{"id":1418,"date":"2014-10-27T10:09:39","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T15:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2021-08-02T10:25:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T15:25:11","slug":"good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"The good news is\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of the stories we hear about tend to be the negative ones. There are lots of reasons for that. Self-proclaimed \u201cMedia Manipulator\u201d Ryan Holiday attributes some of that negativity to the decline of \u201csubscription based\u201d news outlets. The loudest, scariest, most negative stories grab attention.<\/p>\n

But sometimes, great stuff happens. We just don\u2019t hear about it because the bad news is louder.<\/p>\n

Some really cool stuff happened in the Church this week that wasn\u2019t particularly loud. You probably didn\u2019t hear about it, so I want to share some of it with you. Some of it happened in Africa, some of it happened in Italy, and some of it happened just outside Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

First<\/a>, a Presbyterian\u00a0pastor and infectious disease specialist was sent to Sierra Leone to help in the response to Ebola. He describes the struggles with educating people about safe practices, monitoring health scares, and even working to make sure the money sent to help actually gets to the right places.<\/p>\n

Second<\/a>, an Italian priest decided to ignore death threats and continue his work against organized crime. He decided that the need for faithful cultural change was greater than his need for safety. And by the way, his greatest fear is for the safety of escorts who have been assigned to protect him.<\/p>\n

Third<\/a>, right here in Western Pennsylvania, the Central Presbyterian Church in Tarentum just celebrated 125 years of ministry. Pittsburgh Seminary\u2019s own Don Dawson, of the World Mission Initiative<\/a>, was part of the celebration. Central Presbyterian was founded in 1888. To put this in perspective for you, Montana, Washington, North Dakota, and South Dakota didn\u2019t become states until 1889. Central Presbyterian has been doing ministry longer than Montana\u2019s been a state. Happy Birthday, Central Pres!<\/p>\n

There are three quiet pieces of \u201cgood news\u201d about what the Church is up to! Next time you hear all the negative stuff, take a second to search for stories like these. Or share something great with us that your church is doing. Maybe next time we’ll include you in the “good news.”<\/p>\n

The Rev. Derek Davenport \u201905\/’17 <\/em>is a PTS alumnus of the Master of Divinity (MDiv) Program and Master of Sacred Theology (ThM), between which he served at a church in Orlando, Fla., for five years. Derek also participated the Seminary’s Miller Summer Youth Institute<\/a>. He serves as a preacher in Western Pennsylvania, researches church symbolism<\/a>\u00a0on his\u00a0<\/em>website,<\/em>\u00a0and tweets at\u00a0<\/em>@DerekRDavenport<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the stories we hear about tend to be the negative ones. There are lots of reasons for that. Self-proclaimed \u201cMedia Manipulator\u201d Ryan Holiday attributes some of that negativity to the decline of \u201csubscription based\u201d news outlets. The loudest, scariest, most negative stories grab attention. But sometimes, great stuff happens. We just don\u2019t hear…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-reflection"],"yoast_head":"\r\nThe good news is\u2026 - Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most of the stories we hear about tend to be the negative ones. 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