(By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie). As the magical date of October 31, 2017, rapidly approaches the opportunities around Reformation 500 abound. In particular, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gone all-in and, as you can see from this article, has an opportunity with many of their ministries and programs to celebrate the anniversary. It may be a bit of…
(By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie). A couple of days ago the Office of the General Assembly (OGA) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) released the summary of statistics for 2016 and the corresponding narrative. This does of course provide new data points for my growing data set and gives me an opportunity for some statistical analysis…
By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie. Once again, as I think back on the year and review what has happened I decided to make a list of the different themes that stood out to me from different Presbyterian branches. Here, in no particular order, is my list. Your list may vary. Racial Reconciliation One of…
By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie. So this book [For a Continuing Church: The Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America] was officially released [Dec. 11]. Through the efficiency of a shipper I received my copy a few days early and so far I have only had time to skim through it. It looks good, from what I…
By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie. So I got this research idea over lunch today: I have been considering ways to quantify how big the Presbyterian Church (USA) tent really is and I thought that maybe Twitter accounts might be one metric. I am not sure how well this actually does what I want but it was an…
By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie As we close out this eventful year I will once again join the numerous sources putting out top ten lists for the year that was. And as in past years my primary focus will be on stories, or themes, that were seen across multiple Presbyterian branches with a few…
By Steve Salyards, The GA Junkie With General Assembly season now behind us we move into the portion of the year where the actions of the General Assemblies that require presbytery concurrence are now being considered by the lower governing bodies. Coming from three of the Assemblies we have proposed actions that have implications for…