Witness, Share and Evangelize: October 2023

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Matthew 25 workshop speakers promote ‘people power’ as a way to fight poverty

Virtual discussion features those ‘on the ground doing this work’

October 31, 2023

Photo by Hannah Busing via Unsplash

A recent Matthew 25 webinar provided inspiration and information about using effective strategies for eradicating systemic poverty, including banding together to build power.

The online gathering featured three main speakers: the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins of the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness (OPW), the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Poor People’s Campaign, and Denzel Mitchell of Richmonders Involved to Strengthen Our Communities (RISC).

Prior to the event, the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, who co-hosted the workshop with Jennifer Evans of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, explained the reasoning behind the workshop, “Matthew 25 — Community Organizing, Policy Advocacy and Movement Building.”

“We chose this topic because it is important for us to begin to lift up working models and create opportunities for the church to be conversant with those who are actually on the ground doing this work effectively,” said Johnson, coordinator of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People. “Unfortunately, conversations about addressing systemic poverty stay theoretical; it is important for those who seek to engage this work to both hear and learn from those who are doing this work so that we can actualize it and see it through.”

The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis

Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister who co-chairs the Poor People’s Campaign and leads the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice housed at Union Theological Seminary, noted that the workshop was taking place on the anniversary of the March on Washington in which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Sixty years later, Theoharis said, the United States still is a place where poor people are being told, “No,” such as, “No, we can’t raise wages.”

But she believes the tide can change if people band together.

“What Dr. King talks about is from the bottom up, led by the people, bringing people together across all the lines that divide into a powerful force to be reckoned with,” she said. “If we come together, if we build alliances together, if we organize in our community together, if we advocate for policies together, then we can build the kind of compelling power to turn those noes into yeses, and we can actually build the kind of society that is needed and that God requires of us, and so I look forward to doing that with you all and us keeping on moving forward together and not one step back, as we say in the Poor People’s Campaign.”

Hawkins highlighted why it’s crucial for churches to be involved in politics and social justice.

“We are called to be advocates, and the work that we do in New York and in D.C. is on behalf of the church so that the church’s voice can speak out for justice,” said Hawkins, who leads the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) advocacy offices: OPW and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations.

Denzel Mitchell

“And we know that advocacy plays a major role in addressing and eliminating systemic poverty, especially for communities of color and other underserved families that have been particularly hit hard by economic inequality, even in the best of times,” Hawkins said. “And we know that U.S. poverty would be twice as high, if it had not been for the advocacy of communities of faith, pushing the government to do more.”

Hawkins cited the recent Inflation Reduction Act, which has a focus on climate goals and that he said will help create well-paying jobs.

However, millions of people continue to struggle in the United States and “much more needs to be done,” he said.

Mitchell, an associate organizer for RISC, a grant partner of PHP, talked about harnessing people power and churches working collectively to bring about change. His organization started when a group of congregations came together to do justice work. “What we do is we organize people power in order to bring about justice in our community,” he said. “We’re helping them to organize long-term,” rather than focusing their efforts around one book or one event.

The Presbyterian Hunger Program, the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People, the Office of Public Witness and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations are part of the Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus: Matthew 25 webinar

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Maria Perry, Manager, Synod of Boriquen (PR), Plan Operations, Board of Pensions
Lisa Pesavento, HR Generalist, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

We know that the secret of bearing fruit is abiding in Christ and he in us. Through communion, servanthood and fellowship, we benefit from Christ’s strength so that we may be able to bear fruit and be a blessing to others. Help us to serve with humility and grace. Amen.

Monday, October 30, 2023

Today in the Mission Yearbook - First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, Iowa, sets its missional sights on Ukraine

A friend of the church who’s a retired Presbyterian pastor helps FPC to ramp up its giving to Ukraine

October 30, 2023

First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, Iowa (Contributed

photo)

The lines of 164 years of Czech history at First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, Iowa recently blurred with current-day Ukraine, and the result was unexpectedly amazing.

How did such a thing happen at a small country church, where traditional mission activities have included monthly collections for the food pantry; “Tractorcade,” an annual group tractor ride across Iowa’s countryside; and instructional “Kolach Kamps,” where the kitchen becomes the classroom and bakers learn to craft the perfect kolach?

The person who linked this rural Iowa church to an active Ukrainian warzone is a retired Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Jan Dus. Although he works as a professional genealogist and lives in Czechia, Dus studied at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and has helped families at First Presbyterian Church Near Ely and beyond with genealogical research. In addition, Dus has visited the historic First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, which is about 10 miles south of Cedar Rapids, the home of the Czech Village historic neighborhood.

In recent years, Dus helped form a humanitarian nongovernmental organization called Camino, which he serves as CEO. Camino volunteers regularly visit Ukraine to survey the needs of the people living there, using an app to receive live alerts signaling bombing to them safely navigate the violence. With most Ukrainian men fighting on the battlefield, volunteers find that many women and children are left to live in desperate conditions, with many of Ukraine’s elderly population living in bombed care centers.

The Rev. Jan Dus

Dus contacted friends around the world seeking financial support for Camino. Because Dus is a friend of the church, First Presbyterian Church Near Ely’s session considered its 2023 mission plans and decided to pivot by looking beyond the local neighborhood to neighbors around the world. Efforts to benefit Camino were undertaken over a few months. On Mother’s Day, the final collection was totaled and then electronically transferred to Camino as traditional mail service to Ukraine remains unreliable.

The Rev. Dr. Julie Schuett, pastor of First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, said that $2,300 was transferred to Camino. That’s 60% of the church’s designated mission budget, Schuett said.

A few days after the electronic transfer, Camino confirmed receipt of the funds. Dus reported that baby formula was purchased and distributed to women and children in Ukraine.

This mission effort is one way an Iowa church bridged international borders to serve the greater world, caring for people in need.

Click here to learn more about the work of Camino.

Misti Huedepohl, First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, Iowa, Special to Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: First Presbyterian Church Near Ely, Iowa, ramp up giving to Ukraine

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Ceara Pepaj, Product Manager, Flyaway Books, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Derrick Perkins, Mail & Print Supervisor, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Loving God, you have communicated with us through the gift of your precious Son. Keep us inspired to find helpful new ways to maintain contact, provide information and be a profound witness of your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Minute for Mission: Reformation Sunday

October 29, 2023

Photo credit: (provided)

Forty years ago, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa adopted Belydenis van Belhar — the Confession of Belhar — in its first reading. Belhar was an outgrowth of the DRMC’s effort to grapple with the church’s participation in and defense of apartheid and touches prominently on themes of unity, reconciliation and justice. The DRMC adopted Belhar in its final form in 1986.

Although the Confession of Belhar is inextricably connected to its South African context, its message extends far beyond. The PC(USA) describes Belhar as a powerful statement of belief for the Christian faith that, in part, bears witness to the gift of unity and the church’s obligation to it. Interest in Belhar grew internationally around 2006, including among reformed traditions in the United States, where the PC(USA) established the Special Committee on the Confession of Belhar. On the recommendation of this Special Committee, the 222nd General Assembly (2016) approved the inclusion of Belhar in the Book of Confessions because of the clarity of its witness and its capacity to serve as a model for the PC(USA) to “speak and act with similar clarity at a time when it faces division, racism and injustice.”

The Confession of Belhar is a unique voice among the predominantly European and North American confessions. It elevates the witness of Reformed Christians living under different circumstances and serves, even now, as a springboard to discuss its key themes of unity, reconciliation and justice within a wide range of current issues.

For more on the Reformation, visit history.pcusa.org/rs.

Kristen Gaydos, Director of Communications, Presbyterian Historical Society

Today’s Focus: Reformation Sunday

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Tabatha Peach, Trust Administrative Assistant, Presbyterian Foundation
Charlene Peacock, Reference Archivist, Presbyterian Historical Society

Let us pray

Gracious and loving God, help us listen deeply to all our siblings in Christ as we strive toward unity and justice. On this day, we give thanks for the Belhar Confession as one important source of your reconciling light in this world. Amen.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Registration open for Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association conference Nov. 12–17

The Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo Jr. to keynote conference focusing on ecumenical partnerships in outdoor ministry

October 28, 2023

The Chapel and labyrinth at Ferncliff Camp and

Conference Center are pictured. (Photo courtesy

of Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center)

“Building Bridges-Connecting Communities” is the theme for this year’s Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association and Campfire Collective Annual Conference to take place at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas from Nov. 12–17.

Registration is now open. The conference fee for individuals is $199 with additional costs for lodging and meals.

The Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo Jr., the 11th president of Columbia Theological Seminary, will be the keynote speaker. Aloyo will lead two sessions: one on ecumenical partnership for outdoor ministry and another on bridge-building with historically marginalized communities and across racial/ethnic divides.

Aloyo’s love for camp ministry began at the age of 12, when he attended a weeklong camp for youth and young adults from 26 Hispanic congregations in the New York City region. This summer tradition and his 40-year involvement with the camp were formative in Aloyo’s faith journey. He has served on the board of Holmes Camp and Retreat Center in New York and of Camp El Guacio in Puerto Rico.

Presentations, worship services and some workshops focus on what an ecumenical future may look like for our camps, conferences and centers. Longtime professionals in camp and conference center ministry from the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church of the United States, along with experts in nonprofit fundraising, cyber security, risk management and land conservation anchor the week’s schedule of workshops, with more topics and speakers to come.

The Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo Jr.

Along with the Presbyterian Mission Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Outdoor Ministries Institute of the United Church of Canada is a co-sponsor for the event, and the Outdoor Ministries Association of the United Church of Christ and Association of Disciples in Outdoor Ministries are endorsers.

The week’s worship will delve into the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, mining the insights of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman for ways in which encounters across cultural boundaries offer shared healing and truth-telling.

“I am excited about this conference and its theme because our camp and conference ministries have an ecumenical future,” said Joel Winchip, executive director of the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association and the Campfire Collective. “This event is going to bring together participants and speakers from a variety of denominations. It will be wonderful to have all of these folks learning from each other at the conference.”

The Presbyterian Mission Agency is in partnership with the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Center Association through the Office of Christian Formation.

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus: Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association conference

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Stephanie Patterson, Multimedia Associate/Designer, Presbyterian Women
Sean Payne, Research Analyst II, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Loving god, you call us to health and wholeness. Remind us that your transforming power is available and help us to be your hands and feet to those in need so others may find your light in the darkness. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Friday, October 27, 2023

Today in the Mission Yearbook - New York Avenue Presbyterian Church continues its discussion on moral injury

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock delivers the second of her McClendon Scholar-in-Residence lectures

October 27, 2023

Photo by Jacob Bentzinger via Unsplash

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, an author and scholar and the senior vice president for moral injury programs at Volunteers of America, continued her discussion on moral injury at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., by emphasizing the church’s role in moral injury recovery through ritual.

Brock, this past summer’s McClendon Scholar-in-Residence at the downtown Washington, D.C., church, spoke on moral injury. Read a report of that talk here. She also preached at the church that President Lincoln attended regularly during the Civil War.

Brock traced moral injury in veterans to the 1700s, when it was labeled “nostalgia” or “homesickness.” By Lincoln’s time in the White House, moral injury was being called “soldier’s heart,” and throughout both world wars it was commonly known as “shellshock” or “combat stress reaction.” Clinicians identified it “Post-Vietnam Syndrome” until 1980, and post-traumatic stress disorder entered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders in 1980. The fifth edition of the DSM revised it to “stressor-related disorder.”

“Your brain over-functions in its fear mode,” Brock said of moral injury’s effects. Moral injury “is not a mental health disorder. It’s a function of our being born moral,” and has three levels of severity: moral discomfort, moral distress and moral injury, which she noted is “the biggest factor for suicide among veterans” and is, as Rabbi David Blumenthal has pointed out, “a sign of mental and moral health.”

“People can seem OK. They can get on with their lives, but it will need to be processed at some point,” Brock told an audience listening both in person at the historic downtown church and online. “It is crucial for the church to figure out how to help people with moral injury.”

“We may feel broken individually,” Brock said, “but we recover collectively.”

She said that human beings are “social animals. We need friends, and there’s an epidemic of loneliness right now that’s bad for your health.”

Both our meaning systems and our moral behavior are social, and they’re reinforced through ritual, Brock noted. “Most of us are moral by habit. We just are nice to people and do our thing because we have been habitually trained in that behavior. Rituals are crucial to that process.”

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock

In church, those are shared, repeated processes. It can be as simple as a hospital chaplain asking a patient, “May I pray with you?”

“If the patient says yes, a ritual has begun,” she said. Churches “are that kind of space, and so is the outdoors. You don’t have to build it. You just have to say, ‘This is the space.’”

“It’s counterintuitive for Protestants to go on and on about ritual,” Brock said. “The Protestant attitude was ritual is superstition. … Protestants focus on personal faith and subjectivity, and rituals are understood to be an expression of your personal faith.”

But in many cultures, that’s the minority opinion, Brock said. “You do the ritual because it’s the ritual. They don’t care about your own beliefs.” If belief in God makes you a better person, go ahead and believe in God, those communities might say.

Even worship rituals many Christians consider innocuous enough, such as the passing of the peace, have been called hypocritical by some people. Brock pushed back on that: “You want a community where people who don’t like each other can greet one another,” Brock said.

Ritual can “pull you up out of the misery of your own feelings. You get to process your inner world with imagination and with empathy for others, and that relativizes how miserable you feel,” Brock said. We attend a friend or loved one’s memorial service “because you feel terrible that someone died who you cared about, knowing you will feel better in the end. You listen and trust, sing songs and listen to Scripture and prayers, and you’re surprised sometimes how much better you feel.” Sometimes it doesn’t work, “but it helps people handle the fierce forces in life that otherwise would destroy you.”

Rituals work for many people, she said, because they engage people’s imagination.

In fact, recovery from moral injury is like another ritual symbol for many Christians: a labyrinth, Brock said. “You keep moving.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock spoke on moral injury at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Sunkyoo Park, Associate, Adult Curriculum, Korean Language, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Brent Paschal, IS Specialist, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

God of renewal and hope, let us humbly walk with you following the example given to us by Jesus Christ. Bless the leaders you send to inspire and encourage us on this walk as we go forth in your name. Amen.

The Voice of the Martyrs - Free 3-DVD set on the life of Christ and early church!

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The third DVD in the trilogy, To Every Nation, tells how the first believers spread the gospel. Covering Acts chapters 9–28, this animated feature shows how the world was changed by the Good News of Christ. (70 minutes)

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The Voice of the Martyrs - Answered Prayer — "Lord, Build Your Church Here"

Listen Now: “It was the exact spot where we had prayed.”

Ben and Kimberly are front-line workers in South Asia, where many are deceived by Hinduism, witchcraft and other spiritual opposition.

Listen this week as they share the story of a church being planted in a South Asian village. And learn how God answered their prayer, even though they had nearly given up hope of seeing the gospel advance there.

That’s just one of the stories you’ll hear in our conversation, which begins with Ben sharing how God reached him while he was imprisoned for drug crimes, then called him and Kimberly to serve among unreached people in South Asia.

Listen now, and be inspired by God’s ability to open ANY door, whether a prison door in the U.S. or a village door in rural South Asia.

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Ministry Matters - Meeting Jesus in prison | Why worship shouldn't feel like family

What steps can you take to create a communal pastoral care strategy on the inside, which, in turn, builds a bridge to your church and community on the outside?

Meeting Jesus in prison

by Gregg Louis Taylor

There’s no shortage of opportunities in prison to journey alongside people, to bear witness to their stories of brokenness, and to encourage the healing and reconciliation of anything that causes fragmentation. Our primary story is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. As far as I can tell, that’s precisely the story pastors invite prisoners to imagine for themselves. We come without evaluating who they are or what they’ve done. When we look at them, we see the Imago Dei. We seek to rehumanize, treat them as persons, and offer restoration of human dignity. Read here

Why worship shouldn't feel like a family

What does it mean for a church to be like a family?

Why worship shouldn't feel like family

by John Flowers & Karen Vannoy

Families are, by their very nature, concerned primarily about the individual family members and their unity as a family. People typically mean intimacy, affirmation, and stability. We all want to meet these needs through our communities of faith, but when that family theme is applied to the public worship experience, decline can’t be far behind. Read here