PHEWA

“What does God require of us?
To do jus­tice
To love kind­ness
To walk humbly with your God.“
—Micah 6:8

The Pres­by­ter­ian Health, Edu­ca­tion and Wel­fare Asso­ci­a­tion (PHEWA) is a com­mu­nity of ministries:

• Seek­ing and voic­ing God’s shalom
• Pro­claim­ing the inclu­sive Gospel of jus­tice and mercy
• Shar­ing in Christ’s work of com­pas­sion and love and
• Wit­ness­ing the Spirit’s prophetic activ­ity in church and world.

Our pur­pose is to pro­vide resources, peer sup­port and net­work­ing con­nec­tions for Pres­by­te­ri­ans involved in social wel­fare and jus­tice min­istries. PHEWA has also worked, since its cre­ation by Gen­eral Assem­bly action in 1956, to make the church more respon­sive to the needs of those too often excluded or on the mar­gins of the church and of soci­ety, pro­vid­ing those much needed voices and perspectives.

PHEWA encour­ages the church to be respon­sive to the needs of the excluded and suf­fer­ing by pro­vid­ing pro­gram­matic, orga­ni­za­tional and tech­ni­cal assis­tance to Pres­by­te­ri­ans work­ing for jus­tice. PHEWA is orga­nized around ten mis­sion networks:

1. Pres­by­te­ri­ans for Addic­tion Action (PAA)
2. Pres­by­ter­ian Asso­ci­a­tion for Com­mu­nity Trans­for­ma­tion (PACT)
3. Pres­by­te­ri­ans Against Domes­tic Vio­lence Net­work (PADVN)
4. Pres­by­ter­ian AIDS Net­work (PAN)
5. Pres­by­te­ri­ans Affirm­ing Repro­duc­tive Options (PARO)
6. Pres­by­ter­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Spe­cial­ized Pas­toral Min­istries (PASPM)
7. Pres­by­ter­ian Child Advo­cacy Net­work (PCAN)
8. Pres­by­te­ri­ans for Dis­abil­ity Con­cerns (PDC)
9. Pres­by­ter­ian Health Net­work (PHN)
10. Pres­by­ter­ian Seri­ous Men­tal Ill­ness Net­work (PSMIN)

Mem­bers of the var­i­ous net­works are vol­un­teers who give thou­sands of hours work­ing with indi­vid­u­als, con­gre­ga­tions and mid­dle gov­ern­ing bodies.

At a PHEWA Social Jus­tice Con­fer­ence, a par­tic­i­pant said, as he sur­veyed the crowd, “I’ve never seen a gath­er­ing that looked more like the king­dom of God.” What he saw was a gath­er­ing where all per­sons were invited, accepted and hon­ored. PHEWA is the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) at its most faithful!

What do we do?

• We carry out work that is man­dated by the Gen­eral Assembly.
• We con­sult with indi­vid­u­als, con­gre­ga­tions and mid­dle gov­ern­ing bod­ies to help them as they seek to bring jus­tice to per­sons who are often mar­gin­al­ized by the church and society.
• We iden­tify lead­er­ship with exper­tise for use church wide in the areas of our net­work ministries.
• We pro­vide lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and a Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Event.
• We host a Bien­nial Social Jus­tice Con­fer­ence and other train­ing events.
• We develop and/or part­ner in the devel­op­ment of resources.
• We mon­i­tor, sup­port and advo­cate for min­istries of jus­tice within the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.).

Sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion for your church by con­tact­ing PHEWA’s National Orga­nizer, Rev. Trina Zelle, who is avail­able for onsite con­gre­ga­tional or judi­ca­tory con­sul­ta­tions. To sched­ule a visit, con­tact her at (602)796‑7477 or phewainfo@gmail.com.

Visit the PHEWA web­site. Check out PHEWA’s NEW online resource cen­ter and net­work sup­port site: http://phewacommunity.org/home.html.