Today in the Mission Yearbook - The eye of the beholder

The Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman tells ‘Between Two Pulpits’ hosts she’s grateful for perceptive takes on her works of art

April 7, 2022

“Peace Without Your Walls” by the Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman was used as part of the Peace & Global Witness special offering.

While it’s always fun and enlightening to have an artist explain her work, the Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman clearly enjoys hearing what others read into her work.

That two-way street was on display during “Between Two Pulpits,” an online Facebook Live event. Watch this episode here.

Pittman, an ordained Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor and the founding creative partner and director of branding at A Sanctified Art, created pieces for last year’s Peace & Global Witness and Christmas Joy special offerings.

Pittman based the first work, “Peace Without Your Walls,” on Psalm 122, which reads in part, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you … Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”

She recalled waiting one day for convocation to begin during her time as a student at Columbia Theological Seminary. A flash mob of sorts “popped up out of nowhere,” she said, calling out the opening words to Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’”

“It was unexpected,” she said, a bit like the thought process that often goes into her work.

Walls keep things out and hold other things in, she noted. Towers are tall and narrow. They’re “not for habitation. They’re for observation or they’re defensive positions.” She wondered: Do those go together?

She envisioned a woman extending her arms, praying for peace. Then she asked her mother to stand on a chair and hold her arms out. “This woman emerged for me,” she said of the subject of her work, “and became the focal point.”

She chose white poppies as a symbol of peace, “to challenge the glamorization of conflict.” The flowers “grow in cracks in the walls as a vine would weaken a structure,” she said, “a nod to the work of God, dismantling walls and towers,” or ensuring “we have no need of them anymore.”

The title “Peace Without Your Walls” is “a direct reference to the text. There was a bit of cheekiness to that and the climate we are in” where “people are striving for a world of security and peace that looks different than what I think God wants for us. It’s a little confrontational.”

Her second creation, “Shining Hope,” is based on Matthew 2:7–12, the account of the star stopping over the place where young Jesus and his mother, Mary, were staying. They pay the child homage, give him gifts and then return to their country via a different route after being warned about Herod in a dream.

“The piece of the text that sticks out is the moment the star stops” after the wise men had been “chasing after this light source, a sense of hope that felt out of reach, a moving target,” Pittman said. “Joy is an emotion I often find elusive, but maybe this joy is reachable.”

In “Shining Hope,” the bodies of the wise men — there are three of them traditionally, a nod to the three gifts the wise men presented to Jesus — are waving, as if “they are blooming out of the ground,” Pittman said. “I thought of them as flowers growing out of the ground, the joy of the earth. I tried to capture the moment of them reaching for the star that has now stopped.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Teri Morrison, Accounting Coordinator, Presbyterian Foundation
Gad Mpoyo, Associate, Southeast Region, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, thank you for continuing faithful witness. We ask that you continue to encourage and challenge us to accomplish your work. In the blessed name of Jesus. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘My faith grows when I am with the people of Haiti’

On ‘Between Two Pulpits,’ mission co-worker Cindy Corell discusses kidnappings, earthquakes — and Haiti’s remarkable people

March 19, 2022

Cindy Corell

Even as she’s been working stateside during the pandemic, mission co-corker Cindy Corell continues to walk alongside her Haitian partners. As a recent “Between Two Pulpits” broadcast made clear, Corell’s heart is very much in Haiti, especially following the kidnapping of 12 adults and five children connected with a U.S. missionary organization.

“It speaks to the security crisis in Haiti. Kidnapping is a lucrative industry,” Corell told “Between Two Pulpits” hosts Bryce Wiebe and Lauren Rogers. Wiebe is the former director of Special Offerings and the Presbyterian Giving Catalog, and Rogers is project manager for digital fundraising.

For young people in Haiti, which has been plagued by an earthquake and the assassination of its president, “there are no jobs, and their purchasing power has gone out the window.” People 25 and under comprise about half of Haiti’s nearly 11.6 million people, Corell noted.

“What fills in for a job? Gang activity,” Corell said. The church had been immune to threats of violence and kidnapping because spirituality, especially Christianity, is held in high esteem there, Corell said. But now, “a vanload of foreigners driving through, it just looked like an opportunity,” she said. “So many things in Haiti snowball. You have a totally chaotic and horrifying situation.”

“I am in deep prayer for these folks who have just been kidnapped. I hope there is a resolution that brings everyone back,” Corell said. “But this is an everyday experience for the mothers of Haiti. They fear when their children go to school. They deal with everyday stresses of living in a tough situation.”

It is “kinship around the harm that we invite the world to see and engage and be a means of grace within,” said Wiebe, who has traveled to Haiti and worked with Corell there. “I know that’s what our partners have asked from us.”

Corell said she still marvels at the trust given her by people in Haiti.

“People will ask my opinion about things. When I am wrong, they will tell me I’m wrong,” Corell said. “I am a white American who represents a large church and a lot of partners and friends. It would be easy for them to say, ‘We need to keep her happy.’ At FONDAMA [a network of farmer organizations where Jean works as executive director], I heard one time, ‘That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.’ They knew I wouldn’t get mad and storm out, but it takes time [to reach that point in a relationship].”

“This is a place,” Wiebe said of Haiti, “where our faith teaches us is due honor.”

It was Frederick Douglass who once said that Haiti was never forgiven for being Black, Corell said. “It is nuanced and complex,” Corell said, adding that Simón Bolívar, who played a crucial role in the South American independence movement, once visited Haiti “to learn how to bring freedom to his people.”

Ever since the Aug. 14 earthquake rocked Haiti’s southern, less populated region, FONDAMA and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance have of course been responding. However, “criminal activity has really slowed a lot of the response,” Corell said. Donations to PDA, which can be made here, will go toward mid-term and long-term response, Corell said.

But when gangs slowed help following the earthquake, “guess who brought the aid?” Corell said. It was Haitians helping Haitians. “They gathered food and produce. Local markets offered food,” Corell said. “People got on their hands and knees to dig their neighbors out, and it happens every day.”

Asked by Rogers about her hope for the Church, Corell said it’s that “we listen closely to Scripture and follow the spirit of the New Testament” and that we “look to and love one another and see within the other ourselves. Jesus is a great promoter of that kind of reflective theology,” where one finds grace, mercy and love.

She also prays “we can find the energy to push for that mutuality we need and truly follow Jesus. The people of Haiti do this well. My faith grows when I am with the people of Haiti. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s steep in it like a teabag, and I think we will all come out of it better.”

 Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Karl Mattison, VP of Planning Giving Resources, Presbyterian Foundation
Jessica Maudlin, Associate, Sustainable Living & Earth Care Concerns, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Gracious God, thank you for mission and ministry. By your Spirit guide all your people that your love and grace may abound as we faithfully follow where you lead. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Upending the bushel basket that conceals our light

‘Between Two Pulpits’ episode focuses on hope in the depths of depression

February 25, 2022

Natalie Pisarcik, in front, is pictured with other deacons from First Presbyterian Church in Boonton, New Jersey. (Contributed photo)

Natalie Pisarcik, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Boonton, New Jersey, has already bravely shared her story of deep depression and the intention she once had to end her life before asking God to forgive her for what she called “a terrible mistake,” forgiveness Pisarcik said she did receive.

Pisarcik and FPC’s longtime pastor, the Rev. Jen Van Zandt, were recent guests on Special Offerings’ weekly Facebook Live event, “Between Two Pulpits.”

For the past three years, First Presbyterian Church has designated its 25% of the Peace & Global Witness Offering to the New Jersey Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Many faith communities across the country are set to receive the offering on Oct. 3, World Communion Sunday.

In 2020, according to Pisarcik, who served the congregation for years as a deacon, the communities the Boonton church serves lost more people to suicide than they did to the coronavirus.

“This is such a unique and tenderhearted place,” Van Zandt said of the congregation she’s served the last 14 years. “Peacemaking got legs when Natalie was on the Board of Deacons.”

“It is such a silent story for many pastors and congregations,” former Special Offerings director Bryce Wiebe said. How, he asked his guests, did you bring the topic forward for discussion?

“I believe God saved my life. I saw the light and God saved me,” Pisarcik responded. She wrote about her mental health struggles in the church’s 2020 Lenten devotional. “Life has not been perfect since that moment, but we all have a reason to be here and to hang on. It got legs,” she said of the story she shared. “I still can’t believe we are here sharing this story with you all.”

Asked to share their go-to Scripture passages on the topic, Van Zandt went with Paul’s famous reassurance in Romans 8: “ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Then there’s Psalm 139 with its focus on the nearness of God. “I pray that psalm a lot for myself and others who are struggling,” Van Zandt said.

Pisarcik said she relies on the admonition in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount against putting our light under a bushel basket.

“We all have some sort of gift,” Pisarcik said. “In times of darkness, God wants us to show it in some way — that’s the message. Don’t give up and have hope. God is with you through good times and bad.”

Asked about their hope for the future of the church, Van Zandt did not hesitate.

“It’d be great if we could all get back together. We are really missing each other. That’s something we are looking forward to — being reconnected,” she said. “The ministry has not stopped, and we are grateful to do ministry separately and together.”

The church’s future, she predicted, will be marked by “appreciating each other more and realizing there is a whole lot of work to do. There are a lot of hands and hearts that need reconnecting.”

“There’s a place for everyone in the church. Natalie found a home here. It’s a place people can really experience God’s love.”

Pisarcik said she’s missed participating in monthly services offered to residents of the New Jersey Firemen’s Home, a licensed health care facility in Boonton dedicated to the care of retired firefighters. Pisarcik herself is a volunteer firefighter. “They love it,” she said of the monthly service. “It is really valued and missed.” Her face brightened when Van Zandt informed her the services have resumed.

Wiebe prayed to close their time together, including this petition of the Almighty: “If we can’t pry up our own bushel baskets, sneak inside with us … to shine who we are for the sight of all people, for it is beautiful what you have made. That is your way: to join with, to gather among, to seek out, to save.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Unzu Lee, Mission co-worker serving in South Korea, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Chris Lega, Manager, General Ledger Office, Finance & Accounting, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Thank you, great God and Father, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us. To you be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all the world and all generations. Amen.