April 8 - Present to the Presbytery of Philadelphia on General Assembly Overtures concerning the Middle East--Zoom (Chip) April 12-13 - Vacation (Chip) April 17 - Inauguration of President Joe Odenwald of Alma College—Luke Huron Presbytery (Chip) April 18 - Cincinnati Presbytery Meeting—Zoom (Ruth-Aimée) April 21 - Ohio Council of Churches Board Meeting—Columbus, OH (Chip)   If you would like Chip or Ruth-Aimée to come to your church or ministry to preach, teach, learn,

The Scioto Valley Presbytery is living into Christ’s call to be a light to the nations by welcoming immigrants and refugees into our congregations. Through the vision of 1001 New Worshiping Communities , we are discovering new ways to embody the gospel in multicultural contexts. One powerful testimony is the story of Sonita Amah and her daughter Rena , who fled Cameroun through Nigeria before arriving in Columbus Ohio. Life was heavy with challenges Sonita’s asylum status w

Greetings Co-Workers in Christ   After much prayer and discussion with Synod, Presbytery, and Muskingum University Leaders, we have decided to reschedule the Pastoral Leadership Conference to 2027. Planners for the conference will still be meeting in July 2026 to make sure we can create and promote a great conference of pastors! We hope to have more information and registration ready for Fall 2026!   On another note: We have finished our March CRE Focus Group meetings with de

We are busy planning the 3 rd Annual Preaching Conference and recruiting new participants for our third class of emerging preachers! If you know of anyone who is discerning a call to preach, please recommend CGPI to them. We are focused on recruiting aspiring and newer preachers who have little to now formal training in preaching or graduate theological education in order to equip them for effective and compelling ministry proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. You can r

“No hope?  Look up into the stars Or down into a baby’s face And tell me there is no hope…" No Hope? By Ann Weems in Searching for Shalom “Happy endings” or “happily ever afters” in stories, “novelas,” plays, movie scripts, or Disney movies generally mean that the story is given a fortunate and prosperous conclusion. The movie “Enchanted,” a satire of Disney classics, centers on the character Giselle, a woman navigating the realities of both her “Happily Ever After” storybook

Back in 2015, I wrote a devotional book called Crossbound exploring several passages from the Gospel of Luke that detail all that Jesus undertook to show his love for us during that original Holy Week.  For this month’s column, which will arrive during Holy Week, I thought it might be helpful to share a couple of passages from the final chapter, entitled “Celebrating Holy Week.”   “Christians celebrate Holy Week and all of the different days that it comprises:  Palm Sunday,

March 2-3 - Executive/General Presbyter Gathering—Bowling Green, OH (Ruth-Aimée and Chip) March 4-6 - Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Certification—Zoom (Ruth-Aimée) March 7-11 - Vacation (Chip)     March 8 - Preach at Westminster Church—Grand Rapids, MI/Lake Michigan Presbytery (Ruth-Aimée) March 10 - Eastminster Presbytery Meeting—Youngstown, OH (Ruth-Aimée) March 12 - Present at the Sabbath Retreat, Unity Church—Reynoldsburg, OH/Scioto Valley Presbytery (Ru

For years, Presbyterian campus ministries have struggled to find balance and support amid denominational decline. Campus ministers, churches, and lay leaders have been stretched thin by limited time, energy, and financial resources. On campuses without Presbyterian ministry, students often joined other religious groups, drifting away from the PCUSA and leaving a critical gap in the transition from youth to adult faith. In 2021, the Presbytery of Scioto Valley sought to addres

Greetings Siblings in Ministry!   We have some exciting updates to share with you all!   First, the dates for the Pastoral Leadership Conference are July 7-9 at Muskingum University, New Concord, OH. At this time, we have scheduled workshops on Leadership in: Followership, Finance and Resources, Racial Justice, and Emotional Intelligence. We will be adding information to the website in March and will keep adding details (like registration and costs) in the coming months. We

We are busy planning the 2026 Alma Preaching Conference and moreover recruiting a new class of CGPI participants. The Alma Preaching Conference is scheduled for June 4-8, 2026 where we will welcome a new, third class of emerging preachers and welcome back our second class.  Apply here:  Apply for CGPI | Synod Of The Covenan   Our second year group will participate in two new or revamped workshops, a workshop on preaching for social justice led by the Rev. Dr. Gregory Bryant f

March has been designated as Women’s History Month, where women’s contributions and embodied trailblazing are celebrated, highlighted, and explored. During this month, the lives of women, their struggles, joys, inventions, and contributions in all facets of society are lifted in multiple educational formats. In 1996, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “instituted Celebrate the Gifts of Women Sunday after a resolution by the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns was approved b

Our overarching theme is “In our synod, we’ll try anything to equip and support leaders who attend to God’s creative, emerging future.”  People most invested in our ministry together will often quote with pride the “we’ll try anything” part of this statement.  In this column, though, I want to tell you about some new initiatives we’re taking on this year to equip and support leaders:  an in-person leadership conference, a racial justice speaker series, and a Christian nationa

Rev. Dr. Catherine Williams Rev. Dr. Catherine E. Williams is the Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship, and Director of Chapel Worship at the Lancaster, PA campus of Moravian University’s School of Theology.   An ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church, Dr. Williams earned her BMus. in Church Music from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, her MDiv. from Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University, and her PhD in Homiletics from Princeton Theolog

We are thrilled to announce that we have four of our five mentors in place. We hope to soon announce our fifth mentor, who will come from our partnership with the Justice Center for Sacred Theological Studies (JCSTS, formerly known as Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary). The four mentors who will guide our third class of emerging preachers bring years of experience and wisdom from preaching and pastoring across the Synod.  Rev. Dr. Kymberley Clemons-Jones Rev. Dr. Kymberl

In the Spring of 1935, Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany as he recognized that God was calling him to serve his home country as it suffered under the rapid rise of the Nazi Regime. By the Fall of that year, he was the head of a newly founded underground seminary – the famous Finkenwalde Seminary – founded to train pastors and preachers who had little or no previous theological education to serve in the Confessing Church (the minority of the German Church that was resist

Joseph D. Small, Proclaiming the Great Ends of the Church (Louisville: Geneva Press, 2010)  I am writing this newsletter on Shrove Tuesday, the eve before the beginning of Lent. Like many of us who are involved in the life of the church, I have been thinking about how to observe Lent – and like many a Presbyterian this means that I have been thinking about what to read for a Lent Devotional. I have a stack of half-read, withmore than one unread (!), Lent devotionals from year

Gathering Dates: March 17-19, 2026 (Check in at 4:00 pm, check out at 10:00 am) Gathering Location: Camp Christian, 10299 Maple Dell Rd, Marysville, OH 43040 While the United States has a long history of hostility towards immigrants, the current administration has created a crisis for immigrants and refugees through aggressive immigration enforcement and racial profiling, diverting resources from the public good to immigration detention and deportation. With the rescinding of

February 1 - Preach at Trinity Flint (MI)—Lake Huron Presbytery (Chip) February 5-6 - Alma College Board Meeting (Chip) February 7 - Ordination Service at the Kirk in the Hills—Detroit Presbytery (Ruth-Aimée) February 8 - Preach at Second Saginaw (MI)—Lake Huron Presbytery (Chip) February 10 - Attend Presbytery of Scioto Valley Meeting—Columbus, OH (Ruth-Aimée) February 14 - Preach at Miami Valley Presbytery Meeting—Zoom (Ruth-Aimée) February 16 - President’s Day (Offi

The Presbyterian Historical Society is in the process of developing a resource and/or training to help churches research and write their own histories through an anti-racist lens. We want to hear directly from churches and mid councils about the resources and guidance that would be most useful to them as they engage in anti-racism work, regardless of where they are in this process.   Please consider responding to the survey via the following link and sharing it via your newsl

With Gratitude to First Church in Grand Haven, MI (Lake MI Presbytery) We want to help children and youth in your church go to Christian camp this summer!   First Presbyterian Church of Grand Haven (FPGH) has a camp grant program that provides children and youth some funding to attend a Christian camp, and we’d like to help the children of your church go this summer. No, this is not too good to be true! The program is simple:   * Children and youth should have some connection