J. Herbert Nelson Celebrates 2014

CELEBRATING ANOTHER GREAT YEAR FOR THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.) OFFICE OF PUBLIC WITNESS

Dear Friends of Justice Advocacy Work and Ministry:

I am thankful for your support of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness in Washington, DC. We could not do our work without you. I am writing you to give a few updates on our work this past year and a brief look forward.

Youth and Young Adult Emphasis

 

2014 Seminary Interns Sabrina Slater and Kyle Cristofalo with
Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons 

In 2014, we completed a three-year initiative to focus on youth and young adults. Thousands of youth and young adults were impacted by our efforts. We will share an impact study with the denomination during the first quarter of the year. Due to the great success of our three-year commitment, we are launching a second phase of our initiative with more of an emphasis on justice advocacy training and leadership. Training young adult justice advocates and activists to engage in coalition- and movement-building in local communities will be the new emphasis of this work. This process is already being implemented through our Internship, Summer Fellowship and Young Adult Volunteer initiatives and will continue to grow.

See our theological basis for work with young adults published in the First Quarter 2012 Advocacy as Discipleship publication, “A New Organizing Model: Young Adults are Essential for a new Era of Political Advocacy.” 

Revamped and New Educational Forum

For more than 20 years, Presbyterians have traveled to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness for our monthly Second Tuesday briefings. Given the access to technology by so many persons across the globe, we are now preparing to launch a series of online tools that will assist us in inspiring, equipping and connecting Presbyterians and others to stay abreast of the latest policy and political information. You will have an opportunity to engage our advocacy partners, staff and officials via a series of forums. We will also have specific conference calls for identified issue advocates. There will be no standard day or time for these events, but rather will be scheduled when the issue demands it and to serve people in various times zones and availability. We will hold these events at least twice a month and you should be able to participate through your telephone and/or computer. Notices of monthly events will be published on our media resources, such as our email list, Facebook, and Twitter.

Compassion, Peace and Justice Training Day and Ecumenical Advocacy Days

The U.S. makes up only five percent of the world’s population, and yet we incarcerate a quarter of the world’s prisoners. With private, for-profit prisons that incarcerate, but fail to rehabilitate, the United States’ “justice system” fails to achieve justice on multiple levels. A failing public education system, eroding worker protections, and a minimum wage that traps families in poverty has left persons vulnerable to the desperation and behaviors that lead to incarceration. Militarized police forces that racially profile, while killing innocent children of color, further exacerbate a problem where private investors are permitted to profit from the incarceration of human beings.

We erect fences to keep persons from crossing our borders while creating the very economic and political turmoil, oppression and violence that leads people to migrate in the first place. We use our purchasing power to support companies that employ slave labor and buy products that contain conflict minerals. It is time to build a movement to achieve systemic changes that releases the prisoners (literal and figurative) from the bondage of unjust laws and leadership.

Two events comprise our Advocacy Training Weekend. “Compassion, Peace and Justice (CPJ) Training Day” is a one-day Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-focused training event that provides interaction and information regarding the work of the denomination. Held at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, on April 17, 2015, together we will share worship, fellowship, education, networking, and training in order to better engage Presbyterians in the work of building a movement for justice.

CPJ Training Day precedes Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD), which brings together 56 ecumenical organizations to sponsor a “how-to” advocacy-training event. Together, “we will confess our personal and corporate failure to break the chains of poverty, racism, and greed institutionalized in our laws, economy, and social behaviors that collude to perpetuate human exploitation and strip people of their civil and human rights.” Advocacy Days will take place April 17-20, 2015.

Join the Advocacy Training Weekend beginning with Compassion, Peace and Justice Training Day on Friday, April 17, 2015, at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and stay the whole weekend for Ecumenical Advocacy Days, which will start on Friday evening, April 17, at the Doubletree – Crystal City, VA (just across the river). The weekend will conclude with lobby day on Capitol Hill on Monday, April 20, 2015.

We have drawn over 300 Presbyterians to these events each year since 2011. We are hoping to bring more in 2015. Please register today and share the information found about the Advocacy Training Weekend with your friends, church groups, Presbyteries, Synods and other congregations in your community. 

Register for CPJ Day 

Register for EAD 

Celebrating Advocacy Victories

• Celebrating the great news on US-Cuba relations! Thanks to all of you who have been responding to our action alerts on this issue!
• After 100 days in Sanctuary at University Presbyterian Church, Luis Lopez Acabal returned to his home and family on Friday, December 12!
• Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have passed the ABLE Act, which will “unlock the doors of financial freedom” for people with disabilities and their families, who must either be independently wealthy or live in poverty in order to receive the support and services they need. The President is expected to sign this bill into law – perhaps the most important stride forward in legislation for people with disabilities since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) itself. Read more from our partners at the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition’s (IDAC) Facebook page.

I give thanks each day for the way God has blessed this ministry and for you, who are our partners in ministry and mission. May the joy and peace of this season be yours and may we move into a New Year with hope and thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

J. Herbert Nelson, II

Linda Valentine Features Advocacy Training Weekend

Advocacy Training Weekend: Bringing our faith into the public arena Greetings to members of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, mid council executives, and friends, There are times when God calls us to take a stand—and take our place—among the “great cloud of witnesses,” whose steadfast commitment to being God’s church necessarily involved engaging the secular world. In her message below, Sara Lisherness, director of the Compassion, Peace, and Justice ministry area, describes how our Presbyterian history and traditions not only inform and inspire us but also continue to call us to take action toward promoting a more just society. Faithfully yours, Linda Valentine ________________________ Greetings, sisters and brothers in Christ! Presbyterians have a deep and rich history of engagement in public life. Our Reformed tradition clearly attests to God’s sovereignty over all of creation, including the ordering of human community, and calls the church to be involved in the political culture of every age, witnessing to the shalom of God. The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s vision statement, “Presbyterians joyfully engaging in God’s mission for the transformation of the world,” recognizes and affirms this calling. The roots of our church’s engagement in public affairs can be traced to John Calvin, who was concerned about not only personal piety but the welfare of the citizens of Geneva. He was deeply engaged in public life—establishing universal education, creating a representational form of government, building a sanitation system, caring for the poor, and welcoming refugees from all walks of life into the community. Calvin initiated a legacy that Presbyterians have followed over the centuries. John Witherspoon, president of what would become Princeton University, was the only clergy member to sign the Declaration of Independence. So active were Presbyterian leaders in seeking independence from the crown that they were labeled “disrupters of government,” and King George was said to have called the colonists’ quest for independence the “Presbyterian Rebellion.” Many Presbyterians have followed in the footsteps of Calvin and Witherspoon—Elijah Lovejoy and Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe were outspoken advocates for the abolition of slavery. Woodrow Wilson and John Foster Dulles were both leaders in international affairs, seeking ways that the world community could work together for peace. Eugene Carson Blake and Edler Hawkins were among the “great cloud of witnesses” in the civil rights movement. Inspired by the Reformed understanding of what faithfulness to the God who is sovereign over all creation means, these leaders are examples of countless Presbyterians who bring their faith into the public arena. This dedication to public witness continues in the life of our church today. The Office of Public Witness—working in the nation’s capital since 1947—is the voice of PC(USA) social witness policy. It nurtures and encourages Presbyterians from all walks of life to get involved in civic life. Each year, this ministry—working in partnership with other programs of Compassion, Peace, and Justice—organizes Advocacy Training Weekend, scheduled this year for March 21–24. Presbyterians from across the country will gather at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, on March 21 to worship, to pray, and to learn how to strengthen their public advocacy. This daylong gathering is followed by Ecumenical Advocacy Days, a three-day conference that brings together people from many religious traditions to build partnerships and strengthen the voice of the church as it bears witness in our nation’s capital. The theme this year is “Jesus Weeps: Resisting Violence, Building Peace.” Registration is still open for both events. Join us March 21–24 to learn how you can more effectively share the convictions of our faith with elected officials and to meet other Presbyterians joyfully engaging in God’s mission for the transformation of the world! Sara Lisherness, Director Compassion, Peace, and Justice

Washington Report to Presbyterians Fall 2013

The Fall 2013 Washington Report to Presbyterians is here!  

THE LATEST NEWS FROM THE PC(USA) OFFICE OF PUBLIC WITNESS INCLUDES:

• Faith Leaders Call for Common Good Budget Deal
• A Preview of the 2014 Advocacy Training weekend, March 21-24
• A Feature on our Summer Fellows, both 2013 and our alumni – where are they now?
• Peacemakers Make a Difference on Syria
• A short recap of the Presbyterians for Earth Care Conference
• Action Alert: Boycott the Occupation of Palestine

Download the complete Report from our website.

The Office of Public Witness Gives Thanks

Advocacy Training Weekend

The Office of Public Witness Gives Thanks

We are grateful for your participation in the Advocacy Training Weekend Events held in the Metro DC area on April 5-8. Nearly four hundred Presbyterians registered for the two events. We had the largest delegation of participants among the fifty-four ecumenical groups participating in Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) for the third consecutive year. Your participation in the two training events is appreciated by Compassion Peace and Justice Ministries (CPJ) and the Office of Public Witness. 

We are learning from your evaluations of CPJ Training Day and EAD as well as from notes taken during our denominational gathering at EAD. We plan to make each year a stepping stone to educating more Presbyterians on the work of justice advocacy in the world. 

The Work Ahead

Our work over the next year will involve locating persons in Presbyteries and Synods to serve as liaisons to the work of our office. It is imperative that the good news of CPJ Training Day and EAD continues beyond the events of our April weekend together. Our community organizing strategy over the past three years is embracing opportunities to inspire, equip, and connect Presbyterians to ways that a prophetic witness can transform the world while growing the church deep and wide. Therefore, we will be calling on you to assist us in shaping a witness in your local congregation and governing bodies throughout the PC (U.S.A.). We believe that the hope for a transformed world begins in local communities. Our willingness to speak truth in love to power through organizing whole communities for effective justice advocacy is the challenge facing us all during this period in history. How you share the information learned during CPJ Training Day and EAD is vitally important. 

Next Steps

1.      Organize a small group in to meet in your home, church or community venue to discuss what you learned about how to become an effective advocate. Reproduce the publication from our office entitled Holy Discontentment: Lifting Your Voice for Effective Advocacy. http://www.presbyterianmission.org/media/uploads/compassion-peace-justice/pdf/holy_discontentment_advocacy_resource_final.pdf

2.     Form a justice advocacy group or committee within your congregation. Choose one issue that your group is willing to begin working on in your local community.

3.      Build alliances with other ecumenical and interfaith groups on specific community state or national issues.

4.      Sponsor a Justice Advocacy Sunday in your local Congregation. See the Presbyterian Planning Calendar for more details about celebrating around Election Day or in January 2014.

5.     Sponsor a get out to vote campaign or provide rides to the polls for people who do not own cars; cannot afford public transportation or do not drive. Also, make sure those who are able can or will vote by absentee ballots.

6.   Provide forums on pertinent political issues. Look for information in November about the Respectful Dialogue Initiative (RDI) being launched by the OPW.

7.    Volunteer to be a liaison with your Presbytery, Synod, or Congregation with the OPW. We will be offering quarterly calls to share information and news from our office and Capitol Hill.  

8.     BEGIN NOW – Plan to come to Advocacy Training Weekend next year and/or recruiting persons from your congregation to participate. The dates are March 21-24, 2014