Good News
from the Presbyterian Mission Agency
The Young Adult Volunteer program is on its way to tripling its size. With sites in 6 countries around the world and 12 sites in the United States, young adults are committed to a year of service while living in intentional community and engaging in vocational discernment. Up to a third of the alums go on to seminary.
Youth Ministries helped to create the d365 devotional app, which has been downloaded tens of thousands of times by youth and young adults.
The Educate a Child, Save the World campaign was started to improve basic education in war-torn South Sudan. A number of US churches have stepped up to help fund a campaign that includes teacher training, school construction, and curriculum design along with reconciliation and peace-building work to help create a just and lasting peace so that the people of South Sudan can flourish.
165 churches have gone through the New Beginnings program, which helps them to chart a path toward engaging their communities with the gospel, rather than ceasing to exist.
We have mission workers serving alongside local churches in some of the most difficult and challenging contexts in the world, helping the local church to bring hope and light into dark spaces.
The Engage resource for helping churches and individuals to do evangelism in ways consistent with the call of the Gospel and our Reformed heritage has been widely used.
Company of New Pastors helps seminarians make the transition into ministry through peer groups and a commitment to spiritual disciplines.
Congregational Ministries Publishing is releasing a new children’s Sunday School curriculum designed to help students see how God acting out of grace toward the world, and how in gratitude we live as missionaries to our context.
Ten years ago the coast of Indonesia was pummeled by one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, leaving more than 200,000 dead and hundreds of thousands without homes. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has been working with international organizations over the last decade to help survivors rebuild their homes and their lives.
PC(USA)’s Hunger Program was one of the first to partner with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to address the rights of tomato growers suffering from physical and sexual abuse, low wages, and poor living conditions. CIW supporters have worked to encourage major businesses to sign on to the Fair Food agreement which moves to improve workers’ conditions and pay fair wages.
For more than five years, PC(USA) has worked to build Earth Care Congregations. Churches are joining the effort to find new, innovative ways to have an impact on climate change, recycling, and giving back to the earth.
It has been five years since the capital city of Haiti was hit with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. More than 230,000 people were left dead and 1.5 million homeless. Since that time, the ministries of Compassion, Peace and Justice have worked to rebuild homes, help jumpstart their economy and help grow new crops to feed millions.
Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries engages the church in its mission to become more diverse and inclusive. One way is by offering transformative gatherings like the Racial Ethnic & New Immigrant Seminarians’ Conference. Each year this event helps seminarians feel more connected to the national church and to racial ethnic and new immigrant leaders across the PC(USA).
