¹   Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
²   I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”

³   As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.

⁴   Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.

⁵   The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
⁶   The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.

⁷   I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
⁸   I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

⁹   Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
¹⁰  For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.

¹¹  You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

From The Mission Year Book:

Taiwan presbytery comes through by sending 300 handmade masks

February 11, 2021

Christine Felts. assistant clinical director at Secen Counties Service / Bellewood & Brooklawn, and Sam Jewell, chaplain. are seen in their masks from Taiwan’s Changhua Presbytery. (Contributed photo)

No sooner had the small delegation from the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky — its general presbyter, stated clerk and moderator — renewed their passports and booked their flights to Taiwan than COVID-19 postponed their plans. Ever since three representatives from Changhua Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Mid-Kentucky’s international mission partner, had traveled to Mid-Kentucky in May 2019, the Revs. John Odom, Jerry Van Marter and Angela Johnson had long been looking forward to their reciprocal visit.

While the group’s travel plans necessarily had to wait, Changhua Presbytery’s love, care and compassion did not.

Because Changhua Presbytery had heard of the challenges initially faced by the U.S. in acquiring adequate personal protective equipment and face masks, they sprang into action by sending 300 handmade facial coverings, each with a pocket for a filter, to their partners in Mid-Kentucky, accompanied by their prayers.

In turn, the Rev. John Odom, Mid-Kentucky’s general presbyter — who serves on the Faith Heritage Committee — was similarly quick to respond by answering Seven Counties Services’ call for additional, much-needed facial coverings.

Seven Counties Services/Bellewood & Brooklawn, formerly known as Uspiritus, is a historic mission initiative of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery. The organization provides residential treatment, therapeutic care and adoption, as well as several community-based services.

“Regarding the masks, we all love the colorful and unique variety,” said Missy Fountain, senior director of Advancement for Seven Counties Services/Bellewood & Brooklawn. “They are being enjoyed by clients throughout all of our programs, not just the kids on our Bellewood & Brooklawn campuses. The kids especially liked the ones that had characters on the inside. The masks are also great because of the ties on the side that can easily be adjusted to fit various face sizes.”

Because an executive order issued in July by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear now requires all Kentuckians, with some exemptions, to wear face coverings, the gift from Changhua Presbytery is needed and appreciated now more than ever.

“We are very grateful for this donation that helps us protect our kids, other clients, and team members during the pandemic,” said Abby Drane, president and CEO of Seven Counties Services/Bellewood & Brooklawn, and a member of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church. “Our wonderful partnership with the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery has made this gift possible and brought unique relationships to us, like this one from Taiwan, to support our mission.”

In an email addressed to Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, the Rev. Liu Te-hsing, pastor of Changhua Yuandong Road Church in Taiwan, wrote, in part, “Even in a difficult situation, God will always be our strength and help! We are members of Christ ’s family, supporting and caring for each other. … May God’s love and peace be with you!”

Odom returned his gratitude to Changhua Presbytery.

“We are grateful for not only the kindness of our siblings in Christ, but their witness, example and testimony to the power of a whole country that, for the love of their neighbor, committed to wearing face masks, to maintaining social distancing, and to quarantining those infected with COVID-19,” Odom said. “We look forward to a time when we can meet and celebrate with our Taiwanese partners in person. In the meantime, their presence and their prayers are felt every time I see the staff and residents of Bellewood and Brooklawn wearing their gift of colorful masks, handmade with love.”

 Emily Enders Odom, Communications Specialist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus:  Taiwan Presbytery

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Cindy Corell, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Juan Correa, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

God of steadfast hope, plant in us the call to justice for all. We pray for the people and their homelands everywhere. Join our hands and hearts to theirs in the work for a just peace and human rights. In the name of Christ, our Redeemer, we pray. Amen.

¹   Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous.
Praise befits the upright.
²   Praise the LORD with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
³   Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

⁴   For the word of the LORD is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
⁵   He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

⁶   By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
⁷   He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.

⁸   Let all the earth fear the LORD;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
⁹   For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

¹⁰  The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
¹¹  The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
¹²   Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

¹³  The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all humankind.
¹⁴  From where he sits enthroned he watches
all the inhabitants of the earth —
¹⁵  he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.
¹⁶  A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
¹⁷  The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.

¹⁸  Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
¹⁹  to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

²⁰  Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and shield.
²¹  Our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
²²  Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

From The Mission Year Book:

We’re invited to join in on what God is already doing in our communities

February 10, 2021

the Rev. Stephen Lewis

Speaking during a Facebook Live event on the topic “Courageous Leadership Matters,” the Rev. Stephen Lewis, president of the Forum for TheologicalExploration, told host the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty that in many ways, “our future is rooted in the labors of those who came before us.”

“I stand on the shoulders of those who went before me,” Lewis told Hinson-Hasty, senior director for Theological Education Funds Development for the Committee on Theological Education (COTE) of the Presbyterian Foundation. “It’s not about my sense of purpose, but I am the answer to my ancestors’ prayers and dreams. We are connected to a long history.”

Together with Matthew Wesley Williams and Dori Grinenko Baker, Lewis is the author of the 2020 book “Another Way: Living and Leading Change on Purpose.” In general, he said, leadership is the practice of a community, not an individual, in shaping a more hopeful future for the community.

“Management is about supervision,” said Lewis, who was a banker, relationship manager and project analyst before earning his Master of Divinity at Duke Divinity School.

“Leadership is about organizing and mobilizing a community toward a vision.”

Courageous leadership, he said, involves knowing “that something is at stake greater than and beyond your own self-interest.” The goal, of course, is to help bring about the biblical vision of a new heaven and a new Earth, and it’s “about who we are and how we relate to the Creator,” Lewis said.

The kind of leadership Lewis describes “is something we can all play a role in, and we can all play a role in our community that’s exercising courageous leadership,” he said.

“That’s exactly the kind of leadership that matters right now,” Hinson-Hasty responded. “There is a mutuality, an ‘I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper.’ I am because we are.”

“It’s less hierarchy and more circular,” Hinson-Hasty said, “and the circle grows.”

Congregations and pastors “have to recognize that it’s not about what we do on a Sunday,” Lewis said. “It’s about the ways we go about life and do life together.”

God “has been calling us from our ancestral past until now, constantly pricking our conscience to join what the Eternal is already doing in our communities,” Lewis said. However, “it’s difficult to do that when you are on the hamster wheel doing all the things that are vying for your attention.”

“Leadership and communities — they’re exhausting!” he said. “They are not designed for our own flourishing. How do we stop the business as usual and take a break?”

COVID-19 has helped some people do just that.

“In the midst of tragedy and failure of leadership and loss, it is also a moment when the globe has stopped its feverish pitch,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to ask the deeper questions about life and relationships: Why do we gather? What are trying to do as people of faith? It’s also an invitation to do some self-reflection on what God is calling us to do at this moment, and how the Spirit is inviting us to co-conspire with her.”

“The normalcy we were accustomed to didn’t work for everyone,” he said. “Courageous leadership invites us to take risks … and risk comes as a result of facing the opposition, the powers that be, the status quo we all participate in. Many of us already benefit from the way social structures are currently set up. Our livelihoods depend on them.

“But in terms of bravery, it’s also about overcoming, and there are voices we need to hear, voices of people overcoming trauma and fear,” including those overcoming systems of privilege, “male ways of being” and “heteronormative ways of living out life,” Lewis said.

Courage, he noted, comes from the same root word as “heart.”

“How do we exercise our heart for people?” Lewis asked. “I care for the larger community. That requires empathy, and that always lands on emotional intelligence. Do we have the emotional intelligence to lead right now? Do we have the heart to see empathetically what we must do right now, even when our people are not quite ready? We know that courageous leadership really does matter — in government, in higher education and in religious life.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus:  Courageous Leadership

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Richard Copley, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Yvonne Colyar, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Blessed Lord, thank you for what you are doing. Bless the children and their families and bring your peace and love to all your people. In your holy name. Amen.

¹   As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
²   My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
³   My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”

⁴   These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
⁵   Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help ⁶and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
⁷   Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
⁸   By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹   I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?”
¹⁰  As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”

¹¹  Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

Mural project brings Rockford together in diversity, unity and hope

February 9, 2021

Mural artist Tia Richardson and SecondFirst senior pastor Rebecca White Newgren collaborated on a 1,700 sq. ft. community mural titled “Rockford Taking Flight.” (Contributed photo)

In 2004, members of Second Congregational United Church, known as SecondFirst Church since federating with First Presbyterian Church, dreamed of building a gymnasium for the community of Rockford, Illinois — and they did it.

“Little did they know that they left us a blank canvas to shine and radiate out to the west side of Rockford,” said the Rev. Rebecca White Newgren, senior pastor of SecondFirst Church. White Newgren recently spoke at a press conference and celebration of the completion of “Rockford Taking Flight,” a 1,700 square foot, 55-panel mural that fills the entire outside wall of the basketball gym and reimagines the city breaking free of racial and class boundaries.

The community mural project was led by SecondFirst Church, Jeremiah Development and muralist and community bridgebuilder Tia Chianti Richardson, an award-winning Milwaukee-based integrative community artist.

“We actually started talking about this a few years ago, thinking, ‘Wow, what could be on that wall?’” White Newgren said. Once Richardson came on board to lead the project in spring 2018, the entire community was invited to dream of a Rockford future that people wanted to see, one that maybe is different than the present. More than 200 people from all over Rockford came together in late 2019 to create the background for the mural on public paint days, using a paint-by-number process. Due to colder temperatures during the painting phase, the panels were prepped and painted inside on the floor of the church.

Some panels for the mural also went on the road to the Jubilee Center, a day center for adults living with mental illness; Christ the Rock Preschool; and Northwest Community Center, to make it convenient for people of all ages and all areas of the city to participate.

Richardson said she was moved by the raw joy that people had just to be able to paint on the separate panels that traveled to their locations. “Just because they wanted to be a part of something this big,” Richardson said. “It didn’t matter to them that the panels were not altogether. They didn’t care that they were painting pieces from someplace in town maybe they’d never been to. Nobody questioned that fact. So, that enthusiasm to be part of something really says something to me.”

From the beginning of the project, Richardson said, she was told the mural isn’t about the church or religious symbols, it’s about community — the life in the community. Richardson said, “To me, we are all part of one community as human beings. We’re all parts of a greater whole, and the more we can participate in life to make something better, the better the whole can reflect its parts.”

This mural is about life, Richardson said. “We all have the same needs in life: to feel joy, to party, to celebrate, to belong and to participate in something bigger. It’s that raw life moving through us as human beings that I believe is the most precious commodity we have,” she said, “because that’s where our potential to create something from nothing comes from.”

“It was like building the plane while flying,” Richardson said, “working together through different challenges meant we had to be flexible, willing to adapt and be open-minded. That’s what it means to create something from nothing.”

White Newgren said, “Tia Richardson uses her art to bring peace and to spark joy.” The project was funded through a six-week community Kickstarter campaign that raised $15,000 in support from more than 100 donors, plus a matching gift from a Rockford community arts supporter and businesswoman, LoRayne Logan. The project also received support from community businesses and local artists, some hobbyists and some professionals who gave a great deal of time over the past year, and to help Richardson with finishing touches on the mural.

“It’s a real pleasure for me to have been part of this,” Logan said. “Anything that brings people together, anything that helps us express our hearts, anything that helps us see the beauty in every other individual is part of what enriches us and what makes me want to continue to be vitally involved in the life of this community.”

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus:  Mural Project

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Nikki Collins, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Paula Cooper, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Loving God, we marvel at all that can be accomplished when done in your name and with your blessing. Thank you for empowering your disciples to overcome the seemingly insurmountable to extend your love to those in need. Amen.