Today in the Mission Yearbook - Healing through evangelism

The PC(USA)’s Evangelism Conference Oct. 3–5 will draw on the Gospel’s healing and liberating power

August 3, 2024

“The nature of Divine Love is to go as low as possible to serve the beloved.” — Mechthild of Magdeburg

This powerful understanding of God’s propensity toward helping and healing the least of these comes from the story of the beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg. A movement of laywomen that arose in the 13th century, the beguines were contemplatives, mystics and healers. Mechthild posited that, “God is never closer than in the longing emptiness of the night.” From that emptiness, she received and shared “prophetic critiques of the religious leaders of her day for their lack of holiness and their hostility toward passionate spirituality.”

Elaine A. Heath writes in “The Mystic Way of Evangelism”: “The church that reflects gospel priorities in the future will be the church that pays attention to the issues of social and environmental justice in the name and spirit of Jesus. Christian movements for human rights, civil rights and environmental justice will become stronger and more influential during the next decades of the 21st century.”

Healing through evangelism includes “early prevention.” Children and teens need the good news, and the 2024 Evangelism Conference, “A Lifestyle that Exudes Justice,” will empower us to offer this with a workshop by the Rev. Neema Cyrus-Franklin, director of the Around the Table initiative. This initiative cultivates faith formation within households and serves as a potent tool for evangelism and social justice. Through interactive discussions, practical examples, and insightful teachings, attendees will gain valuable insights on integrating faith into everyday practices, fostering an environment where the Gospel thrives, and justice is pursued and nurtured within the household setting.

The Rev. Dr. Debra J. Mumford, the dean and Frank H. Caldwell Professor of Homiletics at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, will be the conference preacher. An important part of the conference will be equipping participants to preach and teach justice as a lifestyle. Through this lifestyle of hope, we can heal ourselves and heal our land.

This was Julia Foote’s message. Ordained as the first woman deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the second to be ordained as an elder, Foote believed evangelism to be more than getting people to come to church. Foote indeed experienced “healing and sanctification as a deep reorientation of life away from fear and diminishment, toward boldness, belief in the power and of Christ within her and a willingness to defy social institutions and conventions that were sinful.”

Foote experiences healing of her own past as well as that of the horrors experienced by her mother through her own re-storying of her life. Through the lens of Zechariah 3:2, Foote claims the title of “a brand plucked from the burning.” She goes on to proclaim true holiness as a “radical and liberating call to equality between women and men, between Black and white.”

We echo Foote’s understanding of the healing and liberating power of the gospel. To learn more about this radical reorientation, we hope that you will join us for the Evangelism Conference, Oct. 3–5 in Louisville.

The Rev. Carlton Johnson; Associate Director, Theology, Formation & Evangelism;  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Today’s Focus: PC(USA)’s Evangelism Conference

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Hazel Montalvo, Housekeeper, Stony Point Center, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Sandra Moon, Ministry Relations Officer, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

O God, we thank you for the ministry of the Church to those in need. We ask that as you strengthen the compassionate ministry of your faithful servants, you reveal the depts of your love. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Sermon during PC(USA) Chapel service offers powerful insight to a parable perplexing to many

The Rev. Carlton Johnson helps national staffers prepare for Juneteenth with a prophetic take on the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

August 5, 2023

Photo by Arka Roy via Unsplash

During a recent online Chapel Service, the Rev. Carlton Johnson helped the PC(USA)’s national staff to celebrate Juneteenth a few days early with a thoughtful and provocative take on Matthew 20:1–16, the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.

Johnson, associate director for Theology, Formation & Evangelism in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, urged the 55 or so people gathered for worship ahead of the Juneteenth celebration to think of the parable as subversive speech akin to hymns and spirituals handed down by enslaved people as “coded language, above and beyond those who meant us no good.”

“A righteous system with a righteous workforce demands we look at the whole system,” Johnson said, “to make sure all are being compensated right.” It’s also important, he said, “to make sure we keep the distinction between legal and right. Enslaving people was legal. Denying women the right to vote was legal. Forcing children to work in coal mines was legal. But we have to ask: Is it just?”

This parable “was once used to suggest we trust enslavers” who “will treat you right if you do what they say to do.” But this landowner — “plantation owner” is close to the original Greek, Johnson pointed out — is dismissive of those who work for him. “The employment level at the time was heartbreaking,” Johnson said. “Many stood desperate in the public square, hoping someone would pick them up for work. This lowlife plantation owner takes advantage of their desperation.”

To the first group, he offers a denarius for the day’s work. He goes out to the marketplace three more times that day, offering to pay laborers “whatever is right.”

“The day goes on and the plantation owner hires more workers,” Johnson noted. “The day gets shorter, but the pay remains the same.”

The Rev. Carlton Johnson

Those who have toiled the whole day for the agreed-upon pay begin grumbling when the wages are paid. “Most of y’all would start hating on your co-worker,” Johnson said. “Why’s she getting paid more than me? Foolishness. All they wanted to do is take care of their families. It’s easier to attack a person than a system.”

Nat Turner and others instrumental in organizing slave rebellions “were not troublemakers,” according to Johnson. “These men were ministers of the gospel.” The late U.S. Rep. John Lewis would say, “If they got in trouble, they made good trouble,” Johnson said.

“I believe that is our call,” he said. People oppressed or in poverty don’t want to remain there. On June 19, 1865, “the last colony of enslaved people were notified of their freedom. That’s the good news of Juneteenth,” Johnson said. The “full good news” brought by Jesus is that “by working for the freedom of any group of people, we are all made free. That’s the kingdom of heaven, where the last will be first and the first will be last.”

“The Creator put us here together to work for the freedom of people, to be warriors in the struggle together to pull everyone up,” Johnson said, turning next to a quote by Vertner Woodson Tandy, the first African American registered architect in the State of New York: “We must fight till hell freezes over and then fight on the ice.”

“Friends, this is the gospel,” Johnson said during his benediction. “We are called to unite and fight for what is right.” The good news of Jesus as also expressed by Donny Hathaway, Johnson said, is that “someday we’ll all be free.”

“May the God of peace, joy and liberation be with you now and until the end of time,” Jonson said, closing with a Yoruba blessing from Nigeria: “Ashe, ashe. Go in peace.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Juneteenth with a prophetic take on the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Lacey Hunter, Manager, Finance & Administration, Director’s Office, Compassion, Peace & Justice, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Sherri Hunter, Program Assistant, Ecumenical Relations, Office of the General Assembly

Let us pray

Strong and Loving God, we pray that you will grant dignity and a living wage to all workers who desire to follow the vocation to which you have called them. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.