Presbyterians Week Headlines
[1] Richmond, Virginia School Board Chairman Is Pastor of PCUSA Mission Church East End Fellowship and Champions Churches to Adopt Local Struggling Schools
[2] Covenant College Hosts Interesting Chapel Speakers in Spring 2014
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[1] Richmond, Virginia School Board Chairman Is Pastor of PCUSA Mission Church East End Fellowship and Champions Churches to Adopt Local Struggling Schools
A 21 January 2014 Christianity Today article by Nathan Clarke and Laura Joyce Davis titled “A Local Pastor Turned Public School Champion” reports on Richmond, Virginia School Board Chairman Don Coleman, who was first elected to the school board in 2008, and on 7 January 2014 was unanimously elected chairman by his school board colleagues. Chairman Coleman is additionally pastor of the East End Fellowship, a mission church of Richmond’s Third Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)).
Coleman “talks passionately about working with the school board, the city council, and Mayor Dwight C. Jones to give Richmond public school kids a brighter future”, and he understands the inherent limitations and problems with inner-city schools, especially students from broken homes that are unable to adequately support their children.
Coleman believes that other families and community members can help address the brokenness by coming along side these students to help them successfully complete their schooling and go on to lead productive lives. The article tells of several of these students that have been taken under the wing of a family from the church, and have overcome some of their obstacles to learning, with some even attending the East End Church on a regular basis.
Following the success he has seen from the partnerships between his church and the local school, Coleman is encouraging other Richmond schools, churches, and community groups to come together to improve the lives of students in the other forty-seven Richmond City Schools. He is encouraging the churches of Richmond to reach out and serve their surrounding schools “asking nothing in return, until the school invites them to be a part of what they're doing.”
[Editor’s Note: Pastor Tony Evans of The Urban Alternative champions the National School Adopt-A-School Initiative, which began twenty-five years ago when a Dallas, Texas high school principle invited Evan’s church to help quell the unrest and gang activity disrupting his school. The success of this initiative led eventually to more than sixty five schools in Dallas and Ft. Worth being provided pro-active intervention by the churches in their communities. In 2006, Evan’s church began training and equipping other churches to replicate this proven model of social outreach in their areas. For more information, please see http://tonyevans.org/miracle-of-the-million/ncaasi/.]
+ Christianity Today International, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188, 630-260-6200, Fax: 630-260-0114, mwhite@christianitytoday.com
+ Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202, 888-728-7228, Fax: 502-569-8005
+ The Urban Alternative, Post Office Box 4000, Dallas, Texas 75208, 214-943-3868, Contact Page
[2] Covenant College Hosts Interesting Chapel Speakers in Spring 2014
Covenant College’s (Presbyterian Church in America) Spring 2014 Chapel Schedule includes the following speakers:
-- 20 January - Stephanie Summers
Message Title: The Justice of the King (Psalm 72)
Ms. Summers is the CEO of the Center for Public Justice, an independent, non-partisan civic education and public policy organization based in Washington DC, and is the publisher of the online journals Capital Commentary and Shared Justice.
-- 27 and 28 January - Dr. Belden Lane
Message Title: Ravished by Beauty: The World as a Theatre of God’s Glory
Dr. Lane is a Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, a Roman Catholic institution, and teaches in the areas of American religion, the history of spirituality, and the connections between geography and faith. Lane is fascinated with ritual and the process of spiritual transformation, and increasingly he finds himself working with men, helping lead initiation rites through Richard Rohr's program Illuman in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is dedicated to transforming men and through them, communities and families for generations to come. Additionally, Lane works with Mankind Project, International, which builds and supports emotionally mature, accountable, and compassionate male role models that are needed in communities.
-- 13 and 14 February - William B. Hurlbut, M.D.
Message Title: To Be Announced
Dr. Hurlbut is a physician and Consulting Physician at the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University. His primary areas of interests are the ethical areas associated with advanced biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology. Hurbut is the author of several publications on science and ethics, and is the co-chair of two interdisciplinary faculty projects at Stanford University “Becoming Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Spiritual, Religious, and Moral Awareness,” and “Brain, Mind, and Emergence.”
+ Covenant College, 14049 Scenic Highway, Lookout Mountain, Georgia 30750, 706-820-1560, info@covenant.edu
+ Presbyterian Church in America, 1700 North Brown Road, Suite 105, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, 678-825-1000, Fax: 678-825-1001, ac@pcanet.org
