Weekly Newsletter

PNews – 3/18/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Are We There Yet? We think of Advent as the season of waiting, but surely Lent is also such a season. As I said last week, our COVID curtailment feels like a year-long Lenten journey. Like … →

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PNews – 3/11/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Together or Alone? We have been walking mainly alone for the past year through the COVID pandemic. Even when we come together, we are separated – “social distancing,” we call it. Alone, together. Jesus reminds us … →

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PNews – 03/04/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Are We Fleeing or Fighting? The Gospel of Mark moves Jesus from the Jordan to the wilderness via catapult. Many of our most formative forces are just that – forces. We like to think we are shaped … →

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PNews – 2/25/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Do We Practice What We Preach? One good reason to work together in ministry is mutual support, to be sure. Yet we do so also to make visible the values of God’s realm in how we … →

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PNews – 2/18/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Are We Grieving the Past, Fixated on the Future, or Living in the Present? In this pandemic season we face a new sort of challenge. Not only do we continue to wrestle with longings to return … →

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PNews – 2/11/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Is Our Foundation Quake Proof? Over the past year our world has been thoroughly shaken. Calamities stemming from climate change, political unrest, and a global pandemic can on their own disrupt our lives. But together they have amounted … →

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PNews – 2/4/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery How Do We Navigate Into Unknown Waters? A pandemic that has disrupted the entirety of our social world has wreaked havoc with good Presbyterian order. We have no roadmap for this, because there are no roads yet … →

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PNews – 1/28/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Can We Have Unity Without Accountability? Advocates of unity and accountability are locking horns these days in the halls of Congress. Why do we advocate more for unity at certain times and more for accountability at others? How … →

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PNews – 1/21/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery How Should We React to Uncertainty? The Word of the Year for 2020 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) is “unprecedented.” The natural response to unprecedented situations is anxiety, driven by uncertainty. Our nation is riddled … →

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PNews – 1/14/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Will Truth Prevail? Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “The force of evil may temporarily conquer truth, but truth has a way of ultimately conquering its conqueror.” Last week’s violent attack on the Capitol was fueled by … →

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PNews – 1/7/21

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery How Do We Make Big Changes Without Big Steps? New Year’s resolution-makers hope to make sea changes in their lives overnight. “On January 1 I will abruptly alter direction with my finances, my diet, my exercise, … →

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PNews – 12/17/20

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery What Does Light Reveal? As people of the light, Jesus calls his disciples a “city on a hill.” His followers have always been on public display, regardless of whether they seek it out. Jesus came to … →

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PNews – 12/10/20

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery How Much Longer? All we can do is wait. For how long? Nobody knows. From the thick of our broken world-as-we-have-it we dare only with trembling to hope for things eventually to get better. When everything … →

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PNews – 12/03/2020

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery Will Christ Arrive Grandly or Unnoticed? The lectionary for the Second Sunday of Advent includes a remarkable passage from 2 Peter. It likens the coming of the Lord to that of a thief, then switches metaphors … →

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PNews – 11/19/20

News from Pittsburgh Presbytery True Power: Might or Meekness? This coming Sunday, the last before Advent, the church marks the festival of the Reign of Christ, sometimes called “Christ the King Sunday.” John declares that Jesus was able to humble … →

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