The Sligo Presbyterian Church Celebration Service - Sunday, August 28, 2022

Sligo Presbyterian Church: Our Congregation and Community: The Sligo Presbyterian Church Celebration Service ...: On Friday, August 12, SPC had its annual Summer Day Camp entitled “Big Heart Farms: Where God’s Fruit Grows.” During the day, the children l...

Sunday's Message: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit - A Look at Galatians 5:22-23 (Peace)

Sligo Presbyterian Church: Our Congregation and Community: Sunday's Message: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spi...: On Friday, August 12, SPC had its annual Summer Day Camp entitled “Big Heart Farms: Where God’s Fruit Grows.” During the day, the children l...

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Thou shalt not steal

Witness, Share and Evangelize: Today in the Mission Yearbook - Thou shalt not steal: A Matter of Faith podcast explores the persistent problem of busy and stressed preachers lifting their sermons from online sources September...

Prayers for Our Community, Our Nation and Our World

We can offer specific daily prayers for our community, nation and world. Between Monday, September 5 and Sunday, September 11, we'll lay before God the needs listed below.

• Monday, September 5, 2022 - That people stop expressing their frustration through violence.
• Tuesday, September 6, 2022 - That American put aside partisan difference so that we can address the problem of gun-violence.
• Wednesday, September 7, 2022 - That God would protect our service men and women both home and abroad.
• Thursday, September 8, 2022 - That American celebrate the values on which our nation was founded.
• Friday, September 9, 2022 - That international tensions decrease and all nations learn to live in peace with one another.
• Saturday, September 10, 2022 - That we look past the immediate benefit so that they might see the long-term consequences of their actions.
• Sunday, September 11, 2022 - That our city, state and national leaders would be presented with the Gospel and a loving Christian witness.

Minute for Mission: World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

Witness, Share and Evangelize: Minute for Mission: World Day of Prayer for the Ca...: September 1, 2022 Photo credit: Nancy Corson Carter “ If we learn how to listen, we can hear in the voice of Creation a kind of dissonance. ...

Service on Day of Prayer for Care of Creation, Churches with Solar Panels, Youth in a Climate Crisis

Please join us for a short service of praise and lament around care of creation.  Resources for church and individual use will be provided.  Our PCUSA General Assembly called on all Christians to support the ecumenical day of prayer for the care of creation on September 1. You can also pray for the care of creation on this Sunday, September 4, in your church's worship services. Date: THIS Thursday, September 1, 2022 Time: 7:30 pm Eastern (4:30 pm Pacific) Presenter: The Rev. Dr. Susan Gilbert Zencka, PEC Treasurer (and Steering Committee Members) CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO & LINK Presbyterians for Earth Care webinar explains underpublicized aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service You can read the published article in its entirety  CLICK HERE. To view the recording of our recent workshop Historic Climate Legislation - Opportunities for Action, as well as download the accompanying resources, visit our webpage CLICK HERE. Sept. 27 Webinar:  Spiritual Care for Young People in a Climate Crisis The starting point for In Deep Waters: Spiritual Care for Young People in a Climate Crisis is not news: the world as we know it is shifting. Several millennia of climate stability have come to an abrupt end. But, observes author Talitha Amadea Aho, the young people of today do not remember stability. They see the world through crisis-colored glasses. Climate change is creating a spiritual emergency that is hitting their generation harder than any other. Today’s climate crisis calls people of faith to a communal spiritual practice of care, especially for those who are more vulnerable because of their youth–the children, youth, and young adults of Generation Z. We must learn how to offer spiritual care that is informed by the spiritual-ecological crisis of their generation. The Rev. Aho guides us with her pastoral and chaplain experience to keep young people at the center of our communities and listen to the troubles they have to share. Whether you are a Gen Z peer or a caring adult of any other generation, this webinar will show you how to offer ecologically informed spiritual care. Date: Tuesday, September 27, 2022 Time: 7:00 pm Eastern (4:00 pm Pacific) Presenter: Talitha Amadea Aho REGISTER HERE The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for the first time provides federal grant funds (30%) of the cost for churches to do solar projects (see PNS article above).   We want to have a list of solar churches throughout the USA that can help other churches go solar.  Please complete THIS FORM to help us.  Thank you!

Can we help you and/ your church care for creation?   Help us grow! Please let us know if  there is anyone we should add to our list! Email us at presbyearthcare@gmail.com. Please help us to continue to assist individuals and churches in creation care work by donating to PEC on our secure website for donations.   Presbyterians for Earth Care is a national eco-justice network that cares for God’s creation by connecting, equipping, and inspiring Presbyterians to make creation care a central concern of the church.

Copyright © 2022 Presbyterians for Earth Care, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are a member of Presbyterians for Earth Care, or because you opted to join our email list. Our mailing address is: Presbyterians for Earth Care P.O. Box 3851 Allentown, PA 18106

WCC NEWS: Opening prayers dedicate WCC Assembly at Karlsruhe in the spirit of Christ’s love

As the bells of Karlsruhe, Germany rang out across the city, thousands of Christians gathered on Wednesday, 31 August in the prayer tent at the heart of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Representatives from each of the eight geographical regions in which the WCC is active brought gifts and concerns reflecting their own cultural and historical contexts. The international congregation prayed in thanksgiving to God, adding their expectation for the coming nine days of the Assembly, “We share the hope of meeting each other in the warm embrace of Christ’s love that moves us to reconciliation and unity.” 31 August 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany: Pacific Islander dancers help lead opening prayer at the World Council of Churches' 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany. The assembly takes place August 31 to September 8 under the theme "Christ's Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity." Photo: Mike DuBose/WCC 31 August 2022 Solemn observance was interpreted through colour, movement, words, sights and sound drawn from the breadth of the global Christian movement. Ancient liturgical chants, hymns, traditional dance and modern song stirred believers. The opening prayers noted the contemporary setting of this assembly, lamenting, “We share the burden and the pain of this time of the Covid pandemic. We share the burden and the pain of armed conflicts and their consequences in deaths, destruction and forced migration. We share the burden and the pain of the pre-existing plagues of injustice, structural poverty, violence and a creation that suffers. We bring to you the memory of the victims of all these pandemics.” The day’s preacher was Patriarch John X of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (in Syria) and all the East. He spoke in Arabic, with translations available in other languages. The patriarch’s homily was based on Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, a narrative in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel. Despite wide gaps of religious belief, gender, culture and lifestyle, Jesus took the woman seriously and spoke to her on a personal level. She was joyfully inspired by the encounter. 31 August 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany: The Rev. Dr. Ioan Sauca (right) introduces John X, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, who gave the homily during the opening prayer service at the World Council of Churches' 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany. The assembly takes place August 31 to September 8 under the theme "Christ's Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity." Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC The patriarch encouraged a similar overcoming of boundaries. He called on his listeners and their churches and nations “to choose to pass through the suffering Middle East, as Christ chose to pass through Samaria. Pass and look at Christ’s beloved ones there, as he looked at the Samaritans, without disregarding those who differ from you, without excluding the people of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Holy Land of  Palestine, especially because their ancestors served the gospel of reconciliation and spread it to all nations.” Among specific conditions in Syria and neighbouring countries cited by the patriarch, he called on members of the WCC Assembly to “raise your voice against the exclusion of the people of the Middle East, and against depriving them of food, medicine, heating and medical treatment, and against sanctions and economic blockades on the pretext of political disagreements. Object to banning Christians and their prayers and hymns, descending from Christ’s eternity, from the land that Christ trod and upon which the apostles worked. Raise your voice and make an appeal for the divulgence of the fate of the Metropolitans of Aleppo, Paul and Youhanna, whose case has gone unnoticed by the international community for more than nine years.” When people are marginalized and forgotten, the patriarch concluded, hope for reconciliation fades. But “whenever there is genuine empathy and interest in a situation, actions of support become serious in their application and persist until they accomplish their objective. The Christians of Antioch are deserving of protection from exclusion, discrimination, starvation, oppression, torment and death.” Following the homily, refugee resettlement volunteer Ann Jacobs of the United Methodist Church in the USA prayed: “May our love be a balm, healing wounds and tending to places of hurt. May our love be radical, proximate to the margins prioritizing people over profit. May we, in our love, offer Christ to one another, overflowing with peace and reconciliation. May it be so. Amen” WCC 11th Assembly - Opening Prayer Video Photos from Opening prayer Learn more about the WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 352 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland