Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

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Yees Ku Oo Dancers presented a song of celebration at the conclusion of the service of apologies and responses Oct. 8, 2023, at Kunéix Hídi Northern Light United Church in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by Rich Copley)

Picking up on his previous day’s theme of faith communities and mid councils “seeing beyond the standalone model of being church,” Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall recently told the 540 or so people attending Synod School that he talked to several attendees about how they’re “creatively using God’s resources to be a blessing beyond themselves.”

One church is in the early stages of using its property to build housing needed in the community. Another church makes its commercial kitchen available for small businesses to bake items for sale.

One ministry Schlosser-Hall, deputy executive director of Vision, Innovation and Rebuilding in the Interim Unified Agency, has been following is the Wilmington Kitchen Collective in New Castle Presbytery. The collective began when a congregation partnered with a worshiping community who had connections with food vendors. The collective, which has a long waiting list of culinary entrepreneurs waiting to enter the program, has four goals:

• Provide low-cost shared kitchen facilities for growing food-based businesses.
• Increase access to capital and startup grants for entrepreneurs.
• Increase access to training and business development for entrepreneurs.
• Build a community of culinary entrepreneurs to support and encourage one another on their journey.

“The business development and economic support is important to us because we have heard over and over again from our entrepreneurs that space is not enough,” the Rev. Chelsea Spyres, the collective’s executive director, said during a 2022 webinar. “To launch and do business well in the startup phase, they need more support and resources,” including micro grants and business development coaching.

“We are not business experts,” Spyres said of Wilmington Kitchen Collective. “But we have a lot of connections in the community. We are more than a kitchen space.”

Schlosser-Hall went over some of the statistics from the PC(USA)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities that show of the 800 worshiping communities started over the past dozen years, 600 are still providing ministry. “That’s a much higher ratio than most innovation that happens,” he said.

New worshiping communities in the PC(USA) worship in 17 languages. Forty percent are multicultural. Seventy-eight percent of people involved with         worshiping communities are under the age of 55.

“This is happening in your neighborhood,” Schlosser-Hall said. “You are providing the resources and encouragement and engagement.” He said his prayer is that “we keep learning from each other and the synergy becomes infectious.”

However, even with all that imagination and innovation going on, there are places that many of us are not paying attention to, he said: the places where relationships are broken.

“The Church has been a place that caused harm for others. People are at odds with one another, and reconciliation has to happen,” he said. “When shalom is not present, there is distrust and suspicion that often keeps us stuck.”

When Schlosser-Hall was a new presbytery executive, his mentor told him that in the last 10 years of his ministry, 10 nearby congregations had shut down. Each of the closed churches had an instance of sexual misconduct unresolved and unaddressed, Schlosser-Hall said. “The suspicion and mistrust led to the spiral of inability to relate well to the community,” he said, “and the church ended up closing.”

“In our past as a denomination, there have been many ways where our theology and missional practice has harmed others,” and Schlosser-Hall showed this video to help Synod Schoolers understand one such case. The video tells the story of the 225th General Assembly directing an official apology and reparations for the racist manner in which Memorial Presbyterian Church in Juneau, Alaska, was closed in 1963.

“As we were working with the congregation on what reparative actions they would take to seek to reconcile this, we had to listen closely to what the folks who were experiencing the harm needed from this relationship,” Schlosser-Hall said. “Out of that listening came pages of compelling future-oriented cooperation in ministry. It released imagination that had long been dormant about what we might do next.”

“It’s not about events,” Schlosser-Hall said of the October 2023 apology and reparations. “It’s about relationships.”

Mike Ferguson, editor, Presbyterian News Service

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Tara Brannigan, Financial Administrative Assistant, Stony Point Center, Interim Unified Agency
Kendra Bright, Operations and Accounting Associate, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation 

Let us pray:

Loving God, we want to love as you love. Please make us executors of justice, lovers of strangers, and providers of food, medicine, clothing and shelter. As you give us resources and directions, we will follow your examples. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

September 15, 2024

In May 2022, Wilmington Kitchen Collective in New Castle 

Presbytery held its grand opening. More than 200 people turned 

out to celebrate. (Photo by Cindy Kohlmann)

Picking up on his previous day’s theme of faith communities and mid councils “seeing beyond the standalone model of being church,” Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall told the 540 or so people attending Synod School that he talked to several attendees about how they’re “creatively using God’s resources to be a blessing beyond themselves.”

One church is in the early stages of using its property to build housing needed in the community. Another church makes its commercial kitchen available for small businesses to bake items for sale.

One ministry Schlosser-Hall, deputy executive director of Vision, Innovation and Rebuilding in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, has been following is the Wilmington Kitchen Collective in New Castle Presbytery. The collective began when a congregation partnered with a worshiping community who had connections with food vendors. The collective, which has a long waiting list of culinary entrepreneurs waiting to enter the program, has four goals:

• Provide low-cost shared kitchen facilities for growing food-based businesses.
• Increase access to capital and startup grants for entrepreneurs.
• Increase access to training and business development for entrepreneurs.
• Build a community of culinary entrepreneurs to support and encourage one another on their journey.

“The business development and economic support is important to us because we have heard over and over again from our entrepreneurs that space is not enough,” the Rev. Chelsea Spyres, the collective’s executive director, said during a 2022 webinar. “To launch and do business well in the startup phase, they need more support and resources,” including micro grants and business development coaching.

“We are not business experts,” Spyres said of Wilmington Kitchen Collective. “But we have a lot of connections in the community. We are more than a kitchen space.”

Yees Ku Oo Dancers presented a song of celebration at the 

conclusion of the service of apologies and responses Oct. 8, 2023, 

at Kunéix Hídi Northern Light United Church in Juneau, Alaska. 

(Photo by Rich Copley)

Schlosser-Hall went over some of the statistics from the PC(USA)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities that show of the 800 worshiping communities started over the past dozen years, 600 are still providing ministry. “That’s a much higher ratio than most innovation that happens,” he said.

New worshiping communities in the PC(USA) worship in 17 languages. Forty percent are multicultural. Seventy-eight percent of people involved with worshiping communities are under the age of 55.

“This is happening in your neighborhood,” Schlosser-Hall said. “You are providing the resources and encouragement and engagement.” He said his prayer is that “we keep learning from each other and the synergy becomes infectious.”

However, even with all that imagination and innovation going on, there are places that many of us are not paying attention to, he said: the places where relationships are broken.

“The Church has been a place that caused harm for others. People are at odds with one another, and reconciliation has to happen,” he said. “When shalom is not present, there is distrust and suspicion that often keeps us stuck.”

When Schlosser-Hall was a new presbytery executive, his mentor told him that in the last 10 years of his ministry, 10 nearby congregations had shut down. Each of the closed churches had an instance of sexual misconduct unresolved and unaddressed, Schlosser-Hall said. “The suspicion and mistrust led to the spiral of inability to relate well to the community,” he said, “and the church ended up closing.”

“In our past as a denomination, there have been many ways where our theology and missional practice has harmed others,” and Schlosser-Hall showed this video to help Synod Schoolers understand one such case. The video tells the story of the 225th General Assembly directing an official apology and reparations for the racist manner in which Memorial Presbyterian Church in Juneau, Alaska, was closed in 1963.

“As we were working with the congregation on what reparative actions they would take to seek to reconcile this, we had to listen closely to what the folks who were experiencing the harm needed from this relationship,” Schlosser-Hall said. “Out of that listening came pages of compelling future-oriented cooperation in ministry. It released imagination that had long been dormant about what we might do next.”

“It’s not about events,” Schlosser-Hall said of the October 2023 apology and reparations. “It’s about relationships.”

Mike Ferguson, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Evangelism Sunday

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Cindy Rubin, Administrative Assistant, Ministry Engagement & Support, Administrative Services Group (A Corp) 
Gabrialla Rudovic, Housekeeper, Stony Point Center, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Loving God, we want to love as you love. Please make us executors of justice, lovers of strangers, and providers of food, medicine, clothing and shelter. As you give us resources and directions, we will follow your examples. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

New church development provides fertile soil for gospel growth

September 17, 2023

Eight new elders were ordained at Parkside Presbyterian Church’s 

chartering service. (Photo by Valerie & Ed Photography.)

“Did you agree to be dirt?” the Rev. CeCe Armstrong asked commissioners of Charleston Atlantic Presbytery and members of a newly chartered church in Charleston, South Carolina. The members of Parkside Church in Charleston, in accordance with G-1.0201 in the Book of Order, signed a charter that read in response to the grace of God, “We promise and covenant to live together in unity and to work together in ministry as disciples of Jesus Christ, bound to him and to one another as a part of the body of Christ in this place according to the principles of faith, mission, and order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).” As a result, the presbytery convened at St. Barnabas Lutheran Church, which is Parkside Church’s place of worship, for a chartering service on Jan. 29 to commission the church, ordain and install elders and fully install their organizing pastor, the Rev. Colin Kerr.

“Did you really feel called to all of this? Because the truth is, you’ve been called to be dirt,” Armstrong preached at the service. “Whenever you become a part of a congregation, you agree to be dirt.” Armstrong then drew on a connection with the parable of the sower and the idea that the seed of the gospel can flourish in the right kind of soil. Armstrong proclaimed that “Parkside is the right kind of dirt for this neighborhood.”

Those who have supported Parkside since its beginning and watched its growth in a short time certainly agree that Parkside’s vision, location and partnerships provide fertile ground for its ministry. The dream of Parkside began in 2016, according to Kerr and new elder Samantha Holvey, who was part of the original wine and cheese Bible study that began to pray about the idea that Kerr described as “a new Presbyterian church focused on reaching younger people and non-Presbyterians.” At the time, Kerr was working with 1001 New Worshiping Communities in the Presbyterian Mission Agency on a collegiate ministry called The Journey, which met in a bar near the campus of the College of Charleston. “Parkside started being dreamed up in 2016, initially as a joke,” Kerr said, but it became a serious idea when he and others started an advisory team. Despite launching during a pandemic, the church reached the 100-member quota required by the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery for official charter in late 2022.

Erin Norton leads worship at Parkside Church. (Photo by Valerie and Ed

Photography)

Holvey said she knew when she joined the Bible study that she had “found my people.” She was still recovering from an upbringing in a different denomination, during which she watched her mother be asked to leave her childhood church that did not support women in leadership roles, because they claimed that she “preached from the pulpit” at a church Mother’s Day event. When Kerr asked Holvey to join the advisory team to launch the church in 2019, she was all in: “I was always taught that Jesus loves everyone, and I finally feel like I’m in a community that lives that out.” The move from a new worshiping community to a fully chartered congregation means Holvey was also ordained a ruling elder during the chartering service. “It’s pretty magical that this thing that we’ve been working on for so many years is now official. Personally, it was also deeply meaningful to be ordained as an elder.”

Stories like Holvey’s are one of the many things that Kerr says make Parkside special. “In late 2022, we applied to charter and began elder training. None of our eight new elders have even been elders, and none come from the PC(USA).” Kerr also praises the “unique style of worship that is unmatched in the city” thanks to the leadership of Erin Norton, who according to Kerr is “a former evangelical who brings her progressive feminist convictions to bear” as a leader in their church, a current seminarian, a Presbyterian campus minister and an abuse-awareness advocate.

“Colin asked me to be a part of Parkside in the early planning stages in 2019,” said Norton, “but I was hesitant about getting involved in a church plant because of the amount of work involved.” Kerr promised “that it would be ‘just one Sunday,’” remembered Norton. “Well, the next week rolled around, and he needed help with worship for ‘just one more Sunday.’ Now, three years later, I am leading the congregation as the director of worship every Sunday.”

Becoming a chartered congregation means that Parkside can now sponsor Norton for ordination in the PC(USA), just another step in Norton’s calling that Parkside has seen her through.

The Rev. Colin Kerr prays with worship leaders before a service. 

(Photo by Valerie & Ed Photography)

“When Parkside first opened its doors, I was involved in a local church that did not affirm the equality and spiritual gifts of women,” said Norton. “It was such a relief to join a church where the spiritual gifts of women were uplifted, celebrated and valued. It is tangibly demonstrated in both our staffing and leadership. The voices of women are heard and honored in all levels of ministry, from both the pulpit to the planning sessions.”

Norton serves as more than a music leader in service, handling transitions and corporate prayer seamlessly between gathering songs and hymns of praise. “Our music ministry is top-notch,” Kerr said. That quality, along with its focus on biblical preaching and inclusion of marginalized communities, attracts younger members seeking refuge from a more restrictive evangelical background and confirms Kerr and the advisory team’s initial sense that Charleston needed a new PC(USA) church that reached out to younger generations unfamiliar with the denomination.

“Worship includes fabulous music and is contemporary, yet observing the traditional,” said Catherine Byrd, the stated clerk of Charleston Atlantic Presbytery, who helped with Parkside’s launch as a new church development and through the chartering process. “The presbytery was thrilled to commission Parkside in an age where many established churches are struggling. There were 121 charter members (meaning adults who signed the request to charter promising to support the new church) and there are 70 children in the congregation.” Byrd also noted the symbiotic ecumenical partnership that has also helped the startup congregation. “The use of the historic St. Barnabas Lutheran Church has been an essential part of Parkside’s success.”

Sister Carol Burk is a member of St. Barnabas Lutheran Church and serves as a liaison to the congregation. Burk, a Lutheran deaconess who was working in the church office in 2019, has been a supporter since her congregation first discerned a relationship with Kerr and his team. She is now the chairperson of St. Barnabas’ council and relates to Parkside in many ways. She attends worship every Sunday to assist with Holy Communion and has joined its community group ministry.

“Pastor Colin’s preaching is a perfect fit for anyone who attends worship at Parkside. Everything that Colin and his crew do is linked to Parkside’s vision, such as care of members and friends, providing exciting, but very holy, worship every Sunday, having a love of doing many kinds of ministry, and welcoming all who come to worship or experience love, graciousness and dedication from everyone who is involved in this ministry,” said Burk. “I can see the love and excitement in the eyes of everyone who comes for Holy Communion.”

That excitement rippled throughout January’s chartering service, through the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery and out to the Presbyterian Mission Agency, whose grants first watered the seeds of Kerr’s ministerial vision in Charleston.

“This is a big day in the life of Charleston Atlantic Presbytery, and it is on their behalf that I welcome you all here,” the Rev. Rebecca Albright, bridge general presbyter and pastor to pastors of the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery, said as she welcomed a packed sanctuary for the chartering worship service. “This is a meaningful event not only for the presbytery but for PC(USA) and certainly for Parkside Presbyterian Church.”

The Rev. Nikki Collins, coordinator for 1001 New Worshiping Communities, was able to watch the livestreamed event and celebrate the specialness of this step in their journey. “Watching Parkside grow to this place of maturity and witness, even as its beginning happened during a global pandemic, reminds me that God indeed has a mission, a purpose, a plan — and it is the call of the Church to follow this calling of the Spirit with creativity and relentless hope.”

Beth Waltemath, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus: Evangelism Sunday

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Peter Maher, Vice President & Managing Director, Investments, Board of Pensions
Steve Maier, Network Support Engineer, Information Technology, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Almighty Creator, Thank you for our dusty beginnings. Remind us, make us malleable, bring us together, and mold us into what you would have us to be. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

September 18, 2022

The Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Ph.D., preaches at Rendall.

“Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church is a small-in-numbers yet large-in-mission, Christ-centered, aging, progressive congregation in central (Black) Harlem. Its mission is to serve those in the community through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Evangelism happens at Rendall as a “by-product” of intentional, gospel-focused ministry that is relational, personal, spiritual and missional.

Since 2016, in partnership with the Department of Homeless Services of the City of New York, the church has hosted those who are without homes 365 nights a year from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with hot meals (breakfast and dinner), hot showers, clean beds, toiletries, small items of clothing and — vitally important — the safety needed to sleep in peace. Two other churches in the New York City Presbytery have since followed this model pioneered at Rendall. Rendall’s ministries to those in need attract younger adults to join the congregation.

Often in today’s world, millennials and Gen Xers question the “sound” of the trumpet call of the Christian church. Younger adults have joined Rendall teaming up with the session (which includes two millennial elders), deacons (currently all millennials), baby boomers and the greatest generation in joyful, intergenerational worship, biweekly Bible study (one taught by the baby boomer pastor and the other taught by a millennial), weekly prayer meeting (led by the greatest generation) and mission (administered by boomers and executed by millennials). Those who join believe Rendall is not simply talking about Jesus but being about Jesus. In Rendall’s compassionate service to the poorest of the poor, they trust the sound of the gospel.

The Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Ph.D., Pastor of Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Joe Ferguson, Director, Building Services, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Michael Ferguson, Reporter/Editor, Presbyterian News Service, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Dear God, let us not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but transform us into a new people by changing the way that we think. May we repurpose our lives and act accordingly. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

September 19, 2021

The Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Ph.D., preaches at Rendall.

Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church is a small-in-numbers yet large-in-mission, Christ-centered, aging, progressive congregation in central (Black) Harlem. Its mission is to serve those in the community through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Evangelism happens at Rendall as a “by-product” of intentional, gospel-focused ministry that is relational, personal, spiritual and missional.

Since 2016, in partnership with the Department of Homeless Services of the City of New York, the church has hosted those who are without homes 365 nights a year from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with hot meals (breakfast and dinner), hot showers, clean beds, toiletries, small items of clothing and — vitally important — the safety needed to sleep in peace. Two other churches in the New York City Presbytery have since followed this model pioneered at Rendall. Rendall’s ministries to those in need attract younger adults to join the congregation.

Often in today’s world, millennials and Gen Xers question the “sound” of the trumpet call of the Christian church. Younger adults have joined Rendall teaming up with the session (which includes two millennial elders), deacons (currently all millennials), baby boomers and the greatest generation in joyful, intergenerational worship, biweekly Bible study (one taught by the baby boomer pastor and the other taught by a millennial), weekly prayer meeting (led by the greatest generation) and mission (administered by boomers and executed by millennials). Those who join believe Rendall is not simply talking about Jesus but being about Jesus. In Rendall’s compassionate service to the poorest of the poor, they trust the sound of the gospel.

The Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Ph.D., Pastor of Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Teresa Waggener, Manager, Immigration, Office of the General Assembly
David Walker, Executive Vice President & Chief Investment Officer, Board of Pensions

Let us pray

Dear God, let us not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but transform us into a new people by changing the way that we think. May we repurpose our lives and act accordingly. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Evangelism Sunday

September 27, 2020

Flora Wilson Bridges preaching at Rendall

Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church is a small-in-numbers yet large-in-mission, Christ-centered, aging, progressive congregation in central (Black) Harlem. Its mission is to serve those in the community through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Evangelism happens at Rendall as a “by-product” of intentional, gospel-focused ministry that is relational, personal, spiritual and missional.

Since 2016, in partnership with the Department of Homeless Services of the City of New York, the church has hosted those who are without homes 365 nights a year from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with hot meals (breakfast and dinner), hot showers, clean beds, toiletries, small items of clothing and — vitally important — the safety needed to sleep in peace. Two other churches in the New York City Presbytery have since followed this model pioneered at Rendall. Rendall’s ministries to those in need attract younger adults to join the congregation.

Often in today’s world, millennials and Gen Xers question the “sound” of the trumpet call of the Christian church. Younger adults have joined Rendall teaming up with the session (which includes two millennial elders), deacons (currently all millennials), baby boomers and the greatest generation in joyful, intergenerational worship, biweekly Bible study (one taught by the baby boomer pastor and the other taught by a millennial), weekly prayer meeting (led by the greatest generation) and mission (administered by boomers and executed by millennials). Those who join believe Rendall is not simply talking about Jesus but being about Jesus. In Rendall’s compassionate service to the poorest of the poor, they trust the sound of the gospel.

The Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Ph.D., Pastor of Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Emily Odom, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Jihyun Oh, Office of the General Assembly

Let us pray:

Dear God, let us not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but transform us into a new people by changing the way that we think. May we repurpose our lives and act accordingly.