A Conversation with Benedita da Silva
A Message of Common Mission
Large Prayers and Least Coins
What PW Does Best
A Reason to be Relevant
Women — Past, Present and Future
The Gift of Faith
Celebrate Small Churches

A Conversation with Benedita da Silva

by Alexa Smith

It was when Benedita da Silva was at her lowest—a bad marriage, no job, no food, no nothing—that her vision occurred. And it changed her life. Life was so bad she didn’t know what to do. So she opened her Bible and the page fell to the text, “The truth has set you free.”

She says now that the truth of God’s love for her truly did set her free. “I came from a delicate situation,” she says, describing the shantytown where she was born and where, it seemed, she was forever stuck in a house with no doors, no windows and no beds with two children and an alcoholic husband. [Read more]

A Message of Common Mission

by Ellen Morris

Linda Bryant Valentine was in her fourth day as executive director of the General Assembly Council when she addressed the Monday plenary session of the Gathering, bringing a message of common mission. She praised participants for the 7,210 pairs of shoes and 40,000 socks that were collected for children by Gathering attendees, and discussed a culture of embrace, united by common mission, inspired by the example of Christ. [Read more]

Large Prayers and Least Coins

by Alexa Smith

After years of tromping through the world’s war zones, refugee camps and HIV/AIDS clinics, Esther Byu is stepping down as the executive secretary of the Fellowship of the Least Coin (FLC). This fall, the organization marks its 50th anniversary jubilee with an international celebration in Malaysia.

“Think what’s happening around the world,” says Byu. Quiet and soft-spoken, her voice rises slightly, “It is so ... overwhelming. The cycles of violence. Sometimes you just feel helpless,” she says, describing her years of aid work on behalf of women, first with the Christian Conference of Asia and now with the Fellowship of the Least Coin. “And I think that prayer is the most powerful [response].” [Read more]

What PW Does Best

by Alexa Smith

Joan S. Gray—the newly elected moderator of the 217th General Assembly—told a standing throng of Presbyterian women to keep doing what they do best: Gather, care for one another, listen to each other, study scripture and then reach out to the world.

“Here, we are gathering,” said Gray, herself a member of the organization for more than two decades. “That’s what Presbyterian women do. We gather together. We sit together. We talk about our lives. We talk about the Bible. We discuss scripture. And then we eat,” she said, with a laugh.

“In a time when it is easy to pull apart, we need to be ourselves, with our warts, our frailties, our growth places. We need to eat pound cake and talk about the precious small things that make life good. Because it is out of those precious small things that we do mission. And we need to come together to be fed and to be inspired by the Word.

Gray said she was introduced to Presbyterian Women as a 21-year-old seminarian in Atlanta, when training sessions for the organization’s annual Bible study were held yearly at Colombia Theological Seminary, where Gray was a student.

She said she was a member of a women’s circle in six of the seven churches that she has served in the Greater Atlanta-area, where she has led Bible studies and trained other women to teach as well. That style of thoughtful, reflective Presbyterianism is what gives her hope for the months to come.

A Reason to be Relevant

by Carol Gruber

Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly (2004), spoke at workshop 41, Conversations with a Past GA Moderator, talking about a Presbyterian Church that responds to needs in the world with active participation.

Rick recently finished a two-year term as moderator, and has become known throughout the denomination for his tireless and enthusiastic commitment to mission work. Rick stated that looking within is the wrong response to the decline in our denomination and that love is the answer to divisiveness. He explained that he was several months into his role as moderator when he truly began to be excited about where the church might go. “Let’s show that we have a reason to be relevant in the world. We must love each other and sit down with people we disagree with.”

He expressed appreciation for the opportunity his position as moderator gave him to observe and understand the complexity of the church body. He traveled the world, seeing hunger, poverty and the results of violence first hand, while at the same time coming closer to the scripture that calls us as individuals and as a church to be God’s presence and help.

He talked about Joining Hands Against Hunger and how this Presbyterian organization works with the fundamental causes of poverty rather than solely giving money. “We are in the midst of a huge transition,” he said. During the past 60 years mission was accomplished by sending money and missionaries, but this didn’t solve the problems or keep people connected to the people they were trying to help. The focus today is personal involvement.

Rick has accepted a position as the first full-time executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. “Representatives have been present in Colombia for the last 15 years, standing up against violence,” he said of his new calling. “PC(USA) can be the first church that people think of when they think of peacemaking in the world.

Women—Past, Present and Future

by Leslie Moise

Monday morning’s plenary session explored the challenges faced by women in the Bible, the present and the future.

With humor and tenderness, Dale Lindsay Morgan told the story of Rachel, and demonstrated how one woman’s story is the story of all the women linked to her. As Gathering participants tied red strings around their wrists in memory of Rachel, Morgan led a prayer for hungry, abused and endangered children everywhere.

Charlotte Johnstone shared the Gathering’s final dispatch from Forbearance Presbyterian Church, about the challenges faced by a young woman called to the ministry. The new minister will learn that “God’s song can be sung in both major and minor keys,” Johnstone said.

Roula Alkhouri and Laura Mariko Cheifetz gave a joint presentation on future challenges to women’s leadership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Alkhouri highlighted three major challenges, including the need for each woman to nurture her own experience of God, the necessity of embracing love and letting go of fear. She emphasized the importance of living as who we fully are. Cheifetz concluded, “The real challenge is how we respond to the love of God. Let us believe the Spirit will help us.”

Finally, storyteller Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi told the story of Mary as she awaits the birth of Jesus. “Accepting God’s call often means being plunged into uncertainty,” Gelardi said. Tales of challenges met and overcome wove throughout the plenary session, sending participants into their last full day at the Gathering.

The Gift of Faith

by Leslie Moise

Roula Alkhouri believes it is important to focus on hope rather than fear. Her belief that God is working sustains her, and is a vital part of her message. “I could easily go into fear, looking at us as a church, as the world, at war. But I see it is hope that will get us out of this. Awareness about people in other places and about the environment is moving toward the center.”

In an interview following her plenary presentation with Laura Mariko Cheifetz, which received a standing ovation, Alkhouri discussed the importance of hope and gratitude. She is most grateful for the vision of people working for justice and for peace. “I see it enacted in the lives of people who put their lives on the line, speaking against the war in Iraq,” she said. Alkhouri also expressed gratitude for those who express solidarity with the Palestinians. “I'm grateful for all those courageous people who care for immigrants, and see Christ in all that’s happening. You could see despair in those places, but also the human solidarity of love.”

When asked about her gifts, Alkhouri said that faith was the most important. “That peace that I learned from others, how to be in the moment, right now, knowing that God is here.” She added, “Faith comes from generations, the heritage and the witness of so many people before me. In the Middle East, that is a really big piece for me. I don’t have to invent the faith.”

Alkhouri considers some challenges to be useful. “I feel it’s a gift for the church when we go in all different directions.” She emphasized the need to focus on the present. “That is where God is,” she said.

Celebrate Small Churches

The process of a small church in growth is a complex system. There are many challenges to growing and leading the congregation into what Christ is calling them to right here and now. Whether you are in a surviving or thriving church, the challenges may be the same. Workship 28, Celebrate Small Churches, suggests a few things to think about in order to transform and thrive.

1. As you think about the changes that are coming, what are you most excited about? More members? The work being shared among more members instead of the same reliable few? More children and seniors participating in church activities?
2. Intentionally prepare for the changes that are coming.
3. Remember Charlotte Johnstone’s story from Saturday morning’s plenary session, about the woman from Forbearance struggling with change, and apply it to your congregation as a model for trying to discern what it is that God is calling your congregation to do right here and now. Think beyond what you “have always done.”
4. Strive to be a growing and healthy congregation by spending time together over a meal and praying silently and studying the Bible together.
5. Attend to your spiritual life and listen to what God is calling you to do right now.
6. Come with an open heart and mind as you discern together what the Holy Spirit is leading you to do.
7. Pay attention to the past as you move into the future, and remember that God has never called anyone into “the good old days.” God calls us into whatever it is God is at work doing right now.
8. Confront your fears. Take a good look at what is going on in yourself, in the place where you are in the world.
9. Discern how your congregation fits in to the place and times of your location.