Parks said.

“It is past time as a church to live our faith,” Parks told his fellow board members. If Gregory’s mother had done her due diligence assessing the situation that hot day in Bakersfield, she might have come up with a different way to help, Parks said.

“Our job,” Parks told the board and the others gathered for the online meeting, “is to get our hands dirty, to go into the back alleys, and God will do the rest.”

With the world reeling “in the middle of a perfect storm” of pandemic and racial reckoning, “we cannot, we must not be silent. We must reach out to people we don’t know, don’t like and feel repelled by.”

Jesus, Parks said, “calls us to empty our pews, go out into the alleys, and love whoever we find there.”

Even followers of Christ will be surprised, Parks said, when they hear him say, “take me to the alley.”

Watch Parks’ devotional here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Services

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Lemuel Garcia-Arroyo, Mission Engagement Advisor, Mission Engagement & Support, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Debbie Gardiner, Executive Assistant, Executive Director’s Office, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

You are a God who cares about the hungry, the sick, the neglected, the prodigal. Help us to see through your eyes so that when we share of our abundance, the lives you are about are changed for the good. Thank you for your love that crosses all boundaries. Amen.