September 5, 2006

Shifting into High Gear

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

Well, fall has finally arrived and things at our churches are now shifting into high gear. Next Sunday will begin a new year for church school students and teachers, choirs will be back in rehearsal, and our sanctuaries will again fill. For some of you, new plans will be implemented.

The same things are happening at the Presbytery and General Assembly. At General Assembly, a whole new design for ministry is being implemented with the three national divisions giving way to four priorities: Evangelism and Witness, Justice and Compassion, Spirituality and Discipleship, and Leadership and Vocation. The senior staff will all be new. The emphasis will now be on supporting presbyteries and congregations.

At the Presbytery of Baltimore, committees will meet for the first time tonight and significant changes are being planned for the coming year. Four listening sessions will be held throughout the presbytery in October to ask for your help in setting future priorities for mission and justice. The Mission Committee will wrestle with moving from funding agencies to funding congregations who want to do mission in partnership with the Presbytery and the mission field. Peace and Justice will find themselves with a new chair who is eager to try new things. Another committee is searching for an Associate for Leadership Development, Education, and Youth. This person will work to provide educational opportunities for ministers, elders and deacons, take up work with educators, and renew our youth programming. All of this is an effort to support you in your ministries.

These days in early September are always exciting and filled with energy. May God bless you and us in our efforts.

Blessings,

Peter Nord

Inside this issue

Take Note/Act Now

§ Sept. 23 event cancelled

§ Conference on AIDS

§ Seminar on Homelessness

§ October Guatemala Trip

§ Light a Candle for Children

§ Annapolis Freedom Walk

§ Habitat: Building on Faith

§ Clergywomen in NYTimes

Prayer Concerns

Lakeland PC

People

Please pray for the family and friends of Rev. Dr. John Murray Smoot, Pastor Emeritus at Central PC, who died on 8/27 on his way to church with friends. His memorial service was at Central on 9/2. You may contribute to an online memorial at: http://www2.centralpc.org/gb-smoot.

Jean Martin will become the Interim Pastor of Beechwoods Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of Kiskiminetas.

Prayer Concerns

Lakeland PC

asks for prayers:

· For their new ministry of Lay Leaders assisting in Sunday morning worship

· For their first Stewardship season

· For successful, positive results with the feasibility study to begin a Hispanic New Church Development at Lakeland. The study should be completed by the end of December.

Take Note/Act Now

Baltimore Presbytery Items (dated items first, listed in date order)

The September 23^rd 1-day nonviolence training event has been cancelled. However, the 8-week class on nonviolence will still take place.

Central PC will be offering a Conference on AIDS over the course of three Sundays: 9/24, 10/1 and 10/8. The focus of the event is to discover why and how the church should care about the AIDS pandemic in Baltimore and around the world. All are welcome to come and learn. Learn more about the presenters from near and far, the schedule, and the variety of topics to be covered from the event flyer.

Faith Presbyterian Church will be hosting an event on the root causes of homelessness with guest speaker Rev. Jean Kim, author of “End Homelessness: Jubilee Manual”. The event will be on Sunday, September 24^th from 3-5pm. The event will provide education and a chance for people to let their voices be heard by addressing petitions to government representatives.

A group of adults from the Presbytery of Baltimore will be going to Guatemala for a relationship-building visit from Oct. 26^th – 30^th. The registration deadline is Sept. 6^th. Contact Rev. Steve Tisinger at Christ Our Anchor for details: 410.974.1713.

Synod and GA items

The 2006 Light a Candle for Children Forty-Day Prayer Vigil takes place from Sunday, September 10^th through October 22^nd, 2006. It is a time of preparation for the observance of Children’s Sabbaths. You may download related materials, including brochures, bulletin inserts, and prayer calendars at http://pcusa.org/children/poverty/worship.htm.

Other Events

The Annapolis Freedom Walk will be on Monday, September 11^thstarting at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The event is a remembrance of those who died in the September 11^th attacks and a show of support for MD first responders, service men and women and veterans (read event flyer).

Other Resources and Articles

Learn how your congregation can support Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity’s “Building on Faith”, a September awareness and fund-raising initiative in partnership with faith communities (read letter). Website: www.chesapeakehfh.org.

To read an article from the August 26^th New York Times, “Clergywomen Find Hard Path to Bigger Pulpit”, please follow this link: read article.

Also on our website

Don’t miss all the new Local Church Announcements at: http://www.baltimorepresbytery.org/announcements.html Presbytery Yearly Calendar

Past Issues of Tidings are available at: http://www.baltimorepresbytery.org/midweekmail.html.

Peter Nord, Executive Presbyter

pnord@baltimorepresbytery.org

Bill Millen, Associate Executive

bmillen@baltimorepresbytery.org

Deb Milcarek

Associate of Mission and Justice

dmilcarek@baltimorepresbytery.org

Charles Forbes, Stated Clerk