Native Spirituality and Community Partnership at the Heart of Wells’ Next Chapter

At a recent United Ministry of Aurora Sunday service, Doug George Kanentiio of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge (HIIK) spoke about Native spirituality and its future presence on the Wells College campus. HIIK is in the process of purchasing the campus, which closed nearly two years ago, and leaders emphasized their eagerness to work collaboratively with the surrounding community and with Wells alumnae.

Kanentiio shared the deeply personal origins of the project. Fifteen years ago, he and his wife, five-time Grammy Award winner Joanne Shenandoah, envisioned establishing an Indigenous college at Wells -- one dedicated to preserving Native language, culture, art and music. Sadly Joanne passed away but her dream never did.

“We look forward to working with HIIK on our shared values of compassion, justice and love for all, including our beautiful planet Earth,” said the Rev. Dr. Barb E. Blom.

We want to hear about the mission stories from our Presbytery's worshiping communities. What mission work are you involved in? How are your members working in the community? What story would you like to share with others in the Presbytery?

Send any mission stories from your congregation that you would like to share to: CaySyrNews@gmail.com. 

Deadline is 12 p.m. on Wednesdays for the current week's edition of

Presbytery Matters.

We want to share your stories, missions, activities and more. Also, make sure to like our Facebook page by clicking the "Facebook" icon at the top of this newsletter.

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:

• We lift up the Rev. Karen Chamis as she recovers from knee replacement surgery. Please surround her with your healing presence and bless her with a full, swift recovery.
• Please keep Doug Russell, of Baldwinsville Presbyterian Church, in your prayers as he battles cancer. Pray for strength, healing, and peace for Doug and his loved ones during this difficult time.
• Please pray for pastors Steve and Saunda Thomas as Steve is undergoing cancer treatments. Please keep them in your prayers and cards can be mailed to 130 Wade Hampton Dr., Beaufort, SC 29907.
• Please pray Jerry Armstrong (Whitelaw Presbyterian) Jerry is 15 years old with recurrent bone cancer that has spread to his esophagus. Please continue to pray more than ever for both Jerry and his family. Cards can be sent to Jerry Armstrong at PO Box 414 Wampsville, NY 13163.
• Prayers for peace for the people and country of South Korea.
• Pray for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one.
• The voiceless.
• All those who have been separated from their families.
• All those in America.
• Our brothers & sisters in Haiti.
• All those in Cuba.
• All those in Sudan.
• All those in Ukraine.
• All those in Lebanon.
• All those in Israel and Gaza.
• All displaced people.
• All those who are homebound.
• All those who battling addiction and their loved ones.
• Keep all those who battling cancer and other chronic illnesses in your prayers. Please ask God to be by their side and to be with their doctors and families.
• Please pray for all those who are dealing with the painful grief of losing a beloved family pet.

In the cycle of prayer our Presbytery, please pray for these congregations, faith communities, and individuals: Isaiah’s Table, Syracuse; Korean Church of Syracuse; Park Central, Syracuse; Robinson Elmwood United Church, Syracuse; First, Weedsport; Whitelaw.

On November 1, 2025, we had a meeting of both Presbyteries to provide an update and begin discussions on a vision. There was significant energy in the meeting. Some suggested that our vision statement be transitional since we will be learning and experiencing much as we go through the merger review process. Our next joint Presbytery meeting will be scheduled during the month of May or June. We hope to have a representative of the newly formed merger resulting in Mountain Laurel Presbytery speak to us about their observations of their merger.

We expect to make significant progress over the next four months.

The major tasks for the next few months include:

1.   Formalize the joint working committees and begin monthly updates

2.   Communicate to Synod and request funding for a merger coordinator and legal support.

3.    Complete a review of both Presbyteries, including finances, organizational structure and committees, web and social media, spiritual leadership, and other topics important to the review process.

4.    Continue to review examples of other mergers and leading thoughts on the future of the church

5.    Increase the level of communications within our Presbyteries and our churches.

Our transitional vision statement is:

We follow God's call to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The presbytery will support this vision through dynamic collaboration with and support for our congregations and their leaders, encouraging them to reflect the Spirit's gifts of love, grace, and justice in their midst, in their communities, and in the world at large.

We look forward to future communications and discussions on the merger review.

Thanks

Focus and Coordination Team

ATTENTION: Moderators and/or Clerks of Sessions:

Dear Clerks of Session,

I am writing to let you know that the PC(USA) Statistical Reporting (Statistics of Congregations) portal is now open.

You may access the portal at the following link:

https://ogaapps.pcusa.org/security/Login.aspx?RequestUrl=http%3a%2f%2fogaapps.pcusa.org%2fsoc%2f

If you do not know your password or are having difficulty logging in, please email: statedclerk@cayugasyracuse.org

Completed statistical reports are due no later than February 20, 2026.



Thank you for your faithful work in completing this important annual report, which helps the church understand its life, ministry, and mission more fully. If you have questions or encounter problems beyond login issues, please do not hesitate to be in touch.

Grace and peace,

Ben Fitzgerald-Fye

Stated Clerk

Presbytery of Cayuga-Syracuse

Officer Training for Ruling Elders, Deacons (and Pastors!) — JOIN US!

Saturday, January 31st

10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

In-person at Walton United PC or Northminster PC (Endwell)

or Zoom

NOTE: This training covers new and different topics than last year…

What to expect this year:

Spiritual Leadership: The Eight Cs and how leadership in the church may be

different from leadership with other groups.

Nuts & Bolts: What do the ministries of each office look like in YOUR church? 

Is there anything you are experimenting with in your church (or would like to)?

ALL are invited to join us: Deacons, Ruling Elders, Pastors, and those thinking of filling

one of these roles in the church.

Leaders: Rev. Mary Anderson, the Assistant to the Lead Presbyter, and Rev. Dr. Cynthia

Walton-Leavitt, Pastor at First United Presbyterian (“Red Door”) Church.

How to join us: This workshop is offered in a hybrid format. Come in-person to Walton

United PC (58 East St., Walton, NY 13856) OR online via Zoom. 

Please register at susvalpresby.org/register

If your church would like to host another “hybrid watch location” -- please contact Scott

Kindig at cclefchair@susvalpresby.org or call the presbytery at 607-323-4477.

To join the meeting on Zoom, use this link: https://bit.ly/3MjR6hG

or call 1-646-558-8656. Zoom Meeting ID: 890 0988 6459, passcode: PSV

Staff of the Unified Agency are coming together to offer a church-wide film study, “Evicting the American Dream,” on Mondays, 7:30-8:45 p.m.: Feb 2, 9, 16, 23. 

We invite you to join the ministries of the Unified Agency for a church-wide film study on this excellent documentary about homelessness, the U.S. housing crisis, and its impacts on children produced by Counter Stories Production. We will meet weekly online after watching each week’s film segment. Together, we will hear from featured speakers and discuss redlining, housing commodification, eviction, the impact of housing insecurity on children, and ways to take action in our communities. Advanced registration is required to receive the meeting links and instructions to view the film segments each week. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with these instructions.

Read more from Presbyterian News Service: https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2026/1/22/evicting-american-dream-inspires-february-housing-justice-series

Register on Zoom using this link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/-MkTwcSBSUqT2p7F24TaWg#/registration

Courage in the Face of Authoritarianism: 

Historical Roots and Modern Responses

February 25th - 12pm EST

Register Here

What we are witnessing in the United States right now is chilling: the normalization of cruelty, the targeting of vulnerable communities, and the steady weakening of democratic safeguards that are meant to protect people from state abuse. As immigrant communities face ICE raids and dissent is increasingly treated as a threat, many Presbyterians are feeling grief, fear, and urgency, and asking what faithful courage looks like now.

Register

Take Your Sweetheart to Hear Pepper and Sassafras at the Steeple Coffee House on Valentine’s Day - February 14th!

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, teams up with multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Wendy Sassafras Ramsay in this dynamic acoustic duo.

Rodgers, also the founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine, delivers masterful band-in-a-box guitar work while Ramsay, harmonizer extraordinaire, adds flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, and her quirky originals to the mix. Ramsay also plays in the alternative rock band Starting Off Red. For this Steeple performance, they'll be joined by John Dancks (The Cadleys) on upright bass.

Pepper and Sassafras were finalists for Best Duo at FreshGrass and have been featured on the public radio show Folk Alley. Along with performing original music, Rodgers and Ramsay - and Dancks - play together in the acoustic Grateful Dead collective Dead to the Core. For more information check out pepperandsassafras.com.

The collaboration between Rodgers and Sassafras makes music that is witty, humorous, and accessible. You don’t want to miss this performance!

Where: Steeple Coffee House is in the United Church of Fayetteville at 310 E. Genesee St. in Fayetteville, NY. The venue is Accessible. Plenty of free parking behind the church with entries from E. Genesee St., Chapel St., and Walnut St.

When: Saturday, February 14^th - Show starts at 7:30 PM and runs until 9:30 PM. Doors open at 7:00 PM

Cost: Suggested donation is $15-20 (cash) includes refreshments

 Resisting Erasure and Isolation as Pathway to Belonging

Thursday, January 29, 2026

2:00 – 3:00 PM EST

Leaders - Craig Lemming, Erin Weber-Johnson



Using Artificial Intelligence to Create Stewardship Campaigns

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

2:00 – 3:00 PM EST

Leader - Charlie Kuchenbrod

Mandatory New York State Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Webinars

You can take this training any time during the year

This training is 90 minutes

charlaine@prcli.org

Anti-Harassment & Sexual Harassment Prevention Training

 Leader - Patti Berner

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

7:00 – 8:30 PM EST

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Thursday, April 9, 2026

2:00 – 3:30 PM EDT

How to contact our Lead Presbyter, the Rev. Greg Garis

Email: leadpresbyter@cayugasyracuse.org

How to contact our Assistant to the Lead Presbyter, the Rev. Mary Anderson

Email: asst.presbyter@gmail.com

How to contact our Stated Clerk, the Rev Ben Fitzgerald-Fye

Office Phone: 315-291-0360 (call or text)

Email: statedclerk@cayugasyracuse.org

Mail received at:

Scipioville Presbyterian Church

Attn: Pastor Ben

3428 State Route 34B

Scipio Center NY 13147

More information is linked below:

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.

Comforting words for a hurting city

The Rev. Margaret Fox’s preaching at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis resonates 

Few sermons preached by PC(USA) teaching elders receive a standing ovation, but that’s how the congregation at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis responded Sunday following stellar preaching by the Rev. Margaret Fox, the church’s associate pastor of adult ministries.

Watch the service here, with Fox beginning her sermon at the 28:35 mark.

With Isaiah 6:1-8 and Luke 5:1-11, as her preaching texts, Fox used biblical call stories to speak words of compassion and comfort to residents of a city that has suffered the deaths of two of its residents at the hands of federal immigration agents.

Fox, who’s also trained as an attorney, said she woke up Saturday morning “with a renewed sense of resilience, connectedness and purpose” following Friday’s demonstrations, an interfaith worship service, and “the supportive presence of elected officials, the hundreds of clergy who traveled in from across the country … the great peaceful crowd that formed downtown, the messages of love and support coming in from around the country. All came together to cultivate a shared sense that Minnesota is figuring out something important about how to do resistance and mutual care, and that our community has something to say to the country and the rest of the world about how to stand up against tyranny and how to stand together with and for each other.”

But by mid-morning Saturday, “that brief sense of hopefulness was shattered” as reports of the killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti began to circulate. Fox was in a public space at the time, and she received a hug from a stranger sitting next to her. “I could feel the hurt and the anger radiating out of his body in waves,” she said. “Finally, I forced myself to put down my phone and open my Bible, looking again at our texts for today.”

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Who’s my neighbor?

Speaking at APCE last week, Rabbi Evan Moffic uses Midrash to offer at least 10 responses

Rabbi Evan Moffic, who serves Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois, took on the topic of loving our neighbor during his illuminating talk last week at the Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education. He used the Jewish tool of Midrash to study Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Moffic called Midrash “the Jewish sage’s way of making a timeless text timely.” He cited 10 ways of understanding the Hebrew word “Re’a,” a core term in Hebrew ethics, emphasizing a relationship of care, friendship and responsibility.

• “Re’a should not be translated as ‘neighbor,’” he said. “We think of neighbor as one next door or someone who knows our dog’s name.” One rabbi taught that it’s anyone with whom we have a relationship.
• Moffic offered a pragmatic interpretation. In the Talmud, a young man asks the greatest rabbi of the time to teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. The rabbi said it’s this: what is hateful to you, do not do to another person. “It’s a beautiful way of following the rabbinic tradition of making laws of Torah practical in each generation,” Moffic said. “The underlying idea here is empathy.”
• The most spiritual interpretation is to say that neighbor refers to every human being, which Moffic called “the fundamental underlying principle of Torah. This teaching embodies the core principle of the Hebrew Bible, that everybody is created in the image of God.” This interpretation “is the easiest to teach in principle but the hardest to carry out.”

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