Connecting our Conversations

Content Warning: This podcast discusses suicide and suicidal ideation, and some people might find it disturbing. If you or someone you know is suicidal, please, contact your physician, go to your local ER, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), or message the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Both programs provide free, confidential support 24/7 ---- Members of Presbyte...

PSNE's the Rev. Anne Weirich has been leading groups to the Holy Land for years...but this Feburary 2022 trip was the first since the Covid-19 pandemic. Communication Manager (and fellow Holy Land pilgrim), Erika Plank Hagan, talks with the Rev. Anne Weirich, the Rev. Carol Howard Meritt, and Greg Botting about their recent trip: surprises, renewal, and the connections (and the food!) that th...

PSNE's the Rev. Dr. Tracy Mehr-Muska, Minister for Mid and Later Life at Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, CT and author of Weathering The Storm: Simple Strategies for Being Peaceful and Prepared, talks about her work in researching and teaching Resiliency - and how it's not something we're born with but characteristics we can cultivate. How are we as faith communities...

Recorded in December of 2021 as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was surging in New England, the Rev. Mieke Vandersall and Matt Beams share about the strange blessings of the pandemic and their worshipping community, Not So Churchy, whose participation has nearly doubled as they shifted to a virtual community, welcoming people from all over the country.  How did the Queering of Things inform how th...

Advent is a season of waiting, of darkness, of anticipation. In this Advent season of 2021, PSNE Communications Manager, Erika Plank Hagan, talks with the Rev Dr. Terrlyn Curry Avery, Pastor of Martin Luther King Jr. Community Church in Springfield, MA, near the one-year anniversary of the hate crime where their building was destroyed in a fire, and about how that community is looking forward and...

Presbyterian clergy are ordained to a call - a vocational calling. PSNE Communications Manager, Erika Plank Hagan, talks with three of our Presbytery's newest ordained clergy, the Rev. Dale Green, the Rev. Jessica Jones, and the  Rev. Grace Woodward, on their calls to chaplaincy during the Covid-19 pandemic and its fallout. How has God prepared us for *this* moment? What can we learn from min...

Season 2, Episode 2: No Justice No Peace - Confessional Interactive Art at FPC New Haven. PSNE Communications Manager, Erika Plank Hagan, talks with the Rev. J.C. Cadwallader, Pastor and Head of Staff at First Presbyterian Church, New Haven. When it became apparent that FPC New Haven wouldn’t be worshipping together at the church Fall 2020 due to the continued spread of coronavirus, leadership beg...

PSNE Communications Manager, Erika Plank Hagan, talks with the Rev. Kevin White and Elder Nancy Boyd about the recent celebration of Calvin Presbyterian's 50th anniversary - made more complicated by Covid - and how the church's beginnings as two churches pivoting to become one church perhaps informs where we are now, pivoting into a post-Covid church world.

Our two Presbytery Commissioners to the 224th General Assembly, Walter Manual and Jenny Peek, hosted a Zoom conversation about the Assembly and some of its actions. They were also joined by PSNE Stated Clerk, David Baer, and Shannan Vance-Ocampo and Tom McNeill from our Presbytery who were corresponding members and resource persons to the Assembly.   Anthony Trujillo, a good friend of our Presbyte...

A June 2, 2020 conversation with Jessica Vazquez-Torres of Crossroads Anti-Racism Training and Organizing about the why behind our summer book group, our anti-racism work as a Presbytery and what our explorations will and can be this summer.