For Such a Time as This: A Small Church Residency — Growing Leaders, Growing Churches has announced recruitment plans for a new class of residency presbyteries, congregations and pastoral residents.
Launched by the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) in Fall 2009, For Such a Time as This: A Small Church Residency — Growing Leaders, Growing Churches is a timely and innovative program that pairs small, underserved congregations with recent seminary graduates in a two-year pastoral residency relationship. The program was designed to renew the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by equipping new pastors to grow small churches Deep and Wide in evangelism, discipleship, servanthood and diversity.
On the porch of the garden cabin at Warren Wilson College on September 1, the Presbytery of Western North Carolina’s two new For Such a Time as This pastoral residents were welcomed by their Asheville-area peers.
Just back from their extensive training and orientation at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Ky., Melissa Upchurch and Esta Jarrett joined 16 local Presbyterian pastors to introduce themselves, answer questions and learn about ministry in the WNC Presbytery.
Since he became pastor of the 33-member Lavonia (Ga.) Presbyterian Church on July 15, Jason Clapper has been out every day knocking on doors.
“We had five new people come out to church this past weekend, which was really exciting for the congregation to see,” Clapper said. “I’m seeing it myself but I’m also being told by people in the congregation that everyone is just really coming alive with a new hope. There’s a new energy and a new vibrancy that everyone is feeling.”
Clapper is one of ten recent seminary graduates who have received their first calls to ministry in the second year of For Such a Time as This, a pastoral residency program designed to renew the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by equipping new pastors to grow small churches Deep and Wide in evangelism, discipleship, servanthood and diversity.
Ten recent seminary graduates have received their first calls to ministry in the second year of For Such a Time as This, an innovative pastoral residency program designed to renew the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by equipping new pastors to grow small churches Deep and Wide in evangelism, discipleship, servanthood and diversity.
Launched by the General Assembly Mission Council in Fall 2009, For Such a Time as This: A Small Church Residency—Growing Leaders, Growing Churches is a timely and innovative program that pairs small, underserved congregations with recent seminary graduates in a two-year pastoral residency relationship. One of the program’s unique and essential features is that each pastoral resident receives the support and guidance of a network of pastor/mentors, presbytery, and national church leaders.
“Raising Up Leaders,” the seventh and latest entry in a popular video series showing how congregations are responding to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s call to “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide” is now available for download through the General Assembly Mission Council’s website.
Every week, worship services at Pasadena Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, Calif., are held in English, Korean and Spanish. It’s certainly not unusual for congregations to share space; many churches have other groups “nested” with them. But Pasadena Presbyterian Church is different in that these aren’t separate congregations.
What started out as a one-time holiday gesture for Rabun Gap Presbyterian Church in north Georgia has become an eagerly embraced ministry that serves the community and fuels growth for the church.
We usually think of new things as exciting, but for Stillwater United Church in Stillwater, N.Y., old Bible stories are generating fresh excitement.
Hollywood's stories can be an entertaining departure from reality, but they can also be an eye-opening look at things happening right in front of us.
Partnership is always a delicate balance between two sides, but what happens when one side is so large that it could easily swallow up the other?