Greetings from Portland, Oregon, and the 222nd meeting of our PCUSA General Assembly. Elected commissioners, presbytery leaders, and folks from all around the country (and the world) are meeting in the Oregon Convention Center for a week of worship, mission updates, committee meetings, and plenary sessions. Our General Assembly meets every other June and the locationContinue reading “Greetings from Portland, Oregon”
Category Archives: EP on eLink
SESSIONS
The following Two-Minute Challenge was offered at our recent stated Presbytery meeting. Nearly everyone in this room tonight is a member of a session, because nearly everyone here is a Ruling or Teaching Elder. “Session” is our Presbyterian term for the wise council of a congregation, the regular gathering of those Jesus calls to lead andContinue reading “SESSIONS”
#neighborhood
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) The New Testament reports, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” That happened once in first century Jerusalem, with the strange and wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those first genContinue reading “#neighborhood”
#neighborhood
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) Matthew remembers how Jesus broke bread and multiplied some fish and 8,000 or more were fed (when you count the woman and children … and we should always count the women and children!). Recently, members of the Calvin Presbyterian ChurchContinue reading “#neighborhood”
#neighborhood
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) Sometimes we overthink church. Take the word “ministry,” for example. If you’re getting your hair done downtown and the gal next to you says something like, “You know, so-and-so’s son is going into the ministry” … you’d never think toContinue reading “#neighborhood”
#neighborhood
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) I believe it was that nice man Bob, way back in the side burn days of 1971, on that new Street show for teaching children how to be nice, who first asked, “Who are the people in your neighborhood?” (I bet youContinue reading “#neighborhood”
#neighborhood
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) Once a month, throughout the year, the deacons of Wampum Presbyterian Church visit a nursing home in the region. Call it a traveling tabernacle of smiles and songs, whose liturgical paraphernalia is simple. A box of songbooks is lugged in fromContinue reading “#neighborhood”
EP on eLink
Cultivation: Corn Row Christians My regular drive from my home in New Wilmington to the presbytery office on Route 18 brings me by several Amish farms with large planting fields adjacent to their homes. I love catching a glimpse of Amish families working hard in their fields, always an inter-generational affair and often making useContinue reading “EP on eLink”
EP on eLink
MAINTAINING, continued In many a joke about the changing of lightbulbs , we Presbyterians are regularly accused of holding on to nearly everything from the past. (Change? Why would we?! No matter that the bulb is burned out.) I know a Presbyterian minister who would save burned-out bulbs from the church building, marking on theContinue reading “EP on eLink”
EP on eLink
Hand Holding “Maintenance” is a word that has fallen on hard times. Maintaining isn’t very sexy in an era often punch drunk on the new and the now. And the life of Christian communions is not immune from this intoxication. If you so choose, you could fill up your Saturdays with church conferences urging usContinue reading “EP on eLink”
The Presbytery of Shenango 