Today in the Mission Yearbook - Memorial Day is more than a holiday

Today, we remember

May 31, 2021

In times of trouble, may the Lord answer your cry.
    May the name of the God of Jacob keep you safe from all harm.
May he send you help from his sanctuary
    and strengthen you from Jerusalem.
May our God remember all your gifts
    and look favorably on your burnt offerings.

May the Lord grant your heart’s desires
    and make all your plans succeed.
May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory
    and raise a victory banner in the name of our God.
May the Lord answer all your prayers.
Psalm 20 (NLT)

Group of nine. (Provided)

We gathered by the shoreline of a lake in Colorado. We were tired and showing symptoms of compassion fatigue. We had endured 24 deaths in 12 months — 10 of those by suicide.

We had to take a knee, remember and mark the lives of our fallen siblings in order that we could stand once again.

We came together on the shoreline, each sharing how one soul or several of those we had lost that year had moved us, mattered to us and changed us.

We placed the initials of all 24, each on a separate rock. We formed the rocks in a circle at the foot of a crude cross made of branches and twine. We stood, shared and remembered for about 40 minutes.

We all prayed together.

And then we inhaled the beauty of the day and fished and kayaked and shared a meal.

We exhaled, remembering but leaving the weight on the shoreline.

We returned to our ministry the next day. Better.

I am a missionary. Many denominations support my specialized ministry role under the umbrella of Missions. After all, missionaries speak a foreign language, wear a certain cultural garb and practice ministry in a context typically outside the majority mainstream. All of this describes me very well. The mission field in which I labor is the United States Air and Space Forces. The people I serve are American Airmen and Guardians. Those of us who gathered are Chaplains and Religious Affairs Specialists. We come from a variety of faith traditions and backgrounds, but we are all on one team at a base in Colorado.

Daughters and sons of your congregations are our flock, and we love them. Their bravery and resilience to serve in the Profession of Arms come with reward and cost. Some will serve 20 to 30 years and retire. Some will serve for a season and then move on to other meaningful vocations. Some will serve and pay with their lives. The freedoms we hold dear demand sacrifice.

Today, Memorial Day, is more than a holiday. Today, as a nation, we remember.

Let us all take a knee and remember the fallen and the sacrifices they made for our freedom. May the Lord have mercy on us all.

Chaplain, Lt. Colonel Robert D. Ward, USAF, a missionary to the military on loan to the Department of Defense from the PC(USA)

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Tony Lewis, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Dick Liberty, Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Lord, today we stop and remember the sacrifice made by those who paid the ultimate price on behalf of our nation. We pray that their sacrifices are never forgotten, nor the pain of their families.

We acknowledge that freedom comes at a cost and pray that we will pursue peace. We pray our efforts will improve the plight of all and that our struggles will not be to privilege a few but rather seek to share your bounties with all souls everywhere.

Today, Jehovah Jireh, provide meaning in the memories of those who are no longer with us. Provide comfort and healing to their loved ones.

Let us turn to you, Lord, in our grief and in our remembrance of the fallen. Guide us toward unity and true justice as we honor those who gave their lives for the freedoms we now enjoy.

On this Memorial Day, we pray for peace and remember those who gave all. Lead us toward a world where no one must give their lives in pursuit of justice, freedom and acceptance. May we be receptive to your guidance and may we never forget the fallen. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Christian love is all about action

Save the sentimentality for Christmas cards

May 28, 2021

During the holidays, we find ourselves wrapping the babe born in Bethlehem in a thick blanket woven with the threads of sentimental love. We sing hymns about how love came down from heaven. We light the fourth candle around the Advent wreath — referred to as the “love” candle in most wreath-lighting liturgies — and bask in its warm glow. It’s all very comforting. Yet the love God gave to the world in the way of Jesus is not about feelings. It’s about action. It was seen in Mary’s “yes” to be the Christotokos, the “Christ-bearer.” It was illustrated by Joseph taking Mary as his wife, even though she was carrying a child that was not his. It rang through the night skies as angels sang of salvation to the shepherds.

For Presbyterians, love in action is an important theme. Martin Luther defined good works done by our hands as ones that were acts of love and service. In 1918, the Rev. Francis J. Grimké, an African American pastor of Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., preached Jesus’ command to “love our neighbors” as a call to further the work of racial justice, noting that “race prejudice, colorphobia, runs directly counter” to Jesus’ command.

Almost five decades later, the United Presbyterian Church adopted the Confession of 1967, which states: “… new life takes shape in a community in which [men] know that God loves and accepts them … therefore accept themselves and love others.”

Love did come down from heaven as a gift from God, but for Presbyterians, it is a gift to be used. Presbyterians Today talked with the Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong on what Presbyterians believe when it comes to love. — Donna Frischknecht Jackson

As a Presbyterian, how do you define love?
Christian love is an active response to the needs of others without compromising the integrity of one’s relationship with God.

Why is the love Jesus displayed so important?
Jesus showed us how love can break the barriers of stereotypes. Jesus was known for loving others without any preconditions. Encounters with Jesus always led to the transformation of one’s heart and mind. What Jesus taught holds us accountable when we neglect to lay aside our various privileges to assist others.

What does our polity tell us about love?
Our polity reminds us that “the Church is to be a community of love, where sin is forgiven, reconciliation is accomplished, and the dividing walls of hostility are torn down” (Book of Order, F-1.0301).

What are some Presbyterian examples of love?
Presbyterian Lucy Craft Laney was an educator who was encouraged to establish a school for Black children in Augusta, Georgia, during the early 1880s. There were no funds for the school until another Presbyterian, Francine E.H. Haines, responded to Laney’s needs. These kinds of acts took place several times throughout history, creating schools like Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. These institutions are examples of acts of love that resonate with me because of my love for education.

Who inspired you to love as Christ loved?
Todd Davis, my maternal grandfather, was a man of few words, and yet, his words were always powerful. He would offer sage advice such as, “If a task is once begun, never leave it until it’s done” and “Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”

For my work ethic, I try really hard to finish any task I begin. I try hard to make sure it is done well. For my ethic of Christian love, I try really hard to bypass my biases to love unconditionally. If I can see myself in another person, I cannot bring harm to them. Jesus’ command is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This opens the pathway for me to constantly be reforming, believing that whatever the task, great or small — especially in showing love — do it well or not at all.

Cecelia D. Armstrong; Associate Pastor of St. James Presbyterian Church; Charleston, South Carolina

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Heather Leoncini, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Brad Levy, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love and care, which you extend to all your children. Remind us that our neighbors are included in your compassion and that we have a responsibility to reach out to all of them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - An elliptical sermon

The Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins preaches from his garage gym during ‘ReVital’ worship

May 27, 2021

The Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins of Columbia Theological Seminary preaches from his garage gym Tuesday as part of Vital Congregations’ “ReVital” worship service. (Screen grab)

The Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins has no doubt preached in many settings over his long career in ministry and in training ministers to be.

Add the former garage he’s transformed into a gym to the list of his preaching venues.

Watkins, the Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, told worshipers participating in Vital Congregations’ “ReVital” worship that the pandemic has challenged both his mental and physical health — so much so that, due in part to his gym being closed, he put on 35 unwanted pounds during the time of the coronavirus pandemic, even though he’s walked four or five days each week during the pandemic.

“All the time I was waiting, waiting, waiting for the gym to reopen,” Watkins said amid the collection of garage-based exercise equipment that has relegated his car to the driveway. “I was like the disciples in today’s text (Matthew 8:18–22, the story of a would-be follower of Christ and Jesus’ comment to his disciple to “let the dead bury their own dead”). I wanted to go back from whence I’d come.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Watkins told worshipers. “‘Ralph, help us connect that [biblical text] with what you’re doing in your garage gym.’” And so he did. “I had to make a decision” after the pandemic stress-induced weight gain, he said. “I realized the gym wouldn’t reopen anytime soon, and when it did, I wouldn’t go because I didn’t feel safe. … The gym I knew in February would not be the gym of today. The gym as I knew it was dead. The way I was prior to the pandemic was long-since history.”

It was just a few months ago, Watkins said, “when I realized I couldn’t go back. I had to decide how I would maintain physical and mental health in a time of pandemic, which wasn’t going away anytime soon. No one is coming to save us,” he said. Federal and state leadership “are failing us, and local leadership is caught in the middle.”

Watkins imagined he would buy an exercise bike and that would be the end of it. But he also added an elliptical machine, fans and a television to his burgeoning gym. In just a few weeks, he’d shed half his weight gain.

However, “I didn’t build the gym to lose weight,” he said. Instead, the goals were to be healthy and whole and to enjoy “a lifetime of healthy living.”

Jesus tells the scribe who volunteers to follow the Lord wherever he goes, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

“Don’t worry about the building; follow me,” Watkins said of Jesus’ invitation. “Jesus says, ‘I don’t even have a building fund, but follow me.’ He is saying, ‘Go, don’t look back. Now is the time to act, to build, to do something new, to be daring, bold, creative and innovative. Don’t wait.’”

The choice is ours, but Watkins made it clear he believes now’s the time to take action. To help “drive” that point home, he played a car commercial from 10 years back in which hamsters tell prospective buyers, “You can get with this or you can get with that.”

“What you are doing now will support you during the post-pandemic,” he said. “We have to embrace the challenges — and there are so many challenges now! And yet in the midst of them, I refuse to throw in the towel. We have to be safe and listen to the science, the guidelines from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. The constraints seem random, but we might be able to flip the script and see the constraints as moments for opportunities.”

“What is God calling you to do in the midst of this pandemic?” Watkins asked. “I come to you to encourage you, to challenge you and to ask you during this time to dream, ignite your imagination and be willing to be innovative. Build something that will sustain you during the pandemic and will live long after the pandemic. You can get with this, or you can get with that.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Chris Lega, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Shanea Leonard, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

God of peace, thank you for being gentle, loving and compassionate. Gently call us to your wisdom. Help us to claim our true identity as your beloved children, that we might always live in your peace and love. Amen.

WCC NEWS: Latest issue of International Review of Mission focuses on “reconciliation as a missional task” 📕

The latest issue of the World Council of Churches’ journal International Review of Mission deals with one of the most urgent issues in the world today – reconciliation. Under the title, “Reconciliation as a Missional Task,” the issue explores the meaning of reconciliation, how it can be understood theologically, and what its missiological dimensions mean for the church’s missional task. Photo: WCC 27 May 2021 This is the second issue of the journal dealing with “mission and reconciliation” as a contribution to the WCC’s assembly in 2022, with its theme “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” Future issues of the journal will focus on “mission and unity.” Reconciliation, according to editor Risto Jukko in the editorial, “is a task, a ministry, a mission that is given to us,” with reference to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (5:14-21). “As Robert J. Schreiter has pointed out in many of his writings, reconciliation is ultimately spirituality, not a strategy to be implemented or followed, or a task to be performed,” notes Jukko. The latest issue presents various situations and contexts where reconciliation, in all its dimensions, is fundamental to the church’s missional task. These include Africa and South Africa, Guatemala, Indonesia, the Korean Peninsula, as well as the challenge of racism. Other articles deal with the “Great (whole) Commission”; discipleship as a missiological theme in recent ecumenical theology; the opening up of the Pentecostal movement to ecumenical collaboration; and the Maori concept of kotahitanga (indivisible oneness) and koinonia in shalom as the objective of the mission of God. Fundamentally, writes Jukko, “reconciliation is not something that we human beings could fabricate or produce by or for ourselves. The origin of reconciliation is God, and reconciliation is given to us by God. We humans can only experience and receive it as a healing, as a gift.” International Review of Mission is published twice a year by Wiley on behalf of the WCC. Read-only article from the latest issue:“Mission and reconciliation: Theology for a new remembrance,” by Rastko Jović Contents of the latest issue (May 2020): “Reconciliation as a Missional Task” The International Review of Mission in the Wiley Online Library Subscription information     See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 350 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Children can be part of giving

A well and pastoral enthusiasm during Children’s Time are key to forming future missionaries

May 26, 2021

But Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me, and don’t try to stop them! People who are like these children belong to God’s kingdom.’ (Matthew 19:14 CEV)

Pastor Nick Marlett helps fuel excitement about giving for the children at church, including reading books like “Water Princess” during Children’s Time. (Contributed photo)

When I was a child growing up in the United Methodist Church, I remember that my parents once got a little cardboard folder to put quarters in. Although I don’t remember whether you were supposed to put the quarters in every day or every week — or even what the project was for — it really made an impression on me that kids could be a part of giving.

A few years ago, when my husband and I were members of another church in a suburb of Pittsburgh, we saw the success of the children collecting money from the congregation and I thought we should try it with the Lenten Mission Project.

At first, when Pastor Nick (Marlatt) asked Sallie Alviani and me as the co-chairs of the Missionary Support Team at Ohio United Presbyterian Church to consider a way of helping others rather than the gifts we might get at Christmas, Sallie and I felt that because December was such a busy time, we would need more planning time. Then, after looking through what the Presbyterian Giving Catalog had to offer, we decided to launch our project during the Lenten season.

And, of course, we planned to involve the children!

Not only is Pastor Nick a young minister with three young daughters, one of the things that most impressed me about our church other than its friendliness is the number of children.

Our annual Lenten Mission Project of collecting money for water-related initiatives, which we started in 2017, has been God-directed all the way. At first, we had no clue how it would go, but in 2020 — even during a pandemic — we raised more money than in 2019.

The Spirit moves people, and they give.

When we started, we had simply hoped to get enough money to build one well, and instead ended up expanding our project in the last two years to also help another church in Beaver-Butler Presbytery with money to distribute water to a group whose wells were ruined by what is believed to be water from the drilling of gas wells.

That we are helping to finance wells built in South Sudan and Panama fits well with the motto for our church, “Loving God, Loving Neighbor, Teaching Our Neighbors How to Love God.” With those words — and by our actions — we teach our children that our neighbors are not just the people we live around, but they are all over the world.

To generate excitement every Sunday, we had built a small well and purchased plastic containers and buckets as a way of including the entire church. The children and their families would place their loose change in the water bottle containers and drop their money into the well during the Children’s Time throughout Lent. The children also used the plastic buckets to collect from the congregation the first Sunday in Lent and Palm Sunday. We posted a chart on the wall showing our progress each week, and, with the Lord’s help, have far exceeded our goal each year.

Pastor Nick has used the Children’s Time to talk to the kids about the need people have in the world for clean and easily accessible water. He once showed them a bottle of dirty water and asked them if they wanted a drink. On another occasion, he read them the book “The Water Princess” by Susan Verde. He does a great children’s sermon!

Each time we plan our mission service for Lent, the children will again be front and center. It’s organized chaos, but our congregation loves it. Whenever I look at those children, I think to myself, “We have little missionaries here!” We could all learn something from their enthusiasm.

Karen Keller; Ohio United Presbyterian Church; Aliquippa, Pennsylvania

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Sangik Lee, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Unzu Lee, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Gracious and loving God, grant that our hearts may be filled with joy for the gifts you have given. May our voices join the chorus of the saints of all ages who declare the wonders of your blessings. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Fifteen years after Katrina, many volunteers have made disaster response their lives

Many Presbyterian Disaster Assistance volunteers and staff started with 2005 Gulf hurricanes

May 25, 2021

A sign thanks volunteers who responded to hurricane Katrina. (Courtesy of Joan Otto)

Miss Mable had taken to her bed.

Her New Orleans home was badly damaged when Hurricane Katrina struck in the late summer of 2005. Then, unscrupulous contractors stole her funds to repair the house.

“She was so depressed,” said Joan Otto, who made numerous trips to Louisiana and Mississippi with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) following the twin blows of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “She stayed in her home, which was below standards. I don’t even know that she had a working bathroom. I know her kitchen sink didn’t work.

“She had meals delivered. She never got out of bed. Finally, PDA found out about this through her church or something, and we went there, and started doing the work that needed to be done.”

It’s what Otto, who then lived in Michigan, felt called to do watching the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina unfold on TV in the weeks following the storm.

“It hurt my heart to see such devastation and pain,” Otto said. “I had to do something.”

South Carolinian Rick Turner had recently retired when Katrina hit, “and I just felt a very strong call to go,” he said, recalling work to recover when Hurricane Hugo hit the Carolinas in 1989.

In Dayton, Ohio, 15- year-old Cameron Stevens got her youth pastor to help talk her parents into letting her go down to the Gulf Coast for a Thanksgiving break trip to help respond to Katrina.

“I was definitely called to respond to the disaster after seeing it on the news,” Stevens said.

The Rev. Jim Kirk, PDA’s associate for Disaster Response in the U.S., says there are a lot of people like Otto, Turner, Stevens, and even himself who felt called to respond to the 2005 storms and in the following 15 years pursued disaster response as a career or as extremely active volunteers.

Otto, like many, became part of PDA’s National Response Team (NRT) and was dubbed by her husband, a Presbyterian minister, “the mission monster.” She has racked up dozens of deployments totaling a literal year of her life. Turner was Kirk’s predecessor overseeing national disaster response for PDA and continues to work as an NRT volunteer. And Stevens, now 30, is PDA’s Associate for Constituent Relations and Outreach.

“It was one of those transformational moments,” said Kirk, who was an NRT member at the time and ended up taking a three-month leave of absence from his church to help lead Katrina response. “We saw such growth with NRT after Katrina and Rita response.

“One of the great things about people of faith is that in the face of overwhelming need, there is a deep calling to respond in very practical ways.”

Recalling Katrina, Sandra Price said, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” She couldn’t, really. “Jim Cantore was half a mile from my house,” Price, who had just recently moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, said referring to the Weather Channel anchor who tends to show up wherever the weather is about to get really bad.

As Katrina approached, the focus of her life was surgery after severely injuring her knee in a fall.

While she said many residents of her neighborhood stayed, considering the circumstances and that she was a bit new to facing hurricanes, she evacuated. And that was a good thing, because her home was destroyed in the storm.

“My dominant feeling was grace, grace, grace, because I couldn’t do anything for myself,” said Price, who documented her experience with Katrina in her book, “Katrina’s Grace: Wind, Water and Wisdom.” Price was blessed by family and friends who gave her places to stay, response groups that helped her rebuild and even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

It was grace she quickly returned, first connecting with PDA as a liaison to her home presbytery, Sheppards & Lapsley in Central Alabama.

“I was essentially running a volunteer host site out of my FEMA trailer,” Price said.

Volunteer hosting is one of the aspects of PDA work that expanded greatly in the aftermath of Katrina, as volunteer teams from across the country made trips to the Gulf Coast to help. National Response Team membership expanded too, as many people felt the call to join.

Rich Copley, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:   

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
D.J. Lee, Board of Pensions
Laura Lee, Presbyterian Women

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, make us faithful witnesses to the truth of the gospel. Enable us to be supportive communities that raise up the prophetic voices of those who speak forthrightly about just practice and compassionate action. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - The ‘theology of evangelism’ my mother taught me

The Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins encourages Rethinking Evangelism participants to engage Scripture and model the transformative evangelism Jesus lived out

May 24, 2021

In his presentation for the 2020 Rethinking Evangelism digital conference, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins said his mother, who will be 81 this Thanksgiving, is the theologian who has shaped him most around the dining room table. (Contributed photo)

In a recent online presentation, the Rev. Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins welcomed Rethinking Evangelism conference participants into the dining room of his home in southwest Atlanta.

“I’m bringing you into my dining room because much of my theology was learned at the dining room table,” Watkins said. “My mother was the first theologian I encountered. Much of what I know about God and understand about God, and all of my theological grounding has probably been more in my mother’s theology than in the theology I learned in all the Presbyterian seminaries I went to.”

Watkins is the Peachtree Chair of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. He is a graduate of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he was well-trained. “I’m so thankful for that training,” he said. “Yet my mother still stands as the theologian who shaped me most at the dining room table.”

Watkins said, “I remember one night, it was a Sunday evening after church and we were having dinner, and the cornbread was being passed around. It always smelled so good, and I took the liberty of taking two pieces of cornbread, and I passed the plate on around. And when it got around to my mother, she asked the question, ‘Ralph, why did you take two pieces of cornbread? You know the rules in this house: You get one spoon of the vegetables. You get one spoon of the starch. You get one piece of meat, and you get one piece of bread; then the plate goes completely around the table.’

“She always wanted to make sure everybody had a little bit of something before you had seconds. She said, ‘This is a norm, this is an expectation of behavior in this home and it’s rooted in how Jesus did things.’

“I remember that discussion on a Sunday as if it was just yesterday,” Watkins said. He can still hear his mother’s rebuke: ‘As a result of your behavior, you will have no bread this evening.’

“I never forgot that” he said, explaining that he believes Acts 6:1–7 is consistent with his mother’s conversation at the dining room table and what he believes is the undergirding foundation of the theology of evangelism.

“What norm, what expectation of behavior, is being violated in this text? You can’t raise a complaint unless you have something to complain about. You can’t raise a complaint about a behavior unless that behavior goes against the norms of behavior. What was expected to happen in the community of faith? And, secondly, where did this expectation come from?”

In the passage, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. As this was occurring, the church was growing by leaps and bounds.

“The complaint was based on what they had been taught by Jesus,” Watkins said. “Whenever Jesus saw hungry folk, he told the disciples to sit them down and we’re going to feed them. What Jesus had modeled for them was a rule of evangelism that was theologically rooted in a theology of inclusion, of a theology of justice, of a theology of meeting the needs of the most vulnerable, of a theology that meant that the Hellenists were going to be treated just as well as the Hebrews. And in this text, it goes as far as to suggest that this theological principle in practice was so rooted in the community that they created an office, an ordained office of folk to organize this community to meet the needs of those in the community. Isn’t that interesting? They ordained an office of community organizers to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, to meet the needs of the marginalized, to meet the needs of the hungry, to meet the needs of the left out.”

“They continued teaching that which they were taught by Jesus. Because they understood the very thing, actual grounding for what they were to do, and what they were doing was rooted in the teachings of Jesus.”

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Jendayi Lawrence, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Jeffrey Lawrence, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

O God, you sojourn with us to new places. Hold us in your hand through the uncertainty of life. Guide us to be your presence to those in need and agents of your enduring peace. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Pentecost Offering Sunday

May 23, 2021

Natan credti DREAAM

Who have been your most influential teachers? All types of teachers — at school, at church, at work and in families — help shape who we become. We are grateful for all our teachers.

In Psalm 71, the author uses the image of a teacher for God by stating, “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.” Jesus, himself, was called a rabbi — a “teacher” — so we get a clear sense in the Bible that God thinks teachers are important.

When we think about teachers, it’s pretty common for most of us to think about young people, too. But do we take the time to recognize the ways young people are our teachers? Over this past year, we have seen how important it is to watch and learn from young people.

Throughout our church, and around the world, children, youth and young adults have been part of teaching technology to older adults. They have been important in teaching about injustice and leading movements for change in their own communities.

We know how important it is to give young people a good foundation in faith, in education and in life. The Pentecost Offering helps us support the development of our young people through ministries of education, spiritual formation events like the 4,000-plus gathering called the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, and through service as Young Adult Volunteers. It also encourages us to see how children, youth and young adults teach us new things and help us shape our faith, too.

The Psalmist says, “O God, from my youth, you have taught me …” and that is true. But they could have also said, “O God, from the youth, you have taught me,” and stated something almost as true.

As every building needs a strong foundation, each of us needs a foundation in faith that is strong enough to last a lifetime. The gifts we share will help young people learn important lessons about life and faith, and because they teach us, we will get to learn some lessons, too.

Bryce Wiebe, Director of Special Offerings and the Presbyterian Giving Catalog

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Rebecca Kueber, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Jeannette Larson, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

God, teach us through every young person we meet. May we see your house, not only as a place where young people are present, but where they are actively building the world, you would have us create. Amen.