BE THE CHURCH

Liverpool church volunteers for InterFaith Works of CNY

Liverpool First Presbyterian Church recently spent the day volunteering with InterFaith Works of CNY by helping in their warehouse, collecting donated furniture and supplies, making welcome baskets for new families, painting pictures for their apartments and making blankets for new families.

As an added bonus, the church's volunteer time enabled IFW to receive a $3,000 grant!

We are asking our churches to share this newsletter with your members each week. Click the button below to forward the email or to obtain the newsletter link.

Thank you! 

In our prayers together this week:

• Pray for 14-year-old Jerry Armstrong who has been diagnosed with bone cancer. He attends Whitelaw Presbyterian Church with his family.
• Pray for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one.
• Keep all those who battling cancer in your prayers. Please ask God to be by their side and to be with their doctors and families.

In the cycle of prayer our Presbytery, please pray for these congregations, faith communities, and individuals: Columbian, LaFayette; First, Liverpool; First, Marcellus; First, Mexico; Morrisville Community Church

If you'd like to share a particular joy or concern with the Presbytery, please contact: CaySyrNews@gmail.com. Please note, prayers will be featured for three weeks, unless a specific time frame is requested. "

June is Pride Month!

LGBTQIA+ Frequently Asked Questions

In an effort to continue to embody the welcoming and inclusive kin-dom of God, Presbyterian Church (USA) created a FAQ resource to be a helpful tool for churches, mid councils, educational bodies and individuals. This resource was created with LGBTQIA+ people with a lens on diversity and intersectionality. May this resource be an effective tool for the spread of the gospel to all people. Download Here.

We are compiling a list of Pride Month special services and events. If your church is hosting one, please email caysyrnews@gmail.com. Everyone is welcome at the following service(s):

A special presbytery meeting is being called for 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 20, 2024.

The meeting will take place on Zoom. 

Please read all supporting documents prior to the meeting. Additional documents will be shared in the next few days.

We look forward to a productive time together!

Papers for this meeting can be found below:

Docket

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMqf-yoqToiGNJ9eYSOBKEm53Cu21fectMj

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

HIP HOP JOY: G-Quan and the Greatest Common Factor dance group led children of all ages in some hip hop joy and love at the United Ministry of Aurora. G-Quan is a dancer, poet, rapper and actor who is passionate about supporting people to unlock their inner creativity.

Update on Presbytery Mission Project with InterFaith Works

Dear Friends:

At our September Presbytery Meeting we reviewed a request from InterFaith Works (IFW) for $30,000 to fund the settlement of new refugees. The first several months are critical as IFW sets up apartments, helps them with the many layered aspects of settling into a new country, community, learning English and finding jobs. Please note that at least one apartment is being secured every day for a refugee couple, individual or family is being set up every day.

The Presbytery voted to give $15,000 out of funds available from our remaining budget. The Social Justice Committee recommends that there are two ways to make up the remaining $15,000. First an anonymous donor is putting up $5,000 to be matched by congregations. And Second, another $5,000 to be recruited from individuals who want to contribute. The Good news is that of the latter $4,000. Has been secured with $1,000 remaining.

With your help and your congregations’ help, we would like to make a total gift of $30,000. Will your congregation help us raise an additional $5,000 by partnering in this effort as a matching donor to assure safe and stable housing for our New American Families?

InterFaith Works has been able to create extensive relationships with a network of landlords in the Syracuse area to identify available housing and provide landlord/tenant mediation for current tenants when needed, leveraging this network to set up new families that benefit of housing stability.

If you can give, you can send the check directly to Presbytery as a separate donation from your congregation noting on the memo line that it is for the “IFW First Rental Refugee Assistance”. Your gift will be reported to the Presbytery so that all gifts can be counted.

In Appreciation for Making a Difference in so Many Lives,

Rev. Monica Styron

A SPECIAL THANK YOU NOTE

With Sincere thanks for your support of our Rental Assistance Request 2024

Dear Friends:

Refugees are a particularly vulnerable population in our community. Many have special needs, including housing, advanced age, medical and mental health issues, or a lack of English skills. Our goal is always to promote self-sufficiency for the families we serve, but a crisis such as a health emergency that leads to job loss can set in motion an eviction which creates a deeper crisis for the family. The Rental Assistance Program provides a one-time critical safety net for the family during such times to prevent them from losing their home.

We are deeply grateful to the Presbytery of Cayuga-Syracuse for recently approving a $15,000 gift to help our agency serve people who need immediate and one-time help to prevent eviction.

InterFaith Works has over 40 years’ experience settling refugees from United Nations-identified troubled areas across the globe. We are resettling over 1,000 refugees in 2024. We also provide services beyond initial resettlement for approximately 450 refugees every month who visit our office with continuing needs.



Sincerely,

Beth A. Broadway

President/CEO

Last Call to Play Ball

Make your reservation today: Call Rita Hooper at 315-706-3564

Scam Alert!

Be aware that scammers are targeting churches! 

One recent scam involves the offer of a FREE grand piano provided the church pays a freight company $2500 for shipping. Educate your session, church secretary and volunteers of the following warning signs:

• An introductory tale of upheaval (My spouse died; I'm going through a divorce; I'm moving and can't take it with me)
• Refusal by the scammer to speak on the phone, insisting that all information be shared and transactions conducted by email
• Fee to the freight company must be paid with a bank draft
• Fee is paid prior to shipping

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck SCAM.

Under the new guidelines from the Book of Order, boundary training is required every three years for: Ministers of Word and Sacrament, Certified Christian Educators (CCE), Certified Christian Ruling Elders (CRE) and Inquirers before moving to candidacy. 

The presbytery has contracted with SafeGatherings https://safegatherings.com for the online boundary training course. To learn more, or to register for the course, please contact your committee chair or the interim resource presbyter.

Background checks for incoming Ministers of the Word & Sacrament are now conducted through Praesidium.

https://www.praesidiuminc.com

To request a background check, please contact your COM liaison.

Amboy Belle Isle United Church

6190-92 Airport Road, Syracuse

RUMMAGE & BAKE SALE

Friday, June 21^st

9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Seeking volunteers for voter outreach

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is building state based voter outreach, education, and mobilization teams for a campaign to reach millions of poor and low-wage infrequent voters for a movement that votes and to build a 3rd Reconstruction. 

In October of 2021, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival released our landmark report, Waking the Sleeping Giant: Poor and Low-Income Voters in the 2020 Elections.  

In this report, we demonstrated that if poor and low-income voters, over 85 million Americans, voted at a similar rate as higher income voters in 2016, they would have matched or exceeded the margin of victory in the presidential election. Our report proves that the biggest opportunity to build support for a moral agenda that lifts from the bottom is among poor and low-income voters, and that such voter engagement must be across geography, race, and other lines of division.

Indeed, the reality of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the denial of healthcare, militarism and the false narrative of religious nationalism—interlocking injustices that are hurting more than 30 percent of the electorate—is sinful and immoral. Tired myths are used to blame the poor for these conditions and to deflect attention away from the structural sin of poverty and the abdication of our elected leaders. The narrative that poor and low-wage people are apathetic about politics or don’t care enough to vote is just another one of these myths. In actuality, there is great, untapped power among these tens of millions of people, who often don’t see their demands– such as housing, healthcare, and living wages– reflected by those seeking election. They are like a sleeping giant and we have only felt its midnight stirrings. We are waking the Sleeping Giant.

In order to wake the Sleeping Giant, we need people from all across the country committed to reach poor and low-wage infrequent voters in their state. We have an opportunity to reach, inform and mobilize these voters. This is our work and our calling in this moment of history, no one else is proposing to do this type of specific outreach to an unprecedented 15 million poor and low-income voters in this upcoming election to demonstrate that our votes are not a show of support, they are demands. 

Poor and low-wage voters in this country ARE the Sleeping Giant who have the power to shift EVERY election up and down the ballot all across the country to usher in a 3rd Reconstruction in these yet to be United States of America. 

If you are interested in being involved, please contact Beth DuBois at beth.dubois51@gmail.com to get connected to the NY State effort and National training. 

For information on the PPC, go to: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

For information on the NY State PPC, go to: https://linktr.ee/nysppc and check out the newsletter and State of the State report.

If you were unable to attend the talk on “Christian Nationalism” by Dr. Greg Carey on May 15th at Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, the good news is that his powerful message about the threats of this growing movement is on YouTube.



New York State Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Webinars

You can take this training any time during the year

charlaine@prcli.org

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

7 – 8:30 pm

Wednesday, July 10, 2024 

10:30am -- 12 pm 

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

2 -- 3:30 pm

Our Address: PO Box 438, Syracuse, NY 13214

Click Here for Staff Contact Information

Click Here for a list of Live Streams from our churches

Click Here for a list of Past Editions of Presbytery Matters

Are you hiring?

If your church is hiring, please send an announcement and job description to Communication Coordinator Sarah Buckshot at caysyrnews@gmail.com

Please Note: Hiring announcements will run in Presbytery Matters for 3 weeks and then moved to our website. If you have a hiring announcement from 2023 and are still looking to fill it in 2024, please send a new announcement.

Thank you, Sarah Buckshot, Communications Coordinator.

When church is dangerous, digital ministry provides sanctuary

Our Tapestry is a worshiping community that meets in digital spaces

By Bethany Peerbolte

Special to Presbyterian News Service

“Finally!” was all my United Methodist friend had to text me when I asked how their General Conference was going. While I echo their relief, I know the recovery period for my LGBTQIA+ siblings is far from being final. Presbyterians stand as proof that the vote is sometimes the easiest part of change. As the leader of a ministry with over 90% LGBTQIA+-identifying members, I know a vote is one step of a long journey — one that began with fervent prayers for change. Not to change the Book of Order, but to change oneself. For every LGBTQIA+ person raised in the Christian faith, their journey of self-discovery includes years, often decades, of praying to God to change who they are.

In my time leading Our Tapestry (a 1001 New Worshiping Community supported by Denver Presbytery), I have heard hundreds of stories from individuals whose journey began with the daily battle of praying to God for change and the daily rejection of that prayer.

God has promised to hear our cries of pain, to be near those who weep and to answer when we pray in Jesus’ name, yet the prayer to “take away the gay” has been unequivocally ignored by God. Even leaders in the “ex-gay” movement have admitted their prayer to not be gay was never truly answered. Many of the “ex-gay” celebrities, who were once boisterous about their salvation from being gay, are now living out and proud. If God thinks homosexuality is the egregious sin some Christians say it is, then God’s inaction to answer is monstrously perverse.

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New landing page simplifies search for Korea peace material

Single page updates and aggregates multi-media resources for easy access

By Scott O’Neill

Presbyterian News Service

More than 70 years have passed since an armistice agreement signed by the United States, China, and North Korea formally ceased hostilities between North and South Korea. The agreement provided a definitive end to the fighting, allowed for a drawback of military forces, and established a demilitarized zone to buffer the North and South as a strategy to help prevent incidents which could lead to the resumption of the Korean war. What the armistice did not do was officially end the war, as no peace treaty between the two nations has ever been signed.

As the Presbyterian calendar approaches the Season of Prayer and Reflection for Peace in the Korean Peninsula (June 25), the PC(USA)’s World Mission ministry has updated and aggregated a collection of multi-media resources devoted to helping promote a just peace for Korea onto a single web page, which can be found here.

The resources are designed to help congregations, mid councils, and individuals increase their understanding of the Korean conflict and contribute to the peace process through worship, prayer and faithful action.

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