Preparing a way to navigate life’s challenges
Christmas Joy Offering supports the faithful of all ages and stages with timely financial assistance
LOUISVILLE — Catherine Cox should have listened to God.
But the 25-year-old wasn’t paying attention — at least not at first — when she decided to leave her hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to attend Xavier University in New Orleans.
Discovering midway through her first semester that she was expecting twins, Cox returned home to Tuscaloosa to seek the support of her extended family in raising her children.
“Besides, I had started college as a business major because my dad said that there was no money in teaching,” she said. “But I hated accounting, and I always knew I was supposed to be a teacher. God told me a long time ago that I needed to be a teacher.”
So, this time, Cox listened.
After taking a break from school and working a variety of jobs to support herself and her children, Cox enrolled at Stillman College.
Stillman — the school right in Cox’s own backyard — was the perfect fit, enabling her to fulfill not only her dream of teaching but also of teaching math.
Preparing the way for aspiring young professionals like Cox is what both Stillman — and the PC(USA)’s Christmas Joy Offering — are all about. Cox’s Stillman experience was made possible, in part, by gifts to the Offering, which helps the school provide scholarships to promising students.
A cherished Presbyterian tradition since the 1930s, the Christmas Joy Offering distributes gifts equally to the Interim Unified Agency’s Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color, including Stillman, and to the Assistance Program of the PC(USA)’s Board of Pensions.
Originally founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1876 as a training school for African American ministers, today Stillman College is the only historically Black college in covenant relationship with the PC(USA). A four-year liberal arts college, Stillman’s picturesque, 105-acre campus sits on the west side of Tuscaloosa, within the bounds of the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley and the Synod of Living Waters.
“Catherine exemplifies the very best of Stillman College’s mission to develop servant leaders who transform communities through knowledge, service and faith,” said Dr. C. Mark McCormick, associate professor of religion. “Her commitment to education, as both a teacher and a lifelong learner, truly embodies our Presbyterian values.”
Shortly before graduation this year, Cox applied, interviewed for and accepted a position teaching seventh and eighth grade mathematics at Stillman's newest education partner, the I Dream Big Charter School, the first partnership between an HBCU (historically Black college and university) and charter school in the state of Alabama.
Having opened just this fall, Tuscaloosa’s first and only tuition-free charter school currently serves grades 6-8 with plans to add a grade level every year.
“Catherine’s life choices demonstrate her dedication to making a direct impact in young people’s lives while continuing to grow professionally,” McCormick said. “Her journey from Stillman graduate to educator represents the transformative power of the Christmas Joy Offering's support for Presbyterian-related schools and the students they serve."
Preparing a way forward in the wake of disaster
Secure in a nearly century-old home built on a stone foundation in the shelter of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Rev. Lynn Bledsoe never had any reason to fear.
Until the mountains literally trembled.
Soon after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida last September, the catastrophic storm blazed a path of destruction through the southeastern United States and Southern Appalachian Mountains.
In North Carolina — one of several states devastated by what would later be classified as the deadliest hurricane in the contiguous U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — the mountains were the hardest hit.
“Even though in the psalmist’s day, the hills were a dangerous place,” said Bledsoe, who lives with her husband, Bill Ryan, in Fairview, North Carolina, and serves in retirement as a pastoral visitor for Montreat Presbyterian Church, “I’ve always felt safe here.”
But Bledsoe’s peaceful world was rocked in an instant when the hurricane swept away the very ground beneath her feet.
As the terrifying storm’s destruction continued to escalate, Bledsoe and her husband watched in horror as a mudslide came from beneath their home, driving a rock “the size of a Volkswagen” into their front yard.
But exactly when the needed — and costly — repair work might be scheduled remained unclear. How, when and with what funding, Bledsoe wondered, could they ever manage to rebuild since their insurance didn’t cover flood or mudslide damage?
Facing such a daunting expense while still processing the trauma of what she, her husband and their community lived through, Bledsoe received an unexpected lifeline through the Assistance Program of the Board of Pensions. The trusted PC(USA) agency provided her with an assistance grant to lessen some of the burden of putting her home back together.
“Although I’ve given to the Christmas Joy Offering for years, I never thought I would be a recipient,” Bledsoe said. “It brings tears to my eyes every time I think about the generosity and immediate support of the Board of Pensions in the early days of Hurricane Helene.”
Ruth Adams, director of the Assistance Program, said that many plan members are unaware that the program’s grants are available for financial relief from a natural disaster or unexpected expense.
“It bears repeating that we should all support the Christmas Joy Offering, not because we might benefit from it,” said Bledsoe, “but because we all belong to each other and we belong to God.”
Connecting church with everyday life
Søren Briggs couldn’t wait to dig into the latest edition of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Book of Order.
No ordinary 17-year-old, Søren is the youngest ruling elder to be ordained at First Presbyterian Church in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
And it isn’t just his penchant for Presbyterian history that makes the PC(USA)’s Constitution all but irresistible to the high school senior, but it is also his love for both his home church — where his mother, Micaela Briggs, is also an elder and deacon — and the Presbyterian-related Menaul School that fuels his passion.
John Sitler, who teaches Upper School religion as chair of Menaul’s Religious Studies Department, has been Søren’s adviser for all four years.
“Whenever you talk to Søren, his eyes light up when he’s talking about Presbyterian polity,” said Sitler. “And he understands Reformed theology. He just gets it. He’s taken every elective that I’ve offered.”
With a rich history that dates to the late 19th century, the Menaul School started out as a Presbyterian boarding school for Spanish-speaking boys, many of whom were among the first Hispanic/Latino leaders in what is now the PC(USA). Today, as a grades 6-12 preparatory day and boarding school, Menaul has students from as many as 30 countries and graduates from all across the world.
Today, as Menaul seeks to develop initiatives that educate and cultivate such young church leaders as Søren, the school has launched a new yearlong course designed for students who want to better understand what it means to lead a life of service.
Building on the school’s historic emphasis on ministry as a potential career path, the class, titled “Called to Serve,” will help Menaul students — whether or not they are ultimately called to ordained ministry — to appreciate the Reformed understanding of “vocation” as they explore together how their faith can be lived out every day.
“As one of the only two existing PC(USA)-affiliated secondary schools left in the country, we started thinking about what we could offer our students that is unique to our Presbyterian tradition,” said Menaul’s chaplain, the Rev. Hannah Scanlon, who designed the course and wrote the grant with input from a multidisciplinary team. “Our students are asking big questions and wanting big answers.”
Scanlon’s hope is that the students enrolled in the course will be able to make visits to the many settings where ministry happens so that they “can see a face and a place in their minds as they consider their future careers in ministry,” including opportunities in the PC(USA).
“The course will tie in with what I already do at church,” said Søren. “It’s also about how to live your life as a kind person and how to practice your faith.”
Scanlon also hopes to connect her students with a variety of service, learning, and possibly even preaching opportunities in the Presbytery of Santa Fe and the Synod of the Southwest.
“Yes, we’re preparing young people academically and sending them off to college,” she said, “but we’re a Presbyterian school, and we’re proud of our Presbyterian roots.”
Finding his voice to comfort the voiceless
Like many a prophetic voice before him, the Rev. Jinho Kim’s story is his song.
Born and raised in a Presbyterian household in South Korea, Kim said his faith journey changed dramatically after he met the Rev. David E. Ross. Ross, a Presbyterian missionary who, together with his wife, Ellen, served in Korea from 1961 to 1980, focused their ministry on campus and youth evangelism. Through the Rosses’ “Jesus Evangelism Team,” Kim said that he was “healed and transformed” by their Spirit-filled worship and discipleship training.
And — even though he couldn’t read a single note of music — God put a new song in his mouth.
“During this season of grace, as I meditated on the words the Lord gave me,” Kim said, “I was also blessed with the grace to compose Scripture songs.”
In 1975, just a few years before he was called to enter seminary in Seoul, his youth group at Yeon Hee Dong Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church of Korea) was planning to go house to house singing carols to church members on Christmas Eve.
“We decided our goal would be to comfort and share the joy of Christmas with unwed mothers, who were socially marginalized in the conservative Korean culture at the time,” recalled Kim. “We asked each member household to prepare a gift from the heart to present to the Lord as a ‘Christmas Joy Offering.’”
The next day, Christmas, as the youth were preparing to deliver the members’ gifts to a shelter for unwed mothers, Aeranwon, Kim said that he entered the sanctuary to pray.
“I prayed, asking for a word directly from the Lord, who became flesh and dwelt among us,” said Kim. “I prayed, ‘Lord, please give me a melody for this Word so that instead of something temporary, it may become a song of gratitude that these women will sing and remember their lives long.’”
Trusting in God, Kim picked up the guitar next to him and, “by faith,” received a melody for the verse. “Since that day,” he said, “this song has been sung in Korean churches and among diaspora communities worldwide, continuing to be sung even a generation later.”
And still another generation later, the gift of “Christmas joy” has again come home to Kim.
When the longtime member of the Benefits Plan of the PC(USA)’s Board of Pensions (BOP) — who has primarily served new worshiping communities and start-up ministries in the U.S. since 1989 — faced financial challenges in retirement, his prayers were answered when a clergy friend recommended that he apply to the BOP’s Assistance Program.
The trusted PC(USA) agency has since provided Kim with ongoing income and housing supplements to ease the hardships that he faces, having earned only a modest income throughout his years of service.
“Supporting retired ministers is a matter of justice,” said Ruth Adams, director of the BOP’s Assistance Program. “For decades, Rev. Kim has provided spiritual guidance, emotional support and community leadership with modest compensation. Long-serving, long-sacrificing ministers like Rev. Kim can retire in dignity because of the PC(USA)’s collective support.”
Give to the Christmas Joy Offering to help Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color to provide life-changing experiences and to help the Assistance Program of the Board of Pensions support our leaders: past, present and future.
To make a gift to the Christmas Joy Offering, please click here.
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