2025 Path of Peace reflections - Friday, Oct. 3, 2025

Charlie Scott

Matthew 8:1–3 (NIV)

Jesus touched the untouchable person. Later, he offered to come to the home of a Roman military occupier to help his slave. And that evening, he brought shalom to the demonized. In just a few lines of narrative action, Matthew tells us the Divine Blessing, apparently, recognizes no boundaries.

While still a Presbyterian seminary student (at Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia), the Rev. Charlie Scott grasped that truth. The weekend of the big annual church picnic was fast approaching, and with it, a crisis of unprecedented scope. In this early autumn of 1966, the new class of students at Columbia were to be the special guests at the picnic. But there was a problem. One of the new students was an African American. The church’s solution to “the problem”: Welcome all the students but require the “Negro” to dress as one of the cooks.

Scott could not abide. He organized his fellow students and let the church know that they all would be coming to the picnic … dressed as cooks! At the last moment, the church rescinded its “special dress code.”

From his days as a basketball star at the University of Tennessee in the late ’50s, through the tumultuous ’60s in Atlanta, to his decades leading Young Life in Florida, Scott understood and embodied the inclusiveness and justice of the Gospel. He led the establishment of youth ministries for all kinds of youth: Black, brown and white; rich and poor; differently abled and gifted. He founded the Good Shepherd School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He and his wife, Mary, advocated for women and minorities to have major leadership positions in Young Life long before it was popular (safe). He refused to use church camps that did not welcome “every kid.” In short, Scott was willing — willing to risk status, security and success in order to follow Christ’s example of offering inclusive grace. In the process, he influenced thousands of teenagers and adults to see faith as more than merely a private matter but through the lens of generosity, racial reconciliation and justice.

Prayer:

Holy One, in this season of Advent opening, of touching the unclean, of seeing new truth, may we set aside all the ways we condition your grace. Help us to welcome the arrival of radical love that changes relationships. Amen.

The Rev. Bill Hoff lives with his family in Jacksonville, Florida, where his small intentional community has sustained life over decades. Bill blended a career in Young Life, the Presbyterian Church and community engagement.

Mission Yearbook: Delaware’s Trinity Presbyterian Church and the Appalachia Service Project: a 40-year partnership

Image

Appalachia Service Project shirts 

The Appalachia Service Project (ASP) has been serving the home repair needs of families in Central Appalachia since 1969, when the Rev. Glenn “Tex” Evans, a United Methodist minister, began connecting the energy of youth with the needs of the poor. Each year, more than 15,000 volunteers provide critical repair services for more than 350 families. The core of the ministry is a six- to eight-week summer program operating in over 20 counties; 50 to 70 volunteers in each county are housed each week in schools, churches and community centers staffed by four to five college students.

Image

Appalachia Service Project lists (provided)

While ASP’s goal is making homes “warmer, safer and drier” for families, it is much more than a home repair ministry. The emphasis goes beyond tools and supplies to “accepting people right where they are and just the way they are” through building relationships with the homeowners and with other volunteers.

Trinity Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, sent its first work team of two adults and six high school students to Mingo County, West Virginia, in 1985. In July 2025, Trinity’s congregation celebrated 40 years of partnership with ASP. During worship that morning, the five Trinity teams who had spent the previous week serving five families in Kanawha County, West Virginia, reported on their work – underpinning, drywalling, installing a tin roof, building decks and ramps, shoring up floors and replacing outside walls. After worship, Trinity congregational members, current participants and their families, and many past ASP participants joined together for a light lunch, a program of memories and stories, and time to peruse a display with pictures and posters containing the names of each volunteer who served each year.

Over its 40-year involvement with ASP, Trinity has sent 166 work teams to Central Appalachia. Of the more than 230 youth who have gone to ASP, over 70% have gone more than once. Several youth continued on to become leaders on Trinity teams, and four youth have served as ASP summer staff. But Trinity’s partnership involves more than the 299 individuals who have physically gone to ASP. ASP has become part of the fabric of Trinity. Children look forward to their turn to go on ASP because “that’s what you do,” and the congregation has fully supported the program through prayers and fundraising, contributing over $800,000 over 40 years!

On its website, ASP says, “No one walks away from the ASP experience unchanged.” Each year, the youth return with a new understanding of how families with limited resources struggle every day, or they realize the advantages they’ve enjoyed in contrast to the families they’ve served.

Trinity volunteers will tell you their favorite stories about their ASP experiences, but almost none of them have anything to do with the actual construction. They are memories of the families, the children, the pets and the bonding with their teammates. ASP is indeed life-changing. If your congregation would like more information about ASP, their website is asphome.org.

Penny Lindell; Trinity Presbyterian Church; Wilmington, Delaware

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Sharon Castillo, Director, Plan Administration, The Board of Pensions
Laurie Cato, Director, Agency Communications, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Loving God, you call us to be your eyes, your hands, your feet and your voice in the world around us.  Help us to use our eyes to see those who are in need, our hands and feet to respond, and our voices to share your love. 

2025 Path of Peace reflections - Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025

The Presbyterian Historical Society

Matthew 7:22–29

In the final verses of Matthew 7, Jesus compares those who say they follow him and those who act upon his teachings. He makes it abundantly clear that it is not enough to simply acknowledge him as “Lord,” but one must actually obey his teachings. Genuine discipleship is evidenced through actions, choices, sacrifices and consistent faith.

The Presbyterian Historical Society, through its heritage preservation efforts, offers us so much more than antiquated records, photographs and documentation — it provides us with living, tangible proof of what faith in action looks like. Each preserved letter, each volunteer logbook and every member’s story paints a robust picture exemplifying what it is to live in Christ.

Organizations like the Presbyterian Historical Society teach us an important lesson: History will always hold us accountable. Our legacy, what we build in Christ, becomes part of the testimony we leave behind for others to grow from. While our words will fade from the memories of our community members, family and loved ones, our actions will not.

Our Christian actions can live, thrive, grow, and even work to prove what it means to live with the love and discipline that Jesus urges us to show. The tombstone of the Rev. Bruce Klunder shows his sacrifice to end segregation in 1964, when his life was taken while protesting for the safety and respect of all of God’s children. There are the arrest warrants of countless European Christians who were punished greatly for aiding and housing disabled individuals and Jewish children during the reign of the Third Reich. The crumpled receipts and bank statements from the public school teacher who used her own meager salary to pay for kids' field trip expenses in 2008, not wanting anyone to feel left out. The pay stubs of the struggling recent college graduate, entering the workforce during a global pandemic, employed by the church to highlight and digitize these records, hopefully shedding light on even more lessons and examples of those who came before us and those even with us today.

Faith and love in God, and living as Jesus urges us to in Matthew 7, cannot be forever remembered in proclamations but can be immortalized in preservation. It is difficult to sacrifice the comfort and stability that come with deviating from the apathetic homogeneity of our current culture. Today, we are challenged to ask, what kind of foundation are we building? Will someone looking back see evidence that we truly lived as followers of Jesus? Are we just wearing the cross necklace and speaking our faith, or are we actively practicing it through love, justice, mercy and empathy?

Prayer:

Loving God, help us to build our lives on the solid rock of your Word. Let us be not only healers, but doers — living lives that honor you. Thank you for the gift of faithful witnesses before us and the work of those preserving their stories at the Presbyterian Historical Society. May our actions speak louder than our words, and may we leave legacies of kindness and love as taught by Jesus. Amen.

Virginia Zeigler grew up at Riverside Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville, Florida. She has always loved spending time in nature, especially in the mountains. She works as an oceanographic physicist, where she gets to explore the science behind God’s Creation.

Mission Yearbook: Pennsylvania’s Presbyterian Church of Deep Run celebrates its 300th anniversary

Image

The Presbyterian Church of Deep Run celebrates its 300th anniversary with the Presbytery of Philadelphia.

In 2025, the Presbyterian Church of Deep Run in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, is celebrating its 300th anniversary. The church’s first preacher was the well-known Rev. William Tennent.

Worship started on this campus seven years before George Washington was born. And Pennsylvania became a state in 1787 — 62 years after the beginning of Presbyterian worship at Deep Run.

Today, the Irish Meeting House remains an integral part of religious life and worship on the Deep Run campus. Our campus includes the Irish Meeting House, Red School House, a cemetery, a columbarium, a memorial garden, the Deep Run Presbyterian Nursery School, main facilities with classrooms, a modern sanctuary, a fellowship hall, and offices, as well as a manse on over 7 acres of property in upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The list of ways Deep Run’s ministry touches the community is expansive, ranging from interns from the local high school overseeing the church’s tech and livestream to the Doylestown Art League meeting in the Red School House four days a week to providing space for seeing-eye dogs to be trained.

This is in addition to meetings for Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, AA, Al-Anon, Leo’s Club, food pantry collections, music ministry and summer Bible camp, and once a month the church serves a free hot meal to the community!

This ministry is filled with enthusiasm as we celebrate our history and look forward to what God is leading us into next!

Rev. Cynthia Betz-Bogoly, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Deep Run; Perkasie, Pennsylvania

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Jennifer Cash, Copy Editor, Media & Publishing, Interim Unified Agency
Ryan Cassidy, AVP, Portfolio Manager, Trust Services, The Presbyterian Foundation   

Let us pray:

We thank you, Lord God, for brave and believing people who brought your message to this place 300 years ago. Let us not forget them. By their energies this church was gathered, given order, and continued. Remembering all those Christians who have gone before us, may we follow as they followed, in the way, truth, and life of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church. Amen.

2025 Path of Peace reflections - Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025

Mary Ann Lundy

Matthew 7:13–21

This passage reminds me of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” where two roads diverge in this wooden forest, with one chosen by many and another not as commonly trodden. It can also serve as a faith illustration for us. Do we want to live a faith that is comfortable and a bit easier, or rather a faith that is active and more challenging?

Having an active faith often seems like the road not taken. The world frequently views Christianity through a negative lens and sees it as a religion that hurts people and judges, and that typically consists of people who don’t practice what they preach. Choosing to live an active faith flips this perception on its head. It’s humble, just and kind; it uses us as a vessel for God’s will. An active faith can challenge us not to remain stagnant but to strengthen our faith and step outside ourselves to create the world that God wants for our neighbors.

A notable example of someone actively engaged in their faith is Mary Ann Lundy. She bore visible fruit in the form of advocacy, justice and inclusiveness in her ministry and can be seen as good fruit growing from a deep-rooted and active faith. Throughout her life, she accomplished much, including leading the Women’s Ministry Unit in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), helping to organize the Reimagining conference in 1993, serving as deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and dedicating time to an interfaith center.

Lundy was someone the world needed, and she left a significant impact on the communities she was a part of. Living out an active faith led her to participate in and be a part of many different things throughout her life. Rather than living with a bare minimum faith mindset (which is where much of the negative thought about Christianity originates), she spent her life being challenged and moving to where God called her.

We, too, can answer the call. To live out our faith each day as people who love their neighbor and emulate God’s goodness in the world. Some days, actively living out our faith may be simple, while other days may seem impossible. This is the faith that this passage speaks of and the one that God seeks from us.

Prayer:

God, challenge us to blaze the path of active faith in our lives and to live as a vessel of your light and love in the world each day. Amen.

Isabella Giles is a senior studying Public Relations at Florida State University with the hopes of working in the faith nonprofit sector when she graduates. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering, savoring copious amounts of coffee, spending time outdoors and engaging with various faith communities. 

Mission Yearbook: Texas church’s Creative Camp helps children find joy after a flood

Image

Creative Camp is held at First Presbyterian Church Kerrville

On July 4, flash floods tore through Kerr County, Texas. In the days that followed, we grieved, watched first responders work tirelessly, and began the slow work of recovery.

At First Presbyterian Church Kerrville, we had already planned Creative Camp. This year’s theme was God’s Masterpiece: Designed with a Purpose, a week of art, movement, and hands-on learning meant to remind children they are uniquely made and deeply loved. But after the flood, we questioned whether it still made sense. In the face of so much loss, did these efforts matter? Was this the right kind of response? Purpose suddenly felt harder to define.

Even so, we move forward in faith.

Image

Creative Camp is held at First Presbyterian Church Kerrville

Less than two weeks after the flooding, more than 50 children gathered for camp. They each came shaped differently by the weeks before. The kids painted and built. They played drums, explored science and sang together. They made tie-dye shirts, blew bubbles, chalked messages and drawings along the church steps, and cooled off with paletas. It was colorful and creative. A little noisy. A little messy. And deeply needed.

Volunteers showed up, too. Some led activities. Others restocked supplies, cleaned up or stepped in wherever they were needed. New volunteers joined each day, creating something steady and kind in the midst of so much that was still uncertain. In small ways, healing began.

The week of color, laughter and care revealed that the theme held greater meaning than we intended. We are God’s masterpiece, designed with a purpose. We each have unique gifts to offer. Sometimes it looks like showing up, listening or making space for someone else to feel joy again.

We are especially grateful for the first responders, volunteers and neighbors who continue to care for Kerr County. Their ongoing work reminds us that purpose takes many forms and that healing takes all of us.

Carra Gray; Director of Engagement and Communications; First Presbyterian Church Kerrville; Kerrville, Texas

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Jackie Carter, Project Manager, Media & Publishing, Interim Unified Agency
Katie Carter, Manager, Faith-Based Investing & Shareholder Engagement, Interim Unified Agency

Let us pray:

Loving God, creation is your masterpiece. You grieve whenever a piece of your creation is damaged or destroyed.
Your heart breaks open whenever one of your little ones is lost. Made in your image, we grieve all that has been lost.
Help us to find purpose as we work and wait, for hearts to heal, and lives to be restored. Amen. - Rev. Susan Shaw-Meadow of FPC Kerrville 

How to Remit the Peace & Global Witness Offering

How to remit for Peace & Global Witness   Thank you for participating in the Peace & Global Witness Offering as we pursue the peace God intends for all. Here are a couple of reminders:   Keep 25% For Your Congregation Keep 25% for your congregation’s initiatives to promote peace and justice. Please share with us how your congregation is using its 25%.   Share with us how you Pursue what makes for Peace! How to remit for Congregations: Many congregations send their funds through their normal receiving agency, usually the presbytery, which keeps 25% of receipts for regional peace efforts. Others choose to mail directly to the PC(USA). If that is your choice, send 25% to your mid council and the remaining 50% to:  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Please make your check payable to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) with Peace & Global Witness Offering on the memo line.   How to remit for Mid Councils: Mail your check to the following lockbox: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) P.O. Box 643751 Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3751   Or online via Payer Express: Remit through Payer Express Thank you for your continued support of Special Offerings! We are the Church. Together. Thank you for your generous support of Special Offerings. If you have any questions, reply to this email or call 800-728-7228, Ext. 5047.

Copyright © 2025 Special Offerings, All rights reserved.