Presbytery of Chicago Mission Statement 2023:

Pursuing worship, service, and communities of justice, we are the Presbytery of Chicago, flourishing together by relating people, neighbors, and churches to one another in Christ Jesus.

The Presbytery of Chicago is committed to being a Matthew 25 presbytery and supports the three focuses:

Focus #1: Building congregational vitality.

Focus #2: Dismantling structural racism.

Focus #3: Eradicating systemic poverty.

The legendary community activist, Saul Alinsky, tells the following story.

While it is important for congregations to continue doing the difficult and needed work of operating food pantries, standing up to racial discrimination, and making disciples, we need to go upstream. Matthew 25 initiative uses the words structural and systemic. These words emphasize finding the source (or sources) of hunger, poverty, and racism and addressing the issue upriver. An example is the response of the Highland Park community to the July Fourth killing. They went beyond protesting or even weapons collections, which are also very important. Instead, they attacked the problem at one of the sources. They used their privilege and clout to bring legislative pressure to pass anti-gun laws. The story isn’t over yet, as anticipated push-back and lawsuits have followed. But the strategy of going upstream to the source of the problem is the type of solution Matthew 25 initiative is calling for.

Would your congregation like to be a Matthew 25 congregation? We currently have 13 congregations committed to the Matthew 25 initiatives. They are listed below. We should be able to double this number of congregations this calendar year. If your congregation would like to join the list, send me a note at my email and let’s have a conversation! And let’s all create strategies to provide help for those in poverty, support anti-racism, and strengthen our congregations, making them vital and relevant.

Matthew 25 congregations: 

Christ Presbyterian Church

Elmhurst Presbyterian Church

Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church of Chicago Heights

First Presbyterian Church of Libertyville

First Presbyterian Church of Wheaton

Highlands Presbyterian Church

Presbyterian Church in Orland Park

Presbyterian Church of Palatine

Ravenswood Presbyterian Church

River Glen Church

Riverside Presbyterian Church

Winnetka Presbyterian Church

Presbytery of Chicago Mission Statement 2023

Pursuing worship, service, and communities of justice, we are the Presbytery of Chicago, flourishing together by relating people, neighbors, and churches to one another in Christ Jesus.

Are you familiar with the urban myth of Candyman? When I was a kid growing up and hanging with my cousins in the projects on 62nd and Wabash, we would crowd go into the tiny bathroomin the apartment, turn off the lights, look in the mirror and say, “Candyman, Candyman . . .” then stop. According to the myth, if you say “Candyman” three times, he will appear — and he was known to abduct children! I’m not sure if I ever said it three times. I do remember laughter, giggles, screaming, and just being kids having fun!

As we created our mission statement for the Presbytery, we debated whether we should use the word “anti-racism” in the statement. The argument that won the day suggested the use of the word would turn many congregations off — and might even tune out and miss the rest of the mission statement. Instead, we used the word “justice,” hoping it would convey anti-racism along with other forms of injustice that permeate Chicagoland.

I’m beginning to wonder if the word “anti-racism” is our Candyman. On paper, the presbytery is committed to anti-racism work through CARE (Commission on Anti-Racism and Equity) and FARE (Facilitators of Antiracism and Equity). These commissions have worked diligently and faithfully since their inception. The presbytery has shown commitment through funding and a 25-year plan of implementation. Yet, many congregations and members are afraid to say the word “anti-racism,” or to confess that we are an anti-racism presbytery or congregation.

In her acceptance speech for the Grawemeyer award, Kelly Brown Douglas said, “We are not to be gatekeepers of an unjust status quo, but rather we’re to provide a gateway of thought to a more just future.” (Douglas is the Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Seminary. You can watch her 2023 Grawemeyer Lecture on YouTube.)

Speaking out against racism and its tentacles of white supremacy, gun violence, and climate change denial is the pathway into a more just future for the Presbytery of Chicago. We are challenged to speak with courage, not fear — with audacity, not anxiety.

 As we live into the resurrection, may we speak loudly and offer the words that bring hope, liberation and justice to Chicagoland, and every congregation in the presbytery.

The Museum shares the story of Anthony Crawford, from Abbeville, SC. This is the area my family of origin is from. In 1916, Mr. Crawford disagreed with the price he was offered by the white store owner for his cotton seed. When leaving the store, Mr. Crawford was attacked from behind, then arrested. He was later pulled from the jail andlynched, his house burned down, his land was taken, and his family forced out of the county.

The message sent from lynching was simple: Stay in your place. Don’t try to live above your station. Don’t try to achieve outside of your boundary. Lynching wouldn’t allow a strong, black man to stand for fairness, stand for family, or stand for justice. 

After going through the Legacy Museum and seeing all the names from all the counties from all the states, my friend Warren McNeal from New York said, “It’s a wonder we made it at all.”

Jesus was crucified for similar reasons. He was a challenge to power. The Romans felt Jesus was challenging their authority and trying to be above his station. They felt Jesus was trying to be a king, and that would challenge the authority of Caesar. The Jewish leaders felt Jesus didn’t have the pedigree, education, or right to teach and lead people. Jesus was out of bounds. Jesus was trying to be too much, do too much, and wouldn’t obey the rules and just be silent and invisible.

So, they made an example of Jesus. They nailed Jesus to a tree and lifted him up high for all to see. It was a message to anyone else who tried to live above their station. You will be tortured. Your body will be broken. Your blood will be shed. And you will be killed.

W.E.B. Dubois writes this about lynching and God:

This black and riven Thing, was it you?

That gasp- was it yours?

This pain- is it yours?

Who cries?

Who weeps?

With silent sobs that rends and tears-

Can God sob? (See “Prayers of God”) 

But God turned the lynching tree of Jesus into a tree of hope. God took this ugly violent thing and flipped it. Instead of Jesus’ crucifixion being an image that repelled, it became an image of bring people together. Instead of the cross becoming a sight to bring fear, it becomes a vision ofsalvation. Only God can take this event of violence and turn it into a source of peace. What humans meant to be a barrier to hope, God has turned into a portal for possibility and freedom. 

We now take the broken body and shed blood and call it communion. What was meant to scatter the disciples and Jewish people in fear, has become the center of gathering for all of those who believe Jesus is the Christ.  

Perhaps this transformation of evil and redemption from suffering is a hint of what we are called to do as Christians, as those who follow Jesus. The current way of understanding mission in the world is to ask the question, “Where is God working in the world?” Where is God working in Chicago? And then we are challenged to join God where God is. 

But in his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, theologian James Cone asks this question differently. He asks, “Where is Jesus being crucified in the world?” Unfortunately, the cross did not end suffering and injustice in our world. But perhaps we are to find those places of brokenness and bring healing.  

Find those places of suffering and bring redemption.  

Find those places of injustice, and fight for justice.  

Where do you see those places in Chicago?  

Let me tell you how the Anthony Crawford story ended. In 2016, 100 years after the lynching, the descendants of Mr. Crawford came together in Abbeville to unveil a marker that now sits in the town square that honors Anthony Crawford. The land was restored to the family. Dignity restored to a community. When the family gathered, they began to shout, “We are here! We are here!”  

When we take of the body and blood, we are saying, Christ is here. And we are here.

We are here and we have hope.

We are here and we have dignity.

We are here and we have salvation.

We are here and we will continue God’s work of hope, possibility, and freedom. Amen.

(This is part 2 of a series on the mission statement of the Presbytery of Chicago)

Presbytery of Chicago Mission Statement 2023

Pursuing worship, service, and communities of justice, we are the Presbytery of Chicago, flourishing together by relating people, neighbors, and churches to one another in Christ Jesus.

The last Presbytery Assembly was a wonderful celebration as we welcomed Elias CabarcasArroyo to ordained ministry as the Presbytery Evangelist and organizing pastor of Comunidad de Fe Dia Nuevo (Dia Nuevo). Dia Nuevo is a new worshipping community located in the former Christ Church, Hanover Park building. The presbytery entered into a covenant with Dia Nuevo during the same meeting.

The commissioners gave witness and support of this new project with a 100% vote on all 4 motions. Wow! It was a moment of witness to our new mission statement as we experienced “flourishing together.” To flourish means to thrive, to be in a vigorous state, to be successful and to prosper. Flourishing happens when we come together in mission and ministry, when we are focused and connected.

Last Wednesday the New Worshipping Communities Committee hosted a workshop on Multi-use Space Strategies at Park Ridge Presbyterian Church. This was the first live presbytery event since the pandemic. It was well attended with over 60 pastors, members, and guests from churches stretching from the northside to the southside and from the north suburbs to the west suburbs. As we attended workshops, asking questions, and brainstorming solutions, the space was filled with energy, vitality, and hope.

In his recent book, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, Wille Jennings speaks of the value of coming together and what we can achieve collectively. “There is nothing inherently good about gathering people together, but there is something inherently powerful.” Jennings goes on to challenge us to use this power to move past greed, control, possession, and mastery and instead use community for sharing and mutual ownership. I would add that when community (or the presbytery) becomes reimagined as sharing and buying into the ministry of one another, we experience flourishing.

What made the Presbytery Assembly exciting and created energy in the Multi-use Workshop was how churches took part in helping one another succeed in ministry. The desire to support Dia Nuevo and Dia Nuevo’s commitment to share in the ministry of other congregations is a model of the presbytery that focuses on ministry as a gift exchange. Similar ministry exchanges were seen as Fourth Presbyterian and Friendship Presbyterian shared wisdom to help other congregations with building and space challenges.

As we continue to live out our new mission statement, may we reimagine a new presbytery of churches sharing, and exchanging gifts that go beyond financial transactions. May we give ourselves to one another in the name of the risen Christ. Amen. 

Rev. Craig Howard