We regularly like to give our very busy Stated Clerk a small break and have a member of Presbytery Council or a committee write an article for the Bi-Weekly Brief. For this edition we are grateful to the Rev. Paul Pfeuffer, Pastor of Flushing and Presbytery Vice Moderator.

Hello and I hope summer is treating you Presbyterians well! (I am writing this while the heat index is 105 and the climate is oppressive at the moment.) Summer is a time for nostalgia, for catching up on your reading and working on planting, playing, and splashing around. And because I am very food-motivated, summer is a time for delicious treats. Flushing’s ice cream parlor Cops & Robbers comes to mind. So does the strawberry cheesecake my Methodist colleague’s husband, Patrick, made for my family. But perhaps no treat better reminds me of summer than the one I’m listing below. Serve it room temp or beat the heat and serve it cold (like the Klingons in Star Trek serve revenge), serve it however you like. Just so long as you enjoy, and thank God for times of rest, sabbath, and chocolate.

Puppy Chow (Muddy Buddies)

Ingredients:

• Chocolate (semi-sweet or dark)
• Rice Cereal (usually Chex)
• Peanut Butter
• Powdered Sugar

Directions:

1. Melt chocolate and peanut butter together. Warm it for 60 seconds , stir and then warm in increments of 30 seconds so it’s not too hot. Stir the mixture until it’s warm and glossy.
2. Pour cereal into the bottom of a large bowl. Pour some of the mixture on top, then alternate layers of cereal and chocolate/peanut butter. Start with conservative amounts of cereal and work your way up. The key is to not start with too much.
3. Mix it all together, making sure the cereal is thickly coated. Refrigerate the bowl, contents and all!
4. Let the mix cool for a brief period of time – you want it to be room temp -- then take it out and mix in the powdered sugar. You want a thin coating, and for the pieces to begin separating. Use a bowl with a lid, so you can shake it for extra oomph.
5. Refrigerate once more – 15 or 20 minutes – before adding more powdered sugar. You want just enough so your hands aren’t a chocolatey mess while eating.
6. Let the puppy chow sit at room temp for 2 hours, or refrigerate for 30 minutes.
7. Serve at room temp! Enjoy!

May God bless you in your summer festivities. May you rest well. And may you find some time to play in God’s wide and wild creation, folks!

Yours In Christ,

The Rev. Paul Pfeuffer

Pastor of Flushing and

Presbytery Vice Moderator

EXCITING NEWS: Council has approved a $200 grant for the first 20 people from the presbytery who would like to attend NEXT Church! This is for the full registration fee option only and you MUST use a code at registration. Email Staci Percy at spercy@presbylh.org to obtain the code PRIOR to registering. This code is for anyone from the presbytery who would like to attend: Clergy, CREs, Ruling Elders, congregational leaders, etc.

We are excited to announce a NEXT Church National Gathering taking place in Grand Rapids, Michigan from November 11-14, 2025. We will gather at Westminster Presbyterian Church, thanks to the generosity and hospitality of their congregation and staff. During the gathering, leaders from all across the Church will learn alongside those asking similar questions, naming the very real/pressing challenges, and hoping to uncover strategies to bring about wholeness as we do the work ahead. Our time together will create the space to cultivate individual and communal transformation.

There are five different Pathways to chose when registering. We will highlight a couple in each Bi-Weekly Brief.

Community Organizing

Building Movements for a More Just World

“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers,” said Civil Rights organizer Bayard Rustin. We need people with a vision of a just world who are willing to disrupt the status quo and bring reality closer to that vision.

But how do we do that? Our churches have done countless service projects and numerous protests, but we still feel ill-equipped to make real and lasting change on the issues that matter most to us. How can we help our congregations move from the pews to public leadership grounded in our faith?

Community organizing is a practice of social change that is driven by relationships; the issues we champion are led by the people most impacted in our communities. We learn to be realistic about how power shapes our lives, identifying systemic problems and turning those problems into actionable campaigns in order to address injustices. Most importantly, it is a practice of hope as we help people reclaim their agency, grow into their potential as changemakers, and create new communities shaped by a vision of a just and joyful world for all.

This pathway isn't just theory — it's about action. You'll engage in hands-on exercises, real-world case studies, and collaborative learning with others. Session will teach the basic principles of community organizing so you can begin to apply these principles to your ministry context. Whether you are a newcomer or an experienced organizer, together we’ll discover how we can lead with our communities and make real change together.

Art as Resistance

An awakened imagination is the most dangerous thing to the empire.

The role of the artist in activating imagination is modeled by some of our most stubborn prophets. Consider Jeremiah's smashed pottery performance piece at the Potsherd Gate or the way the poet Isaiah painted with lavish words and rich vision. Their imaginations fueled their passion, their clarity and their ability to see an alternative future in the midst a death-dealing reality.

Participants in this Pathway will be invited to collaborate theologically and creatively around the role of the artist in movements for social justice and human rights. We will engage the work of current and historical artists, particularly those with POC and LGBTQIA+ identities and their impact on movements for racial equity, civil rights and human rights.

This is pathway meant to both ground us and activate us. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in spiritual practices that will ground us and give us clarity as well as experiment with various public art-making materials and methods such as screen printing, stamping, stenciling, pasting and painting. We will make individual work as well as collaborative pieces with the opportunity to experiment with art not only as resistance and as liturgical action.

This pathway is for artists and non-artists of all kinds and is inherently meant to be accessible and empowering for every/all skill sets. What it requires is imagination and a willingness to take risks!

An additional fee of $50 for art supplies will be charged for this pathway.

Imagine you live in a town at the base of beautiful mountains and nearly 500 miles from a hurricane battering the Florida coast. Now you could imagine that you would have some residual effects from this hurricane, in the form of some rain showers for a day or maybe two. BUT you could never imagine or prepare for a storm that would sit over you and your mountains for 5 days and dump 30 inches of rain. 30 inches of rain that floods not only every creek and river in the mountains, but also every creek and river below the Mountains. And when all that water converges on your city you have catastrophic flooding of the proportions perhaps Noah experienced. This was Asheville, North Carolina (NC) and Hurricane Helene!

25 ft of water rushing down streets and taking with it homes, businesses, cars, everything imaginable. You have nowhere to go. Your just pray that GOD spares your life and those of your friends and family. Sadly, that will not be the case for all, as 95 people die across NC and nationwide 175 deaths are attributed to Hurricane Helene, 42 of those deaths were in the Asheville area. Roads were destroyed, bridges, and so much more. Homes slid down Mountains as the rain made it all unstable. The town went without water for 6 weeks while the USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) worked to bring water to the community to drink and cleared the rivers of debris. Lost lives, homes, businesses and belongings would become an everyday sight as the community worked to rebuild their lives.

Six months later Good Morning America did a show from Asheville highlighting the fact that they were working hard to recover, but the public needed to know and see that there was still so much to do. They had gone through holidays and suffered through winter with people still having no home. They lived in tents and sheds and whatever they could find to give them shelter. They also had the fear of mud slides as over the course of six months nearly 2000 had hit the area. A campground that held almost a hundred sites was at the base of a mountain and the intersection of two major rivers… it was wiped out and was just at the point where six months later they could start rebuilding everything. But it was spring, and they were afraid of rain again causing more slides and flooding. 

Just What is Juneteenth?

By the Rev. Kate Morrison

Growing up in the southeast, I didn’t hear an awful lot about the holiday known as Juneteenth. In fact, usually what I heard was that for the people of color that I knew, it was more or less a day to gather together, eat some good food and enjoy the fellowship of your friends and family. In many ways, it sounded like a pretty typical summer cookout, so I honestly didn’t think that much of it. It wasn’t until we fast forward a few decades where I found myself in the midst of seminary in suburban Atlanta - Decatur, to be precise - when friends and colleagues gathered together to celebrate that I even really thought to ask, “Just what is this Juneteenth about?”

The history of the United States tells us that on July 4th, 1776, a number of Founding Fathers signed a document known as the Declaration of Independence, which, while not a legally binding document, highlighted and brought forth the issues of the colonies of North America and explained why they wanted independence from Great Britain and the King.^[1] Unfortunately, while the preamble of this document states that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”, the fact remained that such truths and rights were not permitted or meant to apply to people of color, predominantly the enslaved Africans and their descendants who were forced to serve and work on the plantations of the south, and the households and farms of the north.

Even after the now independent colonies established themselves as the United States, slavery was still allowed and this practice was one that was fervently fought over when the Civil War broke out in 1861, with the secession of the southern states from the Union. Though the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered by then President Abraham Lincoln on January 1st, 1963, which granted freedom to the enslaved peoples of the southern states, the fact remained that the war was still raging and the proponents of slavery did not abide by the document.^[2] It was not until the end of the Civil War in May of 1865 that the freedom of those who were enslaved was more fully enforced. Ultimately, it took until June 19th, 1865 for news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Galveston, Texas, and for the enslaved people of that area to know that they were actually free, with the help of Union troops who were able to implement the law.

You may hear Juneteenth celebrated or also called Emancipation Day and/or Black Independence Day. This is because many people who are descended from enslaved Africans feel that June 19th, 1865 was the first time that people of color across the United States were guaranteed freedom. Juneteenth is not just a celebration of freedom, but of the resilience of a people and a culture to persist in the midst of injustice, and ultimately to overcome it. Today, Juneteenth is a national holiday, and I would argue not only reminds us of our history as a nation, but continues to call us to find those spaces in our lives where we can celebrate in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

^[1] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration/what-does-it-say

^[2] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/emancipation-proclamation

An Event for Students Grades 6-12

To provide the most mission-focused event possible, Living Water Ministries has consolidated The Great Lakes Gathering (traditionally for students grades 9-12) and Charge (traditionally for students grades 6-8) into a single event. 2022 was our first hybrid (high school and middle school) Charge and it was a phenomenal event! By combining our efforts into one event, we believe we can better meet the ever-changing youth ministry needs of the congregations we serve as we develop leaders, practice service, bring together community, and grow in faith. Join us November 14-16, 2025 at the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City, MI for our next Charge event!

Group Registration Required

Charge is an event designed for students grades 6-12 who are registered with a group accompanied by adults. Often this is in the form of a church group with adult leaders from the congregation, however it can also be adults/parents bringing a group of grade appropriate participants (i.e. a group that includes friends and family attending with an adult).

For more information, click the button below or contact the Rev. Cassie Todd.

2025/2027 Book of Order

This book is Part II of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This volume contains the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity, the Form of Government, the Directory for Worship, and the Church Discipline. Additional information is provided to the reader through the inclusion of Received Ecumenical Statements of Guidance and Articles of Agreement.

Join others in ordering the newest edition of the Book of Order at the price of $10.00 each.  

You will be notified when the books have arrived and arrangements for pick up or delivery can be made at that time. They will also be available for pick up at the September presbytery meeting.

Orders must be received in the Presbytery Office by August 21, 2025. Unfortunately, there are no cancellations after August 21, 2025.

All orders must be pre-paid.



Contact Rose Onan at ronan@presbylh.org or 989-372-0494 with any questions.

Presbyterian Planning Calendar 2025-2026

It's that time of year again when the presbytery will be placing an order for planning calendars in order to take advantage of the bulk pricing.

This 19-month calendar contains many planning aids for pastors and other church leaders. Includes lectionary for Sundays and special days, liturgical days, liturgical colors, resource information for PC(USA) programmatic emphases, updated synod, presbytery and Presbyterian Mission Agency staff directories, color foldout synod/presbytery and world maps.

Cost per calendar is $11.50 and all orders must be pre-paid. Payment is needed by July 23, 2025. Unfortunately, there are no cancellations after this date.

New Orientation: The calendar grid is now vertical instead of horizontal and will span across two pages for double the writing space for personal dates and notes.

You will be notified when the calendars have arrived (expected around mid-August) and arrangements for pick up or delivery can be made at that time. They will also be available for pick up at the September presbytery meeting.