Ecumenical Advocacy Days - March 13-16 in Washingston DC

1. Would you like to know more about the connections between climate change, migration, and poverty here in the U.S. and around the world?
2. Would you like the opportunity to come together with faith-based advocates and activists from other Christian communities?
3. Would you like to meet and talk with other Presbyterians from all over the country who are concerned about these issues?
   
4. Would you like to learn more about the abundance of our world and how it can be allocated in a way that's fair and just for all creation?
5. Would you like to talk personally about your concerns with your representative and senators (or their staff members)?
6. Do you have a pulse?
   

If you can answer "yes" to at least one of the above and if your schedule is open, Ecumenical Advocacy Days is for you! Scholarship assistance of $500 is available from the Synod of the Northeast for use by Ministers and for Members of churches with membership greater than 150. Student scholarships are also available from Ecumenical Advocacy Days (applications due by February 6).

Registration Information

• Conference fee: $160 including two lunches and Sunday reception.
• Registration after February 13th will be $175. Register early!
• Student scholarships are available, visit the young adult page or email scholarships@advocacydays.org.
• Consider making a donation to help students attend the conference.

Click here to Register Now!

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Would you like to make a positive difference every time you drink a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate or eat an organic chocolate bar? The Presbyterian Coffee Project makes it easy by offering a special link to help us reach out to neighbors overseas not only with our prayers and offerings but with the goods and products we purchase.

Why is this so important? Show the film "Black Gold" in your congregation, which features coffee production in Ethiopia and the farmers in the Oromia Cooperative. Or watch it online Black Gold:

Souper Bowl Sunday - February 1

Souper Bowl of Caring is a national movement of congregations, schools, community organizations and compassionate individuals caring for others on Super Bowl weekend. Souper Bowl of Caring equips and mobilizes youth to positively impact their communities by collecting money or food on or near Super Bowl weekend. 100% of the collections are donated directly to the charity of each group's choice.

Souper Bowl also includes a Service Blitz. In addition to collecting the dollar donations, youth are encouraged to serve hands-on at the charity of their choice the Saturday before the big game.

32 congregations (about 70%) in Monmouth Presbytery are registered for Souper Bowl!

Forty-eight years later . . .

A friend send this to me. Amazing! Thank you Lisa!

This is a Norman Rockwell Painting of Ruby Bridges, the little black girl who had to be escorted to school by federal marshals. "On November 14, 1960 . . . Bridges faced hostile crowds as the first black child to attend a previously all-white New Orleans school. She was 6 years old and had only been told by her mother that she was going to be attending a new school that day and "had better behave." Little did she know that she would be bombarded with jeers and even death threats and that she would end up being the sole child in her first-grade class after all the other children were kept home by their parents. All because Ruby was black.

Forty-eight years later--January 5, 2009--here is a picture of Sasha Obama, a little 7-year old black girl, being escorted to her school by her mother, First Lady-elect Michelle Obama and the Secret Service because Sasha's daddy is now President-elect of the United States, Barack Obama.

Celebrating the Birthday of Martin Luther King

There is a beautiful Litany of Celebration (and other worship resources) for Martin Luther King Day worship celebrations. I'm posting it here and hope this dream will become ours!

Litany of Celebration

LEADER: Martin King had a dream. The ideals of justice and freedom and the belief that all are created equal in the eyes of God are noble principles. But they are meaningless unless they become the personal possession of each one of us.

ALL: For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent. I will struggle with myself. I will not rest until the dream of justice and freedom becomes my personal dream. I must realize that I am not an innocent bystander. I can help realize the dream by my action, or delay it by in inaction.

LEADER: Martin’s dream of a day when people from all races and nations, eve the offsprings of slaves and former slave owners, can sit at a table as brothers and sisters and find ways of transforming their differences into assets. That was Martin’s dream. What is your dream?

ALL: My dream is that one day soon I will find a way to stop just celebrating the dream and start living it. It must become a part of my daily life; or nothing much will change.

LEADER: The dream is not about an ideal world; it is about the real world. Martin King’s poetic refrain, “I Have a Dream,” is a call for us to remember the real world where injustice abounds.

ALL: When I am in the shelter of my home I must remember the homeless. When I eat, I must remember the hungry. When I feel secure I must remember the insecure. When I see injustice I must remember that it will not stop unless I stop it.

LEADER: I have a dream!

ALL: I also have a dream. I have a dream that the Holy Spirit will arouse in me that very flame of righteousness that caused Martin King to become a living sacrifice for the freedom and liberation of all of God’s Children. Then I will be able to resist racial injustice everywhere I see it, even within myself.