Ministry Matters - Faith & the scientific senses: awe | No holiness but social holiness

Why is the experience of awe so important to each of us? Faith & the scientific senses: Awe by Lawson Bryan   In its description of the early Christian Church the Acts of the Apostles includes this line, “Awe came upon everyone….” But how can such an experience be studied scientifically?  Researchers from Johns Hopkins University applied “factor analysis” to the answers of hundreds of questions about experiences of awe, which allowed them to create a psychometric scale to rate these kinds of experiences. Read here

What happens when we leave 'the room' bringing love with us? No holiness but social holiness: Communing and sending forth by William McDonald   You walk forward and kneel at the rail at the chancel steps. Your knees fall on the needlepoint image of the church as a ship on water. The body of Christ, given for you. The Christ remembered, the Christ present, and the Christ yet to come is here, in one bread, pressed into your slightly sweaty outstretched palm. You take Christ into yourself as he simultaneously takes you and the rest of the church—the symbol of which you’re kneeling on—into himself, his wounded and resurrected body. Read here

How can we best provide a safe, supportive space? Safer Sanctuaries: A comprehensive update by Chris Wilterdink   Leaders of faith communities play an essential role in providing a space of support, guidance and connection to individuals seeking to live out their spiritual beliefs. Safer Sanctuaries continues that tradition and expands upon those foundations. Read here

Focusing your faith, being prepared, and preparing a Sunday sermon Letting love and gratitude shine through in worship this week

Leading with kids in worship this week

Ministry Matters - How to pray | The (upper) room itself

How do we actually teach folks to pray? How to pray by Glenn Stallsmith   One of a pastor’s responsibilities is to teach the laity to pray, but most pastoral instruction on prayer is implicit, assuming the “do as I do” model of imitating the prayers offered on Sunday mornings. Desiring to do something more intentional, I put together a four-session class called “How to Pray” and offered it on successive Wednesday evenings for my congregation. Read here

What makes it proper to praise God always and everywhere? The (upper) room itself: thanksgiving and communion by William McDonald   The Lord is about to speak a word into your preoccupied, overscheduled life. God will not wait for you to become calm and serene, as if you were alone on a mountaintop, the alone seeking the Alone. Instead, you are here, in this gathering of preoccupied selves, all asking that we might hear a word from the Lord. Read here

How can we shift the culture of mediocrity and bring fresh accountability? Is your church practicing mediocre grace? by Rebekah Simon-Peter   These days, cheap grace has competition. To appease a different kind of cultural complacency, grace has come to mean a bar set quite low. Offering this grace requires little to no accountability, enforces few if any, standards, and bears almost no fruit. This low-level grace is most apparent in churches in our communal and organizational life. It translates into a kind of laissez-faire; you’re off the hook, no accountability stance. Read here

What's on your desk?   What books have shaped your ministry most? What biblical commentaries and tools do you keep coming back to? We want to know! Help us support clergy who are just beginning their ministry by sharing your opinion on the resources that matter most. Let us know here!

Living stones, chosen people, and your sermon this Sunday Finding love and refuge in worship with your congregation this Sunday

Leading with kids in worship this week

Today in the Mission Yearbook - A new day for farmworkers

One Great Hour of Sharing gifts support Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their ongoing struggle for farmworkers’ rights

May 9, 2023

Once a farmworker herself, Lupe Gonzalo now works for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida. (Contributed photo)

Lupe Gonzalo understands all too well the hardscrabble life of a farmworker.

Having worked for 12 years in Florida’s tomato industry — in addition to traveling to other states to pick sweet potatoes, apples and blueberries — Gonzalo often had to wake up at 4 in the morning to travel to a local farm, where she was handed a bucket and told to fill that bucket as many times as humanly possible during the day.

“That’s your job,” she said. “That’s what you’re there to do. And when you’re doing this work, sometimes you aren’t even given the time to stop, take a break, to drink some water or to just gather yourself.”

And, to make matters worse, farmworkers are generally paid sub-poverty wages, if they even get paid at all.

Gonzalo said that being shorted or stiffed on their wages is a rampant violation among farmworkers, along with other injustices they regularly endure.

“I experienced firsthand how farmworkers really didn’t have any mechanisms or any ways of protecting our basic dignity from abuse or from being mistreated when working in the fields,” she added.

And while all farmworkers are subject to flagrant exploitation, the women are especially vulnerable.

Generous gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing support, among other things, farmworkers’ rights. (Contributed photo)

“For farmworker women, one of the main things that they have faced is sexual harassment and sexual violence in the workplace, which can be verbal but also physical in its form,” Gonzalo said. “With physical touch, the women don’t really have an option of speaking out for themselves, because often if you do, you run the risk of losing your job. And if you lose that job, you’re not able to put food on your family’s table.”

But Gonzalo’s life — and the well-being of thousands of farmworkers — has changed, thanks to the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a worker-based human rights organization based in Immokalee, Florida.

As a partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, the CIW receives generous support through Presbyterians’ gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing.

Founded in 1946, the Offering’s purpose of helping neighbors in need around the world remains constant, giving the PC(USA) a tangible way to share God’s love since Presbyterians first joined the effort in 1947. One Great Hour of Sharing benefits the ministries of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Self-Development of People and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

The PHP has partnered with the CIW in many campaigns for decades and especially since the beginning of its Campaign for Fair Food, which was launched officially in 2001. This farmworker-driven, consumer-powered initiative has pressured major corporations to increase farmworkers’ wages while also seeking to protect the human rights of farmworkers with a Code of Conduct designed, monitored and enforced by the workers themselves.

“Accompanying the Coalition of Immokalee Workers as they struggle to bring safety and justice to the fields where our food is grown, I believe, is a perfect way to actualize our commitment to being a Matthew 25 denomination,” said Andrew Kang Bartlett, associate for National Hunger Concerns in the PHP. “Farmworkers face daily hardships rooted in racism, sexism and poverty, and our solidarity with them is a clear demonstration of our beliefs. Whether it is through donations, participation in marches, or bringing a manager’s letter to your local Wendy’s, Presbyterians can stand with the farmworkers and help build the kind of world we all need.”

By demanding that corporations be held accountable for how farmworkers are treated on the farms from which they buy, the CIW has been able to bring about significant change.

Including in Gonzalo’s own life.

“This whole story has had a real impact on Lupe in that all of these changes were happening when she was a farmworker in the fields,” said Uriel Zelaya-Perez, faith coordinator for the Alliance for Fair Food. “Lupe was one of the farmworkers who saw CIW go to her farm and do worker-to-worker education, where they were talking about the rights that farmworkers were entitled to, the mechanisms through which they could speak out, and how they can have a voice in the workplace. All of this piqued her interest to learn more about CIW, to become involved, and to use her voice to advocate not only for herself but also for her fellow farmworkers.”

Emily Enders Odom, Mission Interpretation Project Manager, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
José Manuel Capella-Pratts  &  Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, Regional Liaisons for the Caribbean, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency
James Carey, Director of Investments & Portfolio Management Services, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

God, you called us before we knew our names; you walk beside us when our steps are uncertain; you whisper before we know the words to speak. Continue in your teaching and help us to bear witness to your unfolding story among us. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - First Presbyterian Church of Roseburg, Oregon, helps connect its community

The Presbyterian Foundation’s Church Financial Leadership Coaching Program for pastors helps develop financial fluency

May 8, 2023

The Rev. Vicky Brown

In a town known for timber, a Presbyterian congregation continually finds ways to grow in service and stewardship.

First Presbyterian Church in Roseburg, Oregon, has its hands as well as its historic building in direct efforts to meet the community’s most basic needs. Through the Presbyterian Foundation’s coaching program for pastors, the Rev. Vicky Brown developed her knowledge and fluency in supporting this important work.

The work has grown more crucial in recent years. Located in western Oregon about an hour south of Eugene, Roseburg, with a population of about 24,000, has seen its economy rise and fall with the timber industry. It’s also weathered a 2015 college campus shooting that killed eight students and one teacher, and a 2020 wildfire that destroyed a total of 109 homes. Then, of course, there was the Covid pandemic. And the recession.

The 165-member First Presbyterian Church keeps stepping up.

“This is a very faithful congregation that’s been through a lot in the last decade,” Brown said.

Services from the Presbyterian Foundation have helped both the pastor and the congregation meet community needs, Brown said.

First Presbyterian Roseburg was one of several local churches that established the FISH Food Pantry, which it still supports financially and through volunteer service, said longtime church member Mike Fieldman.

Retired now, as executive director of the United Community Action Network (UCAN), Fieldman helped start a food bag program for children who may not have enough food at home over weekends, holidays and breaks.

“This past weekend, FPC assembled about 1,000 bags that were delivered to the school district offices,” he said. The district distributes the bags on Fridays to students who need them. The church does this twice a year — three times if the need is high.

“Hunger seems like it’s a constant,” Brown said. “There’s a high percentage of kids who need food.”

School officials began to notice attendance was up not only on Fridays but on Mondays, too, she said. “Kids felt better and ready to come back to school on Mondays. So, we could actually start to see an impact.”

Assembling the food bags is a great intergenerational project, too. Preschoolers, octogenarians and everyone in between packed the last round.

In another practical partnership, Umpqua Valley Habitat for Humanity has its office and holds board meetings at FPC Roseburg. Brown is a member of Habitat’s Family Selection Committee.

“We love having our office in the church,” said director Robin Hartmann.

Habitat is working with a woman who lost her home in the September 2020 Archie Creek Wildfire. The new house will be a 1,100-square-foot A-frame on the property where her former home stood, overlooking the North Umpqua Wild and Scenic River corridor.

Hartmann said a generous grant from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Presbytery of the Cascades allowed Habitat to begin pre-construction on the project. This funding also supports construction of access ramps, well and pump houses and equipment sheds for other area wildfire survivors.

“Habitat is grateful for this opportunity to partner with members of the church, and to be supported by Presbyterians across the Pacific Northwest and the nation to work alongside our neighbors to rebuild or relocate,” she said.

The church and UCAN also team up for the annual Point in Time homeless count. The federally mandated count, held on a single night in January, determines the level of homelessness in communities and nationwide. As in other years, First Presbyterian Church hosted the 2023 count.

“The church is where many of the people come to fill out the count forms,” Fieldman said. “It also affords them a place where they can receive some services — warm clothing, sleeping bags, a meal, medical services, a haircut.”

Church members prepare baked goods and other food and staff the event. “It also provides just a warm place to be on a cold January day,” he said.

Nancy Crowe for the Presbyterian Foundation

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Kelly Cahill, Business Administrator, Information Technology, Board of Pensions
Suzan Cantrell, World Mission HR Specialist, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Gracious God, you call us as partners in Creation. Through your Son, Jesus Christ, fill us with blessings and grow in our lives, that by the Holy Spirit we may go out into the world to do your will. Amen.