Women’s Leadership Development and Young Women’s Ministries is a national ministry of the Presbyterian Mission Agency operating within Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries (RE&WIM). The office provides resources and training programs to young adult women ages 18-35 considering leadership opportunities in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Human trafficking, or modern-day slavery as it is called by some, has become a lucrative business. It impacts women, children and men and can take the forms of sex trafficking or debt bondage. Farming and mining are just a few of the professions where workers barely make enough to feed themselves much less their families.
The church is often called into the public square to respond to injustice and seek change. It’s from this stance that the PC (USA)’s Office of Public Witness led a workshop at Big Tent 2015 to discuss ways in which the church and its members can address the root causes of injustice.
After three days of worship, workshops, Bible studies and children’s activities devoted to missional living in the areas of advocacy, poverty and discipleship, Big Tent 2015 attendees gathered in the University of Tennessee’s Alumni Memorial Building for a closing worship service before leaving Knoxville.
“Serving and transforming church members is not a more important responsibility than serving and transforming the community,” says Atef Gendy, PhD, president of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC). “When people experience kindness, mercy, love, and kingdom values, they think differently about the rule and reign of God over their lives.”
For much of her adult life as a pastor and associate presbyter, Ann Philbrick, associate for church growth and transformation for Presbyterian Mission Agency, has been interested in one key question: “What happens to congregations, that they get so stuck?”
On March 24, 1998, two middle school students, 11 and 13 years old respectively, pulled a fire alarm and waited outside, intending to shoot their classmates as they filed out of school. Five were killed, including one teacher, and 10 more were injured. Sadly, the Westside Middle School shootings near Jonesboro, Ark., set a precedent for similar acts of school violence in the years to come.
As our nation grows increasingly diverse, the way the church engages in ministry must also evolve. In an effort to meet the ever-changing needs of the changing church, Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries unveiled a new office—the Office of Intercultural Ministries—at Big Tent 2015, held this week in Knoxville, Tenn.
It’s a perennial problem for preachers, Bible study leaders and Sunday school teachers: trying to make an all-too-familiar passage of scripture exciting, fresh and applicable, not to mention doing that for an audience of more than 500 people.