Mission Yearbook: Children’s ministry that forms faith

Jill Benson

Jill Benson, a curriculum coordinator for the Christian Reformed Church, put on a workshop during this year’s APCE’s Annual Event  focused on children’s ministry that forms faith.

“Why do we have children’s ministry available at our church? It’s important to start with the why,” Benson said to workshop attendees meeting in person at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, and online. “For me, I love children, and I learn from them.” Alongside that is the privilege “to see them grow in their faith and form a lifelong faith.”

While Benson took workshop attendees back 85 years to survey the history of children’s ministry, “it goes all the way back to Deuteronomy and the Shema,” she said. For this portion of the presentation, Benson drew from Scottie May et al, the authors of “Children Matter: Celebrating Their Place in the Church, Family and Community.”

The years 1940–1965 saw content-centered children’s ministry, when “ministry was done to children to encourage this process of faith formation,” she said. Children were seen as sponges, and the teacher was “the expert, the boss, the funnel holder and the evaluator.” The traditional Sunday school setting dominated.

The strength during that era was the promotion of biblical literacy. “You could rest assured you were an emerging disciple of Christ,” Benson said. “But biblical literacy didn’t turn into lifelong faith formation.”

From 1965–1990, children’s ministry was student-centered. The goal was to make sure children enjoyed Sunday school, and programming “became elaborate,” Benson said. The teacher was seen as “the coordinator, customer service representative, ringmaster and planner,” Benson noted.

Processed-centered children’s ministry has dominated since 1990. The goal is to help the child to encounter God and God’s story in ways that form faith. The emphasis is on the relationship between the child and the adult and the process by which learning takes place. Children can be seen as a plant, a sheep, a pilgrim or a scientist “who learn and investigate together to find truth,” Benson said. The teacher is seen as a shepherd, farmer, fellow pilgrim or co-learner.

The strength of this model is “the emphasis on more authentic engagement with the biblical story,” while a weakness is “we focus on the quiet, contemplative moments and don’t include enough fun activities,” she said.

“This history does not mean that earlier views were wrong or bad,” but “they were less effective than once thought,” Benson said. “As we learned more about children, we altered the way we did children’s ministry.”

It could be a new era of children’s ministry has begun — one in which educators and other grownups are spiritually formed by children.

According to Benson, May says there have been “many times” she’s been ministered to by children, “but it has usually happened unintentionally. What if we made it intentional?”

Benson asked workshop attendees to break into small groups to discuss questions including, “Are you comfortable with what children’s ministry looks like at your church, or are there aspects of another model that you would like to include?”

“We noticed that the ‘entertainment model’ is often associated with the large numbers and ‘glory days’ of our churches,” said one workshop participant. “But we appreciate now functioning with the ‘with/by’ models, often with fewer numbers.”

Through Visio Divina, Benson then used “The Book of Belonging” and art by A Sanctified Art to tell the story of The Daughters of Zelophehad, reading the story as she might to a child.

Then she asked those in the workshop: Anything you wonder about this story?

Benson called wondering questions “a fantastic way to engage children. They don’t have a specific answer, or a right answer. The point is to help children put themselves in the story.”

Among her favorites is the one she had just asked: What do you wonder about this story?

“Kids jump right in and answer that one,” Benson said.

A link to a 10-question tool for choosing curriculum is here. Lists of five ways to help families grow in faith, help kids to worship and to pray with kids, can be found here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Alonzo Johnson, Coordinator, Self-Development of People, Interim Unified Agency
• Carlton Johnson, Director, Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we give thanks that you multiply our small and humble offerings and efforts as we work to care for those in need. We ask that you sharpen our focus on you and on ways we may serve. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Scripture says to ‘make a joyful noise,’ not a perfect noise

Hunter Steinitz

When Hunter Steinitz, M.Div., co-moderator of Presbyterians for Disability Concerns (PDC), once said that if the dedicated team of PDC volunteers had a motto, it might be, “We are small but mighty,” she could just as well have been describing the workshop she co-led recently.

Titled “Inclusion is Worship,” the workshop at the Association of Partners in Christian Education (APCE) 2025 Annual Event attracted a “small” group from across the PC(USA), all “mightily” advocating for disability inclusion in church and society.

And calling for action now.

“The problem isn’t with the disability,” Steinitz said, “but with the barriers that get in the way.”

And yet despite the many barriers to full inclusion, attendees offered signs of hope.

“Our church is pretty much all accessible except for one upstairs room,” one participant shared with the group, “so that a girl with disabilities couldn’t go to the youth group room. Then, because they made a policy that no church activities can happen in a non-accessible space, the youth group room moved. I thought that was so amazing because often their reaction is to not do the right thing. I was thrilled with how that worked out.”

At the workshop, Steinitz — a ruling elder at Riverview United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and the oldest woman in the U.S. with a rare genetic skin condition called Harlequin ichthyosis — was joined on Zoom by PDC clerk Marijo Hockley, M.Div., and in Memphis by the Rev. Dr. Deborah Huggins, PDC co-moderator, who shared in facilitating the conversation.

The Rev. Dr. Deborah Huggins

Huggins, associate pastor of youth and children at Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, New Jersey, is also president of the Presbyterian Health, Education, and Welfare Association (PHEWA). Hockley serves as the community life coordinator for New Life Presbyterian Church in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

As participants considered together — and in small groups — how and whether people with disabilities are embraced and included in their respective worship spaces, Huggins appealed to Steinitz and Hockley as disability liberation theologians for their guidance on interpreting relevant passages from Scripture.

“It can be very difficult for people with disabilities to lean back and find the hope that we have [in Jesus],” Hockley began. “Jesus heals them not because there is something wrong with them, but because there’s something wrong with society. … Because society is ill, Jesus heals the person with disabilities.”

In the broader context of biblical exegesis, Steinitz further explained the workshop’s title, “Inclusion is Worship.”

“Inclusion is worship because the body of Christ is made up of all these diverse members, all of them with a role to play,” said Steinitz, referencing 1 Corinthians 12:12. “That is very much true of people of faith with disabilities. Because they have gifts that they want to share, it’s all about giving them the opportunity.”

Both Steinitz and Hockley emphasized that while churchgoers have the expectation that everything be perfect, that’s not what scripture teaches.

“As many of you know, it’s hard for people to sit still and be perfect all the time,” said Steinitz. “But what does Scripture say? ‘Make a joyful noise’ — not a perfect noise, not a well-rehearsed noise, but a joyful noise.”

Added Hockley, “Worship is not a Broadway show. We should be a faith family when we’re sitting in church. Things are not going to be perfect, but they are perfect in the eyes of God.”

Using a handout designed by PDC, participants began to build customized action plans for their own worship settings. They received — and were able to suggest additions to — a “Worship is Inclusion” resource list.

Attendees also received a copy of “Speaking Words that Welcome,” a QuickSheet produced by the PC(USA) Interim Unified Agency’s Office of Christian Formation.

If the workshop had a single takeaway, it was perhaps the charge to be creative.

“You don’t just have to preach from the pulpit or be liturgist from the chancel,” Huggins said. “Church isn’t perfect. Church will always be messy.”

For more information about Presbyterians for Disability Concerns or to contact a Disability Consultant, click here.

Emily Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Daniel Johnson, Engineer, Building Services, Administrative Services Group (A Corp) 
• Christopher Jackson, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Board of Pensions 

Let us pray:

Lord, strengthen, guide, and bless us as we labor together to bring your love to those who need it most. We thank you for those who serve. May their obedient efforts continue to bear fruit in the lives of many. In your name we pray. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Daring to say — and play — the ‘G’ word

APCE Annual Event workshop participants play “Reverse Pyramid Build.”
From left are the Rev. Dr. Susan Sharp Campbell, associate for Educational
Ministry, Presbytery of West Virginia; Brittany Porch, director of Mission
and Education, Broad Street Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio; the Rev.
Cassie Waits, associate pastor of Discipleship, First Presbyterian Church,
Marietta, Georgia; and the Rev. Julie Erkel Hagee, pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Cedar Falls, Iowa. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom)

As attendees at the Association of Partners in Christian Education (APCE) 2025 Annual Event entered the meeting room and observed with mounting curiosity the unusual props that surrounded them — decks of cards, mini drinking cups, LEGO® bricks, and even a nickel or two — many wondered what on earth they had signed up for.

Joel Winchip, executive director of the Presbyterian Church Camp and Conference Association (PCCCA)/Campfire Collective, quickly explained.

Winship’s workshop, titled “There is No ‘I’ in Team,” was centered on activities designed to help adult groups develop effective communication and problem-solving skills.

“We’re going to talk and play games,” he said, "but when introducing team building-activities to adults, don’t ever call them 'games.'”

“Don’t use the ‘G’ word,” he cautioned. “You might as well just yell, ‘Fire,’ or say, ‘We’re playing name games,’ and everyone will be gone. Just launch into the instructions for what you want to do with your adult group.”

Joel Winchip (standing at right) teaches a group how to play Up Jenkins during
a workshop at the APCE Annual Event. (photo by Emily Enders Odom)

Winchip, who also serves on the adjunct faculty of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, where he teaches camp/conference ministry and recreation courses, said that in his experience, games using tangible things help adults wrap their heads around what they are doing.

“I’m a big fan of props,” he said.

And, if the workshop participants were ever under the impression that they’d be staying seated and taking notes, out came the props.

Winchip then called everyone to their feet as a succession of games with such names as Up Jenkins, Octopus Draw, Flip Flop Tower, and LEGO® Re-Creation — and hearty laughter ensued.

An hour or so later, Winchip led the exhilarated participants through a debriefing on what they had experienced.

“Through games, you can find out the true dynamics of your group,” he said. “For example, some people like to touch everything and show off what they know. You can tell things like who the introverts are versus the extroverts. Normally, people in recreation cannot hide who they are.”

Because leadership teams, committee members, and ministry staff are all groups that need to work together, game play can help group members broaden their abilities and work together.

“I like incorporating games in adult education,” said the Rev. Cassie Waits, associate pastor of Discipleship at the First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, Georgia. “And since I’ve never played any of these games before, the workshop was even better than I expected!”

Emily Enders Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Todd Ingves, Vice President, Health & Well Being, Board of Pensions 
• Jose Irizarry, Vice President, Education, Church Engagement, Board of Pensions  

Let us pray:

Our loving Lord, we humbly return a portion of the bounty you have so generously given, so that, through your Holy Spirit, these gifts may be multiplied and creatively used among our neighbors as you see fit. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: The current chapter is never the last one

The Rev. Dr. Courtney Pace

Using Acts 8:26–40, Luke’s account of Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch, as her preaching text, the Rev. Dr. Courtney Pace wove a complex history of faith into just a few minutes during worship at the Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education.

Pace is the Prathia Hall Scholar in Residence of Social Justice History at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She pointed out that baptizing this eunuch — “this wonderful human whose body was mutilated without their consent” — was “not an issue for Philip, Jesus, or the church. Given all of what this eunuch had been hearing about Christians, why would they want to be part of the church?”

“In this season when people come to us seeking understanding, as a historian the only thing I know to do is look back on the story,” she said before surveying a brief history of faith beginning with God’s covenant with Abraham and landing on the present day.

After a long history of being conquered and exiled, the people figured, “If God’s promises were real, they only belonged in the future,” Pace said.

Then “a young man from the country claimed to be God’s son, gained numerous followers, and then is lynched by the empire,” she said. “This is the moment in which the eunuch lived. Why would this kind and curious human want to be part of that movement?”

Here’s a summary of this long history of faith, she said: In spite of the foolishness of humans, God continues to condescend into human work.

“All along the way,” she said, faithful prophets — including Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Day, Margaret Sanger, Prathia Hall, James Cone, and Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde — have spoken truth to power.

“God has promised the kin-dom of God on Earth, where people love each other, love God and gather in joy and delight to worship God together, to make sure everyone has enough and is safe, to honor each person and each body as made in the image of God — a place where God dwells with the people,” she said. “But so much of what we see and hear doesn’t look anything like that.”

“God has promised to be with us always, but some of us have never felt more alone or abandoned,” Pace said. “Those in power delight at our powerlessness, and they dare to blame it on God. This is not where we thought we would be now. Home does not feel like home anymore.”

At this crossroads, we can either trust in the promises of God or give up, she said. “As people of the covenant, as children of God, let us hold fast to the promises of God,” she urged. “We tell the stories of our people to our children, and we tell them over and over how God has provided for us in the past. It’s almost as if God is already here.”

But on other days, “this feels impossible,” Pace said. “Grief is paralyzing, and our words feel empty. Even singing feels useless. But day after day we get up. We remember the stories and the promise. We celebrate when others’ hopes come true, even if ours don’t. We remind ourselves God’s mercies are new every morning.”

We pray, and we wait. “Waiting is never easy. Ask any child,” Pace said. “God has promised, and with receipts in hand, we show up to worship. We mourn, we dance, and we cry. We try to remember home. We try to petition God’s ear. We try to strengthen ourselves to get through the day.”

In addition, “we get together with friends, and we find communion beyond the walls of the church,” she said. “In this togetherness we find ourselves sharing stories, wine and bread and laughter, even letting ourselves sometimes experience the world with childlike wonder.”

In the waiting, “we find the God of our ancestors is the God who is right here with us,” Pace said.

When we remember, “it’s almost like we’re already there. As we long for home and carry it with us, we build it right where we are. It’s always been about love, about life. Even a crooked tree can bear fruit,” Pace said.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Steve Hoehn, Manager, Hubbard Press, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
• Courtney Hoekstra, Mission Coordinator I, Office of Innovation, Executive Director’s Office, Interim Unified Agency  

Let us pray:

God of all peoples, we thank you for the richness of your world and the diversity of your people. Help us learn from each other and support each other as we all explore better ways to serve you and our communities. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: ‘We would never tell a kid who painted off the paper they had no future in Sunday school’

The Rev. Dr. Almeda M. Wright

At Yale Divinity School, where the Rev. Dr. Almeda M. Wright is an associate professor of Christian Education, a Lilly Foundation grant helps cohorts to try, to fail, and to learn from their failures.

“I tell students, ‘I will give you money to mess things up,” Wright said Thursday during the second plenary at the Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education. “What I’m most interested in is what you learn in the process.”

In fact, Wright is so interested she wrote a foreword for a new book, “Nobody’s Perfect: Redefining Sin and Mistakes in Adolescent Christian Education,” which was published Feb. 25.

“The authors are pushing us in this work [as Christian educators] to consider mistake-making, particularly among young people, and to wrestle with centering the concept of making mistakes,” Wright said.

Wright began her career as an electrical engineer. “A skillset of engineers is I have an uncanny high skill level of messing things up. My gift is to blow things up,” she said. “A skill required of engineers is failing well. … Make mistakes and learn from them,” she said, adding this message to the pastors and Christian educators attending APCE’s Annual Event: “Build communities and transform cultures so one can be supported in failing and encouraged to try again.”

Too often, even for young people, the stakes are too high, Wright said.

“Instead of giving them room to fail, young people are forced into rigid expectations,” she said. “Perfectionism seems to be the only safe way.”

But Christian educators “can hold mistakes and embrace mistake-making.”

“The conversation is not simply over how to get it right, or how we can best be perfect,” she said. “It’s a reminder that as we wrestle with fallibilities, there is good news: the invitation is to create ways of telling more complete narratives about who we are and how we can live together” in ways where we’re “calling out, repairing [failures] and not being so afraid of messing things up that we don’t even start.”

The third cohort group is currently in place at the young adult ministry innovation hub for people 23–29 years old. “That’s a demographic most of our curriculum has nothing to say to,” Wright said. “We bring in artists, activists, and people who are dreaming. We try to help them think about different ways of doing ministry.”

When asked to give some examples, Wright mentioned an alternative Christian community with locations in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Hartford, Connecticut. Wright focuses on the latter because of its proximity to New Haven.

“They are dealing with people suspicious of the church,” she said. “They meet in coffee shops and gyms. Sometimes there’s a sermon, and sometimes there isn’t. They do a lot of talking and a lot of listening.”

“We mess up really well. We just don’t name it that way,” she said. The arts and crafts projects for the youngest participants can bring joy to the entire faith community.

“We know how to cover the surfaces and bring out the paint and the messy art supplies,” she said. “They put the paint on the canvas, and mother has never been prouder.”

“We need to remind ourselves of the ways we curate experiences like that with less predetermined goals,” Wright said. “How do we hold space to let young people know that making mistakes is part of life? We would never tell a kid who painted off the paper they had no future in Sunday school.”

It's an approach with biblical roots.

“I like the way the Hebrew Bible is full of stories of people messing up and God not counting them out,” she said.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Carissa Herold, Marketing Associate, Presbyterian Women 
• Nell Herring, Mission Specialist II for Volunteer Ministries, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Interim Unified Agency 

Let us pray:

God, thank you for the ripple effect on lives when we engage Scripture. Continue to encourage us “to take hold of life that really is life.” As we learn to share our faith and serve our communities, teach us how to be the church — rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: ‘Hold on’

The Rev. Dr. PJ Craig

As if to belie the theme of the Association of Partners in Christian Education (APCE) 2025 Annual Event, “A Stirring in Our Souls: Wrestling with God and Church Toward a More Beloved Community,” a generous, affirming and wholly non-contentious spirit welcomed attendees into opening worship and their first full session together.

“There will be no wrestling matches here,” said Tatayana Richardson and Jaime Staehle, co-chairs of the 2025 Annual Event. “This will be a space to be both challenged and encouraged, to lean into God’s work in and through us as the one big, slightly quirky, wonderfully gifted community that we are.”

Further reinforcing the event’s hospitable tone, Benjamin “Ben” Brody, chair of the Music Department, professor of Music and director of Church Music Studies at the Presbyterian-affiliated Whitworth University, led the gathering in gently evocative music, a fitting opening for the afternoon’s preacher, the Rev. Dr. Peggy Jean “PJ” Craig.

Craig, an ordained minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, is senior pastor at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Germantown, Tennessee.

Preaching on the event Scripture, Genesis 32:22–32 — in which Jacob wrestles with God at the Jabbok River — she opened in a confessional mode.

“I know nothing about wrestling,” Craig admitted. “The closest I came was one year in middle school with a girl named Maggie, who was much bigger and much madder than me. It was all super dramatic, but nothing happened. While that was the closest I came to a fight, I know people who fight. This is what you got, so let’s go with it.”

Through the stories of RJ, her skinny, scrappy, rural North Alabama high school classmate — who was arrested for fighting — and Ally, a fight-prone foster child whom she met while running an after-school program in North Philadelphia, Craig related the biblical Jacob’s birth narrative and subsequent history.

“Both [RJ and Ally] were kids who came out swinging like their life depended on it,” she said, “and I wondered if Jacob was like that, too. He came out swinging.”

It started in the womb, she observed, where he and brother Esau used to fight, with Jacob coming into the world holding onto Esau’s heel.

The Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education was
held in Memphis, Tenn. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom)

“In the blood and the fluid and the mess of labor, you couldn’t tell where Esau ended and Jacob began,” Craig preached. “It was like they were one.”

And yet, one brother couldn’t have been more different than the other. Esau, the firstborn, was strong and muscular. Jacob, the grabber, the fighter, stayed inside and cooked stews.

“Like so many other fighters, I wonder if Jacob was small and scrawny but scrappy and gritty like you have to be if you’re always second, always ignored,” she said. “I wonder what it’s like to never be somebody’s somebody. To be the one without the birthright. Like RJ and Ally, maybe every time they were fighting, they were fighting for somebody, anybody, to know that they existed. Maybe they wanted love, relationship, connection.”

After tricking his father Isaac into bestowing his blessing on him rather than Esau — who wanted to murder his twin — Jacob became estranged from Esau for 20 years.

It was while heading back to meet his brother after their long separation that Jacob found himself alone in the darkness, being attacked by a man and fighting back.

“Was there a minute when he thought, ‘This is my last one; this is the fight of my life?’” Craig said. “Minutes turned into hours, and, at some point, the man realizes that Jacob ain’t gonna give up. ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’ This man renames Jacob and gives him a clue as to who he has been holding onto all night. Maybe what is at Jacob’s core — no matter what his name is — is not so much about fighting, but holding on. He wasn’t the strongest or the biggest or the best, but he held on.”

Emily Enders Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Brian Henson, Desktop Support Analyst, Information Technology, Administrative Services Group (A Corp) 
• Jessica Hernandez, Electronic Marketing Associate, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation   

Let us pray:

Loving God, grant your people strength and energy for faithful witness, generous and open hearts, purpose, and the will to proclaim and live the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Fifth grader is ready to set the world on fire

Lydia Fry and her mother, the Rev. Laura Fry. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom)

Standing beside the fountain in the storied Peabody Hotel, visitors wouldn’t be surprised to see the world-famous resident ducks that march through its lobby twice a day. But they might not notice a 10-year-old girl on her own historic trek.

Lydia Fry, a fifth grader from Rochester, New York, journeyed here with her mother, the Rev. Laura Fry, to attend the Association of Partners in Christian Education (APCE) 2025 Annual Event, both for the first time.

And although the Fry family has often traveled together to other ministry-related conferences, this is the first solo outing for the mother-daughter duo.

The elder Fry, pastor and head of staff at the Perinton Presbyterian Church in suburban Rochester and a member of the Presbytery of Genesee Valley, was attracted to the APCE Annual Event primarily for its speakers and workshops, while daughter Lydia — who thrives on strategic board games, abstract art and all things Harry Potter — was in it for the adventure.

“I love games,” said Lydia Fry. “Splendor [a card-based board game] is my favorite.”

“So, we did our own research,” added her mother, “and we’re starting off our morning before the conference begins with a trip to the Adventure Museum.”

The highly interactive nature of the children’s museum has striking parallels with Fry’s own approach to ministry at the Perinton Church, where the congregation’s unique 8:30 a.m. service offers the full inclusion of children in worship leadership.

“The service was initially developed in 2021 to help families come back to worship post-Covid,” Laura Fry said. “It was an idea that came to me and for which I got input and support from both the Worship and the Christian Education committees.”

As she began planning the service, Fry said that when she interviewed her own two children about their favorite parts of worship, they — surprisingly — named the Gloria Patri, the Lord’s Prayer, Communion and Baptism.

“While these elements are not what you would typically think of as ‘child friendly,’ because they are things that children know by heart, they can participate,” said Laura. “It’s Reformed worship but simplified. The children do the readings and the music, serve as acolytes and help to serve Communion.”

The latter was especially significant to Fry.

“A year into it, we authorized children to help serve Communion,” she said. “We did a training session with the children and their families. As a pastor, I love that we expanded [the Sacrament] in that way.”

Fry acknowledges that while the full inclusion of children in the early service has its benefits, those who attend the church’s 11 a.m. service miss seeing the children.

“It’s part of the growing pains of it, but we’ve made our peace with it,” said Laura. “If we need to include children in this way, it’s a sacrifice that we’re willing to make.”

As for Lydia, she appreciates the service for another reason.

“It’s shorter!” she said.

And while Lydia added that her favorite worship leadership role is serving as an acolyte, she offered a word of caution.

“One time when I put the candles out, I thought if I drop it, I’ll set the church on fire,” Lydia said. “So be careful!”

APCE is an association made up of those who are serving or have served in educational ministries, as ministers, professional or volunteer educators, or students, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Moravian Church in America. The 2025 Annual Event was held in Memphis from Jan. 29 through Feb. 1.

Emily Enders Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)

Let us join in prayer for:

• Sarah Henken, Mission co-worker serving in Colombia, Interim Unified Agency
• Lorraine Henry, Director, Financial Protection & Retirement Program, Board of Pensions  

Let us pray:

God of abundance, remind us that we never give from scarcity but out of the abundance you have first shared with us. Show us the ways your gifts multiply to meet the need in our midst — and still leave us with abundance left over! Amen.