Upcoming Events

When the Well Runs Dry: Compassion Fatigue and the Work of Caregiving

With Leanna Fuller; Matthew F. Muldoon; Donna M. Posluszny; and Joanne Spence, June 18, 25, July 2, and 9, 2020

PTS Responds

Weekly conversations and teach-ins on racial justice with members of the PTS Community, June 24-Aug. 26, 2020

Claiming Pentecost: New Beginnings in a Post-Pandemic Church

With Paul Rhebergen and Jan Nolting Carter, July 9, 16, 23, 30, Aug. 6, and 13, 2020

McClure Lecture and the WMI Conference Jesus Christ and the ‘Dividing Wall’: Race and God’s Mission

With Barbara Salter McNeil and Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, Oct. 1-3, 2020

What does it take for people of good heart and will to stand up, proclaim the Good News, and act on behalf of God’s preferred future for all God’s people?

These past few weeks, we have seen two intersecting stories that give us a window into a possible answer to this question. On May 31, the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost. Despite having witnessed the teaching, healing, and Resurrection of Jesus, his followers locked themselves in a room—at a loss, in limbo. And, very frightened—frightened of the authorities. Knowing the Good News and knowing what to do about it were not the same thing.

It took a "sound like a violent wind"— the in-breaking of the promised Spirit—to force these people of good heart and good will out of their fear and inertia and compel them to be change agents in their broken, beloved world. The breath of God disrupted everything—the familiar, the comfortable, the predictable—and moved the disciples to diverse, powerful, and public proclamation of the Gospel.

Fast forward two millennia. The same week we observed Pentecost, the last breath of George Floyd drove people of good heart and good will out of their upper rooms and into a diverse, powerful, and public rejection of the sins of racism and white privilege. As with Pentecost, we have seen the marketplaces and streets disrupted and noisy and filled with people proclaiming—insisting on—a future that is more just, more in alignment with the vision of Beloved Community.

As people of faith, we know that we must confess and repent of our sin—and the Good News is that God will make us whole again. What we are witnessing is an irruption in our collective intolerance of what has been called "America’s Original Sin"—the sin of racism.

But what are we to do?

Starting next week, we will begin a series of weekly conversations called PTS Responds. Featuring members of the PTS community—staff, graduates, Board members, faculty—we will reflect together on the history of racism and how the church can respond to it. We invite you to join us for these gatherings and find ways to respond in your community. We are also hard at work assembling a calendar of additional programs for the coming months that will challenge your mind, feed your spirit, and equip you to respond to your call in these volatile times.

The Spirit’s noisy breath—and the words of a dying man who declared, "I can’t breathe"—disrupted the status quo. The disruption of Pentecost brought clarity, conviction, and cohesion to the scrappy band of disciples, and the Church was born as they proclaimed a world in alignment with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Will it do the same for us? Will the flame of Pentecost ignite change—change that helps our communities, neighborhoods, and churches look more like the Beloved Community? I hope so. This is hard work, friends—but we are promised the Spirit - and that same Spirit calls the faithful to be at the forefront of this change.

Peace,
Helen Blier
Director, Continuing Education