The Presbytery of Shenango

eLink News

News from the Presbytery Office

Office Hours during NWMC

Just a reminder that the New Wilmington Mission Conference begins tomorrow, July 24th. Presbytery Staff will be attending portions of NWMC next week, so if you stop by and don’t find us in the office, join us on campus. Read more about NWMC at http://www.NWMCmission.org.

New Wilmington Mission Conference

Dave Dawson will make a presentation at 12:45 PM on Wednesday at the McKelvey Center on some of our mission challenges today and how they relate to the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Also don’t miss:

□ david bailey in concert Thursday evening at 7:45 PM in Anderson Auditorium

□ celebration of 50 years of Summer Service on Friday evening at 7:45 PM in Anderson Auditorium.

Owl Patrol at Westminster Highlands

August 1-6, 2010. Children will have fun guided activities that include night hiking, glow in the dark fun, swimming in the dark, learning about God, Jesus and “night creatures”. Breakfast will be served at 2 PM. Regular registration fee is $340.00, but if you register your child now, you will save $40.00. Register online at http://www.capnwp.org or by calling 724-738-0058. Read the brochure andinformation sheet.

Resource Center News

Read the Summer 2010 edition of the Resource Center News to find out what is new and available in the Resource Center. http://www.shenango.org/PDF/Resource/Newsletter%20Summer%202010.pdf

Teaching Younger Youth?

There are resources for teaching younger youth available online or at the Presbytery’s Resource Center.

FAQ: Faithfully Asking Questions is based on actual questions posed by youth. In this quarterly curriculum, the answers to their questions come from Scripture, creeds, and the Presbyterian Study Catechism.During the 2010-2011year the focus is on questions about the Apostles’ Creed. This resource is available online from pcusa.org/webelieve or, you can borrow a hard copy of the fall quarter from the Resource Center. Each of the 13 easy-to-teach sessions suggests activities appropriate for the young adolescent age group.

For those who want a full-year, in-depth study as a preparation for Confirmation class, the “survey courses” are also available. At the Resource Center we have copies of the one-year survey courses of the Old Testament, the New Testament, “I Know My Bible,” (a one-year survey of the whole Bible,) and a study of Church history.

International Christian Art at the New Wilmington Mission Conference

16 colorful paintings will be on exhibit at the Westminster College Art Gallery during the New Wilmington Mission Conference (July 24-30). You can see examples athttp://www.omsc.org/art.html.

News from the Churches

Items for Sale

For Sale: Two tan Modern Fold divider curtains. Like new condition. Used at Westfield Church to divide Sunday School rooms. Dimensions: 8’6” tall, spans 20 feet. Best offer accepted. Shipping/pick-up/delivery to be discussed. Pictures available upon request. For inquiries, please ask for Dave at 724-971-8384.

Secretary Wanted
Calvin Presbyterian is currently searching for a part-time SECRETARY. The position is 15 hours per week. Computer skills are necessary. Please send resume to Personnel Committee, Calvin Presbyterian Church, 615 Crescent Ave, Ellwood City, PA 16117.

eLink News EXTRA

Office Hours during NWMC

Owl Patrol at Westminster Highlands

eLink News

News from the Presbytery Office

Technical Problems Solved

Last week’s technical problems with eLink have been solved, but as a result, you may receive both last week and this week’s editions of eLink in your mailbox today. If not, last week’s information is repeated in this week’s edition.

Prayers

Janice Good’s (Associate, Tower) mother-in-law died on July 15^th. The memorial service will be this Saturday, July 24^th.

General Assembly Link

The following link includes a letter from the General Assembly Moderator and links to information on several major actions of the General Assembly. Often information coming out of General Assemblies in the media is less than accurate. This will provide for you more precise information. http://ga219.pcusa.org/news/2010/7/10/post-general-assembly-pastoral-letter-moderator-an/

GA Delegate Report

Read Delegate, Rev. Tom Gomola’s summary of GA actions, at http://www.shenango.org/PDF/News/219%20th%20General%20Assembly.pdf

It’s your story! It’s our story!

We have an amazing opportunity to share through a national television broadcast the story of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s long term response to hurricane Katrina and the thousands of volunteers who have walked alongside the people of the Gulf Coast. But we need your help!

Coming Home: Hurricane Katrina 5 Years Later explores the relationships between survivors and volunteers and stories of how they have touched each other’s lives. It is a documentary about what it means to survive a disaster and face the long term recovery process. It’s a story about how the Presbyterian Church and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance stayed with the survivors long after the news teams left. It’s a story about how thousands of ordinary Presbyterians made an extraordinary difference in providing hope for the real people who lived through the hurricane and its destruction.

This is a wonderful opportunity to share the ministry and faithful commitment to long-term recovery that Presbyterians have made!

Coming Home: Hurricane Katrina 5 Years Later was selected to be part of the “Horizons of the Spirit” religion series, a cooperative effort of NBC-TV and the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission for nationwide broadcast starting September 12, 2010 and will be available for broadcast for a period of six months on your local NBC affiliates. The documentary is available free to NBC affiliate stations – BUT THEY MUST REQUEST THE PROGRAM. Here’s how you can help:

Contact your local NBC affiliate and ask them to order and air“2010 Horizons of the Spirit Series” – Coming Home: Katrina 5 Years Later It is available through the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission from September 12, 2010 through March 12, 2011. Find your our local NBC affiliate.
Tell them this would have a positive effect upon your community. If you or members of your church participated in a volunteer mission trip to the Gulf Coast, let them know.
Encourage others in your congregation and community to spread the word and contact their local NBC stations today!
Learn more and a download a bulletin insert on the PDA website.

Resource Center News

Read the Summer 2010 edition of the Resource Center News to find out what is new and available in the Resource Center. http://www.shenango.org/PDF/Resource/Newsletter%20Summer%202010.pdf

Teaching Younger Youth?

There are resources for teaching younger youth available online or at the Presbytery’s Resource Center.

Please Pray for the Sudan Church

The annual meeting of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (one synod with 4 presbyteries) will be held this Thursday – Saturday. Please pray for the church in the Sudan; wisdom for their rapid growth; a peaceful vote in January about dividing into two countries; schools that train leaders.

Higher Education Scholarships Awarded

The following students have received a scholarship from Shenango Presbytery:

Grove City College

Samuel Leuenberger, Miriam Kararias, Sam Clarke, Mary Kate Breese

Westminster College

Leah Hunter, Brett Glavey, Katie Tomko, Alex Taylor

New Wilmington Mission Conference Begins Saturday

Featuring speakers such as Rev. Saleem Ghubril, Rev. Jen Haddox, Dr. Freddy Elbaiady, and more… For more information and schedule, please visit http://www.NWMCmission.org.

International Christian Art at the New Wilmington Mission Conference

16 colorful paintings will be on exhibit at the Westminster College Art Gallery during the New Wilmington Mission Conference (July 24-30). You can see examples at http://www.omsc.org/art.html.

News from the Churches

Items for Sale

eLink News

News from the Presbytery Office

General Assembly Link

It’s your story! It’s our story!

Coming Home: Hurricane Katrina 5 Years Later explores the relationships between survivors and volunteers and stories of how they have touched each other’s lives. It is a documentary about what it means to survive a disaster and face the long term recovery process. It’s a story about how the Presbyterian Church and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance stayed with the survivors long after the news teams left. It’s a story about how thousands of ordinary Presbyterians made an extraordinary difference in providing hope for the real people who lived through the hurricane and its destruction.

This is a wonderful opportunity to share the ministry and faithful commitment to long-term recovery that Presbyterians have made!

Contact your local NBC affiliate and ask them to order and air “2010 Horizons of the Spirit Series” – Coming Home: Katrina 5 Years Later It is available through the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission from September 12, 2010 through March 12, 2011. Find your our local NBC affiliate.
Tell them this would have a positive effect upon your community. If you or members of your church participated in a volunteer mission trip to the Gulf Coast, let them know.
Encourage others in your congregation and community to spread the word and contact their local NBC stations today!
Learn more and a download a bulletin insert on the PDA website.

Teaching Younger Youth?

There are resources for teaching younger youth available online or at the Presbytery’s Resource Center.

FAQ: Faithfully Asking Questions is based on actual questions posed by youth. In this quarterly curriculum, the answers to their questions come from Scripture, creeds, and the Presbyterian Study Catechism. During the 2010-2011year the focus is on questions about the Apostles’ Creed. This resource is available online from pcusa.org/webelieve or, you can borrow a hard copy of the fall quarter from the Resource Center. Each of the 13 easy-to-teach sessions suggests activities appropriate for the young adolescent age group.

eLink News

News From The Presbytery Office

Follow Along with General Assembly Action

The 219^th General Assembly began Saturday, July 3^rd in Minneapolis, MN. Please keep our commissioners (Rev. Tom Gomola (Leesburg), Rev. Steve Stelle (Faith), Elder Dan McBride (Fredonia), Elder Lee Wagoner (Bethel) and YAD Abby Pherson (3^rd, NC)) in your prayers during the assembly. You can follow along with the events and decisions at GA, watch videos, and more, by clicking on the icon on the left-hand side of the Presbytery homepage, http://www.shenango.org.

Meeting Alert- Presbytery Office Will Be Unavailable

Aqua Pennsylvania will soon begin work using the easement granted at Presbytery a few weeks ago. Their work will take over the Presbytery parking lot, and will be extremely noisy, messy, and may at times shake the entire building. We are requesting that all committees move their meetings to an alternate location at least until October. They have promised to give us advance notice of when the work will begin, but guarantee that it will happen in the next three months and will take several days or longer. It is also likely that Presbytery staff will be unable to get into the parking lot or be able to use the building during their work- we will still be answering emails and sending out eLink during that time though. We’ll let you know when we know.

News From The Churches

Felt Set Needed

The Christian Ed. Director from Faith Presbyterian Church (Hermitage, PA) would like to know if any churches have Bible Felt Sets they are no longer using and would be willing to donate or sell for use in his Children’s Ministry Department. You can reach him by phone at 724-962-4155 or email him at Joshua.lee@faithpc.net. Thank you for your kind consideration!

The Faith Factor is Coming to New Castle

Join Rev. Percy W. McCray Jr. for an uplifting and informative presentation that investigates the growing body of research linking faith and spirituality to improved quality of life. Rev. McCray is the Director of Pastoral Care at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. To be held on Saturday, July 31, 2010 from 10 AM until 12 PM at St. Paul Baptist Church (616 West North Street, New Castle). RSVP by July 27^th to Caroel Mills at 724-652-3063 or Pauline Phillips 724-657-0034.

eLink News

This Week:

June 30- 10:00 AM Church & Community Committee, Presbytery Office
July 3- General Assembly Convenes in Minneapolis, MN
July 5- OFFICE CLOSED, Independence Day Holiday

News From The Presbytery Office

General Assembly Begins This Week

The 219^th General Assembly begins Saturday, July 3^rd in Minneapolis, MN. Please keep our commissioners (Rev. Tom Gomola (Leesburg), Rev. Steve Stelle (Faith), Elder Dan McBride (Fredonia), Elder Lee Wagoner (Bethel) and YAD Abby Pherson (3^rd, NC)) in your prayers during the assembly. You can follow along with the events and decisions at GA, watch videos, and more, by clicking on the icon on the left-hand side of the Presbytery homepage, http://www.shenango.org.

David Dawson Is Attending Mission Historians Conference

One hundred years ago this week 1200 delegates were meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland for the World Missionary Conference. This was the most significant conference in the modern Protestant Missionary Movement. For the past eight years, Dave has used study leave to attend the Yale-Edinburgh Grouphttp://www.library.yale.edu/div/yaleedin.htm of mission historians. This year he is presenting a paper (July 2) on the significance of the 1910 conference and its relationship to mission issues today including short term mission trips, the Missional church conversations and our partnership with the Sudan. Click here if you would like to see the paper.

Wish your Youth Group would get more out of their summer mission trip? Wish you could encourage young adults in your church to seek Godly careers? Need something exciting for those facing retirement? Wish you could connect in a more real way with what is going on in world mission?

A week at the New Wilmington Mission Conference might be just what you need. It’s not too late to sign up. Send just one person or a group to the New Wilmington Mission Conference held on the Westminster College campus July 24-30, 2010. Check out the Power Point at http://www.NWMCmission.org or call 724-946-9770 for more info.

New Adult Study Now Available!

At this time of year, many churches are looking for study materials for adults. This fall, you should consider a new series called Being Reformed: Faith Seeking Understanding. This series, based on “The Great Ends of the Church,” has a Leader’s Guide and a Participant’s Book for each study. Although they are written by top scholars, they also are written accessibly so that no previous background in the topic is necessary. The editor of the series, Don McKim, writes” We are using the rubrics of head, heart, and hands to develop this series, so that we will be moving our minds by new ideas, stirring our emotions with responses of gratitude, and engaging us for action in our Christian lives.”

We now have three books from this series in the Resource Center. They are:

John Calvin: Founder of the Reformed Tradition, by John R. Walchenback

Discipleship: The Way of Jesus, by John P. Burgess

And

Worship as Evangelism, by LindaJo McKim.

Two more titles: Islam and Christianity and Theology for Presbyterians will be available soon. You can borrow the books from the Resource Center or order them from http://www.pcusa.org/webelieve online. Debbie or Margaret will be happy to answer your questions about the materials.

Scholarships from the Synod of the Trinity

The Synod of the Trinity (Presbyterian Churches from 16 presbyteries in PA and WV) met recently and reported that scholarships and grants were given to individuals in Shenango Presbytery:

· Marsha Parrish, CLP at Oak Grove – for seminary studies (1 of 10 recipients)
· College Scholarships – the largest number (14) of a total of 69 were granted to students from Shenango churches
· Peacemaking/travel grants were given to Leesburg, Bell Memorial, First (Sharon), New Wilmington, and Shenango churches.

Your session’s contributions to the Presbytery/Synod Ministry and Mission will assist in providing these funds to our churches.

News From The Churches

Felt Set Needed

EP on eLink

The following was my report to Presbytery on June 22.
– David Dawson

What Kind of Presbytery?

Here’s a little known fact for you: If you attend all five meetings of Shenango Presbytery this year you will have spent fewer hours on Presbytery meetings than if you had attended all of the meetings in any of the other 172 presbyteries in the country. Comforting…but not good enough!

At the April meeting of Presbytery I encouraged you to discuss with your session the meaning of the statistical data distributed: membership, attendance and giving in your church.

We also have to give the same attention to how we are doing as a presbytery. At the beginning of this year we had a very large amount of Presbytery per capita unpaid from 2009. There has historically been $10,000 – 12,000 not paid each year, but this year it was over $20,000. There are a variety of reasons for this. The Budget and Finance Committee made inquiries and, thankfully, a significant amount of the shortfall has been paid and more is expected.

This is just one bit of data that needs to be consider as we look at how we are doing as a presbytery. We need to ask about the meetings of Presbytery. What happens here? Do we do presbytery well and faithfully? Do you leave saying that it was time appropriately spent for the Kingdom? What about the time between meetings?

These are questions being considered by the Steering Committee of Council. That is the committee that “steers” emerging issues through the Council and committees of Presbytery. It includes the moderator, vice moderator, moderator of Council, clerk, a couple elected members of Council and myself. We have decided in the Steering Committee that we need to take a careful look at our situation as a presbytery. We did this ten years ago so it’s time to take stock again of how we are doing.

We will be raising these questions with the Council. We will also include all of you as we think and pray about being 68 faithful churches in Mercer and Lawrence counties. I would encourage your session to spend some time with this question: given the Book of Order, chapter 11, what is needed from Presbytery…those of us gathered in this way five times a year? What do you expect as a session from this covenantal relationship as one of 68 churches?

There are radical changes afoot in American Christianity, including the PC(USA). We in Shenango Presbytery have not felt some of those changes as much as have most other presbyteries. But it is time to reflect on who we are and what God expects of us. I look forward to the conversations that lie ahead.

David Dawson

June 22, 2010

eLink News

This Week:

June 30- 10:00 AM Church & Community Committee, Presbytery Office

News From The Presbytery Office

Prayers for david bailey

david has been falling a lot and having multiple other symptoms. His surgeon at Duke Medical Center thinks it may be a build-up of spinal fluid, so he will be going to Duke later this week. Please keep him in your prayers.

David Dawson Will Attend Mission Historians Conference

One hundred years ago this week 1200 delegates were meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland for the World Missionary Conference. This was the most significant conference in the modern Protestant Missionary Movement. For the past eight years, Dave has used study leave to attend the Yale-Edinburgh Group http://www.library.yale.edu/div/yaleedin.htm of mission historians. This year he will present a paper (July 2) on the significance of the 1910 conference and its relationship to mission issues today including short term mission trips, the Missional church conversations and our partnership with the Sudan. Click here if you would like to see the paper.

Fall Sunday School is Coming! Would you like to think about what curriculum you will be using?

The fall We Believe resources have arrived and are on display in the Presbytery Resource Center. There are exciting materials for teaching all ages groups from Wee Believe for toddlers (from 18 months to 3 years) and preschool age children, younger and older elementary students, youth and adults.

In addition to the Present Word Uniform Lesson quarterlies, there is a completely new adult series for Presbyterians called Being Reformerd: Faith Seeking Understanding, edited by Don McKim. There are five studies in this program with both a leaders’ and participants’ book for each. They are: Theology for Presbyterians, Discipleship: the Way of Jesus, Islam and Christianity, John Calvin, and Worship as Evangelism. Margaret will be happy to answer questions there or come to your church to tell you more about these resources.

News From The Churches

Yard Sale

Ebenezer Presbyterian Church (2426 Scrubgrass Road, Grove City) will hold its annual yard sale June 26th from 8:00 – 1:00.

Official Call to the June 22, 2010 Meeting of Shenango Presbytery

The next stated meeting of Shenango Presbytery will be held on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at First Presbyterian Church of Sharon.

– Candidate Nathan Leslie will be examined for ordination and call to Bessemer Church.

– New Camping Association Director, Ken Empfield, will be introduced.

– Information about “Celebrate Sudan” event on October 3^rd will be announced.

– New Moderator, Glenn Hink, and Vice Moderator, Amy Na, will be installed.

Get the docket online at: http://www.shenango.org/News/meeting.htm

eLink News

This Week:

June 15- 7:00 PM Committee on Ministry, Jim Mohr’s home
June 18- 12:30 PM Preparation for Ministry, Presbytery Office
June 22- 6:30 PM Presbytery Meeting, 1^st Sharon (Docket announcement will be sent tomorrow.)

News From The Presbytery Office

Fall Sunday School is Coming! Would you like to think about what curriculum you will be using?

Copies of all of these may be viewed at the June 22 Presbytery meeting at First Church Sharon. Margaret will be happy to answer questions there or come to your church to tell you more about these resources.

News From The Churches

Question

Kathy Brown from Slippery Rock Presbyterian Church would like information from other churches on how they got their AED (automated external defibrillator) for their church. She is wondering if help is available to small churches to make the purchase more affordable. You can email her atboomerbr@zoominternet.net.