Note: As we continue to pray for healing for the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn, this weekly message will feature guest writers from the Forward Movement staff and board of directors.

We’re wrapping up the year by featuring our favorite or most popular messages of 2022. Today’s “Top 5” post comes from Liz Brignac, ChurchNext Course Designer.

I have learned so much from all of the courses we launched this year, but I think these five are the ones that can make the most difference in the world. If everyone took these five classes and lived according to what they teach, the world would truly change for the better.

Becoming Beloved Community: Understanding Systemic Racism with Ivy Forsythe-Brown and Tom Ferguson
This free course might be the course I’m most proud of, not just this year, but in all my years at ChurchNext because of its import and its quality and how many people came together to make it the class it is. Ivy and Tom have so much to teach us about how systemic racism operates and in particular about The Episcopal Church’s history with systemic racism in the U.S. If you aren’t an expert on this issue already, you will come out knowing a lot more than you did going in. You’ll also find clear steps on how to learn more and what to do next. Thanks again to the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Officers’ Advisory Council on Becoming Beloved Community and the Diocese of Michigan for funding this course.

Christians and Climate Change with Bill McKibben
It was a privilege to work on this course with Bill McKibben, one of the first people to bring the severity of the climate change problem to public attention in the 1990s. Bill explains why, among all the issues pushing for our attention today, Christians and citizens most need to pay attention to climate change. We always hear how it can’t wait. Bill explains the urgency. We may feel it’s too big for us. Bill explains clearly and succinctly why we can make a difference and the most useful things we can do. My priorities changed because of Bill’s class, and I highly recommend it.

Gleaning Today: Conserving Food for Hungry People with Michael Binger
I like this course because it teaches about an incredibly practical and efficient way to be useful in any community. Michael Binger shows how, if you want to pack in a lot of value for your time, it’s hard to beat gleaning. Concerned about hungry people? Gleaning feeds them. Concerned about the massive waste inherent in the U.S. food production system? Gleaning conserves food that would otherwise rot. Interested in helping people become healthy as well as in feeding them? Gleaning offers them nutrition, not just calories. Want to build community with others? Spend time in a field picking sweet potatoes with them. This class delivers solid information about an efficient way to do a lot of good in the world.

Grace and Depression with Rob Hirschfeld
It can be hard for people – particularly those in positions of leadership – to be open about experiences with depression. The more often leaders like Episcopal Bishop Rob Hirschfeld speak and write openly about seeking help, the less stigma people with depression face. If we get cancer or break a leg, most of us don’t hesitate to go to the doctor. But if our brain chemistry becomes misaligned, we may resist getting help – in part because the disease itself impairs our judgment, convinces us that seeking help for this problem is a weakness. If everyone who had depression took Rob’s class and heeded his words, more people who need help would seek it.

Introducing Christian Vegetarianism with Steve Kaufman
As a non-vegetarian, I was surprised to find this class applicable to my own experience as well as to those who are inclined toward full vegetarianism. Steve Kaufman does not judge people who eat meat, nor does he suggest pure vegetarianism is the only way to live. Instead, he offers practical reasons why people might try eating less meat – with the possible goal of eventually reducing meat consumption to nothing. Some of his reasons are moral; some biblical; some environmental. All are interesting. Steve’s class encourages an approach to food that vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike will find enlightening.

You can always check out our full library of courses at ChurchNext.tv.

Yours faithfully,

Liz Brignac
ChurchNext Course Designer

Note: As we continue to pray for healing for the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn, this weekly message will feature guest writers from the Forward Movement staff and board of directors.

We’re wrapping up the year by featuring our favorite or most popular messages of 2022. Today’s “Top 5” post comes from Allison Sandlin Liles, editor of Grow Christians.

Nearly seven years ago, Nurya Love Parish and Forward Movement launched GrowChristians.org to help Episcopal parents teach children about their faith at home. Those first couple of years, posts nearly exclusively covered the major feast days of our liturgical year and offered creative ways to teach and involve young children in their celebrations. While Grow Christians still highlights Saints and Feast Days, the honest posts about parenting and living a life of faith gained the most traction in 2022. Perhaps a half dozen years spent in the Grow Christians community sufficiently prepared adults to talk with children about Holy Cross Day and the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, and now our readers crave authentic reflections on everyday life.

Here are the top five posts from 2022:

Faithfully and Earnestly Confirmed not to be Confirmed by Melissa Wilcox

“A few people asked me if I was embarrassed as a priest not to have my son confirmed. And, I never felt embarrassed…I know that through baptism God has claimed Elias as his own. He was sealed by the Holy Spirit, one person of the Trinity (his own stumbling block) and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

Envisioning Jesus in Our Own Image by Allison Sandlin Liles

“After my husband and son left, my ten-year-old whispered her question, ‘Mom, I thought Jesus had white skin?’”

Praying Compline with children during this summer of disruption, violence, and injustice by Bonnie Smith Whitehouse

“In a season when I often find myself experiencing more rage and grief than I ever have in my forty-seven years, saying the short liturgy of Compline alongside my family teaches me to keep dreaming of and working for a church that inspires, enlightens, and liberates. Ending the day bathed in candlelight at the table with our children reminds me that Christ’s dream for loving our neighbor and offering liberation lives in me because God’s spirit dwells in me.”

How do you talk to your young children about war? by Lydia Bucklin

“As we got ready for bed that evening, the last thing we talked about were the choices we make. And I repeated to my kids the words my mom and dad (God rest their souls) said to me and my brothers all those years ago. ‘We have choices every day about how we treat people. The language we use. The jokes we laugh at. The way we include or ignore people. The times we choose to stay angry and mad, or the ways we work to forgive and show love.’”

Every Last Thing is a Season by Emily Rutledge

“This Easter I am practicing resurrection. I am practicing hope. I am practicing knowing that no matter how bad it gets there is redemption, even after death. I want my children to practice, too. I want them to know how all the seasons are holy and natural and universal. I want them to know that when their personal Lents arrive, Easter will follow. I want them to sing songs of celebration with their friends when they are surprised by unexpected joy and to look at their lives knowing that everything, every – last – thing, is a season.”

For more thoughtful reflections like these, stop by GrowChristians.org, any time of the year.

Yours faithfully,

Allison Sandlin Liles
Editor, GrowChristians.org

Note: As we continue to pray for healing for the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn, this weekly message will feature guest writers from the Forward Movement staff and board of directors. Today’s message comes from Miguel Escobar, author of the book The Unjust Steward and Executive Director of Anglican Studies, Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary.

One of the strongest memories I have from the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic is of the long lines of people waiting for food, as well as the many news stories of pantries and soup kitchens being in short supply of both staples and volunteers. Hunger, already a pervasive problem in New York City, descended upon my city in ways that I never imagined I’d experience in my lifetime.

As I witnessed hunger overtake New York City, I found myself reflecting on the earliest historical reference to Christian communities taking up a collection in response to famine, an event described in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, written around 50 CE. Frequently called “the Jerusalem collection,” it was a collection taken up for famine relief for the Christian community in Jerusalem.

As early as 50 C.E., the energetic Paul was giving pragmatic instructions to the Corinthian community for a collection of monies to be sent to Jerusalem: “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me” (1 Corinthians 16:1-4).

Monies would eventually be taken up in Galatia, Corinth, and Rome and would be physically brought to the Jerusalem assembly. Logistics were arranged (1 Corinthians 16:1-4), accusations of impropriety made, transparency ensured by having multiple people handling the funds (2 Corinthians 12:14-18), and protection against theft/robbery secured as the funds were brought to Jerusalem (Romans 15:25-29).

These practical details are intriguing in that they describe both the antecedents of current relief efforts as well as give a glimpse into the economic network of assemblies that characterized early Christianity. But what’s inspiring—and potentially transformative in our stewardship season today—is the theology behind how Paul discusses this collection.

In 2 Corinthians 8–9, Paul says that the joy and privilege of an assembly’s generous giving is ultimately rooted in God’s grace of becoming poor for our sake. We are to join in this divine journey as well. He states that even after Christ’s resurrection, the need for fair balance between those with great wealth and those in poverty, hunger, and destitution remains. This collection for famine relief is a way of addressing this imbalance.

Indeed, it is from a deeply rooted sense of bondedness and economic fellowship with one another (koinonia) that Christians have the grace and privilege (charis) of sharing our resources as an economic network and community, and our giving should be especially aimed at alleviating the poverty and hunger of the most vulnerable members of the body of Christ. Through our generosity, we join Jesus in becoming poor for the sake of our siblings in Christ who are suffering.

I believe this Jerusalem Collection should inform the way we think about all our collections, including the pledge cards taken up during stewardship season. Will your gift touch the lives of those who are in hunger? Are they reflective of what Paul described as “fair balance” between those who have much and those who have little? Does one’s gift honor an economic fellowship between those assemblies with much and those who are most vulnerable?

These are important questions to ask of the various stewardship campaigns that have taken place across the Church this fall. How might our stewardship campaign reflect this more so?

Yours faithfully,

Miguel Escobar
Author, The Unjust Steward
Executive Director of Anglican Studies, EDS at Union

More from our ministry:

Read more from Miguel Escobar in his book The Unjust Steward

Consider giving as a Vital Sign of Faith in Kate Moorehead Carroll’s new book

Explore scripture as a resource for action: The Social Justice Bible Challenge

Prepare for Advent with our annual calendar and newest book of meditations

Note: As we continue to pray for healing for the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn, this weekly message will feature guest writers from the Forward Movement staff and board of directors. Today’s message comes from Beth Lewis, Interim Executive Director of Forward Movement and Executive Director of the Protestant Church-Owned Publishers Association (PCPA).

When St. Paul wrote to the Galatians (3:28) “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” I don’t think he was contemplating people in The Episcopal Church, AME Zion and Southern Baptist Convention working together to proclaim the Gospel and serve God’s people in the world. But I like to think that through his words we are encouraged to do exactly that!

I am privileged to work with the talented staff of Forward Movement as the interim Executive Director while Scott Gunn continues to heal during his medical leave. I’m a member of the ELCA and served as President & CEO for 1517 Media, the ELCA’s ministry of publishing for sixteen years, so we’re already in ecumenical-land!

Like The Episcopal Church, Forward Movement has many ecumenical partnerships. One you might not know about is the organization’s long-time membership in PCPA: Protestant Church-owned Publishers Association. This 71-year-old trade association for denominational publishers is a shining example of collaboration across denominational and theological lines. PCPA’s Heads of Houses (aka CEO’s & Executive Directors) met this past week in Minneapolis. At this meeting we focused on our common ground of praying for one another (especially Scott!), sharing joys and concerns about publishing books, curricula, devotionals and much more during times of turmoil and change. We talked about best practices for supply chain management and organizational culture with a hybrid workforce. It was a rich, mutually supportive gathering.

Forward Movement belongs to PCPA because focusing on best practices in their business helps provide sustainability for their mission to “Inspire disciples. Empower evangelists.” In my brief time as interim Executive Director, I have come to appreciate both the business and the ministry of Forward Movement for both The Episcopal Church and ecumenical partners. I support them with my financial contribution; I hope you will too, whether by purchasing resources for your church, as gifts or for your own faith journey or as a direct contribution to Forward Movement’s ministry.

Yours faithfully,

Beth Lewis
Interim Executive Director, Forward Movement

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