Dear friends in Christ,

I’ve had a couple of conversations lately about church growth during this time of pandemic. At first, it seems counter-intuitive. How can we be growing when many of us can’t even gather in person for worship and learning?

Of course, there are many kinds of growth in the church. There’s spiritual growth, in which current members grow deeper in their faith. We think about that a lot in our RenewalWorks ministry. Then there is numerical growth, when we see our churches growing to include more people. I believe the church needs both kinds of growth—depth and number.

During the crises we now face—pandemic, growing awareness of racial injustice, politics—the church will rightly begin with a compassionate response to those in need. We can’t neglect our care of those who are affected by illness or the economic downturn or other forms of crisis. But we also should not lose sight of growth. After all, Jesus told us our main task is to make disciples.

I encourage you to think about what growth might look like in your own congregation. Can you use traditional methods or find new ways to encourage spiritual growth? Hold classes online. Send out materials to empower people to start new prayer practices. Encourage Bible study. These can be done well in person or online.

And then there’s numerical growth. I’m heartened by several recent stories I’ve heard about churches that are gaining new members even now. Everything that is happening in the world is pushing people to search for meaning and hope, so it’s not surprising people would be looking for churches. Are you ready to welcome them? Are you ready to invite people to join you?

I saw a Facebook post from one church holding a newcomers class online—and there were a LOT of squares on the Zoom screen. We can grow, even now.

I’ve started a video interview series in which I talk with people about discipleship and church growth. Perhaps one of these conversations will inspire you to think about discipleship and church growth at your church, even during a pandemic.

• I spoke with the Rev. Kate Wesch from West Seattle about her congregation’s remarkable numerical and spiritual growth, mostly through Bible study and learning about our faith.
• The Rev. Nurya Love Parish and I talked about her small church that has grown by embracing their core purpose and by focusing on discipleship.
• Early in the pandemic, I talked with the Rev. Jason Prati about how his church was responding to the pandemic and still growing. It was back in April, which seems an eternity ago, but there are still lessons to learn.
• Just recently, I had a chance to talk about innovation, success, failure, and growth with the Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija. Sometimes we have to fail in order to learn, and that’s OK!

Let us all keep our eye on growth. There are people all around us who need to hear a word of hope, mercy, grace, and love. In the name of Jesus Christ, tell them some Good News.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

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Photo: Pixabay

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

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Dear friends in Christ,

It’s funny what sticks in our memory and what doesn’t. As a preacher, I sometimes wonder what anyone will remember an hour after I finish the sermon. For my part, there are a few sermons I remember years later (and some I forget seconds later). Today I’m thinking of one sermon that’s stuck with me. I heard it as a child in elementary school.

The preacher was speaking about the Gospel passage we hear this Sunday—Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:22-33). The relevant part is brief:

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

In the sermon I remember, the preacher assumed Jesus was angry or disappointed. And the preacher said Peter blew it by not trusting Jesus and keeping faith.

That stuck with me, and, for a while, I agreed with that reading. Now I think it is 180 degrees wrong.

Have you ever walked on water? I haven’t! I cannot imagine having the faith that would make this possible! The point is not that Peter failed to keep walking on the water, but rather that Peter managed even a few steps. What is the relationship between Peter and Jesus in this moment? We often don’t have emotional adjectives in the Bible, so we have to be careful what we project onto the speakers.

It seems to me that Jesus was offering compassion. After all, he reached out his hand for Peter. His question may have been asked in pity or in sorrow or in wonder.

Reading the passage as I suggest, it teaches us that we should not beat ourselves up when we fail to keep faith. Rather, we should rejoice for those faithful moments in our lives. And we should know that our Lord Jesus reaches out to catch us when we fail. Jesus offered grace to Peter again and again. Of all the people Jesus could have chosen to lead the church, he chose impetuous Peter, though Peter was often loudly and completely wrong.

Jesus chooses us, too. When we lose our faith, we need only to cry out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” And Jesus will catch us.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

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Image: Lorenzo Veneziano, Public domain

A Covid-19 Spiritual Survival Kit

Isolated, anxious, and unsure of what will happen next, our response to the virus has already taken months, and we don’t know when it will end. What can we do to take care of ourselves and others during this difficult time? How can we rely on God to help us survive—spiritually, physically, and emotionally—and to do God’s work in the world? In this course, four instructors offer suggestions to help us manage this period of anxiety and social isolation. This course is being offered for free.

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

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Dear friends in Christ,

This coming Sunday’s collect seems particularly appropriate for this moment in our common life.

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In this time of pandemic, when we worry about our health, surely we want to pray that our churches might continue in safety. And praying that our church might be cleansed is especially fitting when disinfectants are selling like never before.

But of course, the collect isn’t really about the church in a time of pandemic.

Those of us who live in the United States are blessed to dwell in a land where we Christians are not persecuted for our religion. While some nations may need to pray for the church to be defended from persecution and other terrors, the threats to the church are different here. Our chief danger is complacency. We might enjoy the comforts of life and the privileges of the church so much that we fail to be convicted and transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Another collect asks God to help us make no peace with oppression. Our church must be cleansed from its timidity in the face of injustice, from its enjoyment of wealth and privilege, and from its failure to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ.

The church has truly known the goodness of the Lord, but it is also true that we have sometimes fallen short of our high calling. Let us treasure all that is good, while praying for defense from all that draws us away from Jesus. Let us seek an awareness of God’s continual mercy in our church and in our lives.

While our churches are fully or partially dispersed, I hope we will take the time to pray and to take stock of how well we have allowed Almighty God to govern our church with goodness. This uprooted time prevents us from our business as usual and invites reflection and redirection. How can we grow as disciples during this pandemic? How can we meet the increasing needs of our world, caused by disease and economic crisis?

So, yes, by all means, pray that the church be cleansed and defended from a deadly virus. And beyond that, let us all pray fervently that our church is cleansed and defended from all that holds us back from our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ, living transformed lives to change the world by God’s grace.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

Subscribe to receive Forward Today in your inbox.

Image: Larry Lamb, Flickr

A Covid-19 Spiritual Survival Kit

Isolated, anxious, and unsure of what will happen next, our response to the virus has already taken months, and we don’t know when it will end. What can we do to take care of ourselves and others during this difficult time? How can we rely on God to help us survive—spiritually, physically, and emotionally—and to do God’s work in the world? In this course, four instructors offer suggestions to help us manage this period of anxiety and social isolation. This course is being offered for free.

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

In case you missed it…

Share it Forward Packs are now available! | Forward Movement

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Dear friends in Christ,

As I’ve been watching the news like many of you, I have been trying to puzzle out meaning and direction. What does all this mean? Where are we headed?

Of course, I don’t know. But I’ve been reflecting on how the global pandemic and the calls to end white supremacy are exposing some long-standing, deep problems in our society, if not in human nature itself.

As a Christian, I uphold the view that we are all sinners whose freedom from sin comes only by the free gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Left to our own devices, we will nearly always be selfish. God’s grace working in us can, however, lead us to live a transformed life. One of the signs of a life transformed by Jesus Christ is that a disciple is less selfish.

Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). Did you catch that? We are meant to love one another selflessly and sacrificially, because that’s how Jesus loved us. Lest we miss it, Jesus tells us that love might demand our very life for the good of others. Jesus calls us to the complete opposite of selfishness.

It seems to me that America has been overtaken by a cult of selfishness. This is not partisan, though I have my own thoughts about particular ways this plays out. Suffice it to say, our culture does not encourage sacrificial love. We are encouraged to wall ourselves off from others in imagined safety. We are encouraged to accumulate vast amounts of resources, leaving others to fend for themselves. We are encouraged to demand our own rights rather than looking first for the welfare of all, especially the least, the last, and the lost.

We Christians must reject selfishness. We know that our life of obedience to God’s commands must be rooted in loving God and loving our neighbors.

So, then, what are we to make of the increasing fractures in our society?

Quite simply, the answer is love. Not sentimental, sweet love, but love that is fierce and all-consuming. This love will demand that we get involved. This love will not permit us to turn away from the needs of others as if there were such a thing as “someone else’s problem.” Christian love means action, most certainly including fervent prayer. Christian love means getting right into the thick of it, wherever the need is great.

My hope for this time is that, somehow, the pain and division we are seeing laid bare will call us as a society to do better, to be better. My hope is that the church will be jarred from its complacent reliance on the privilege of Christendom to renounce the evils of empire. I hope the church will regain its courage to speak in the public square with a voice of justice, righteousness, mercy, and grace.

Where do we begin? Study the scriptures. Pray. Spend time (perhaps online!) with your church. Pray some more. Let God direct you. I am praying that God will show me how to use my own gifts for the good of the world to the glory of God through the love of Jesus and by the power of the Spirit.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

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Image: Pixabay

Building Racial Justice

This series was made in partnership with Trinity Institute in 2016 based on their 2016 conference, Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice. Courses are built on lectures by some of our leading teachers on the subject of race in America.

• Spirituality and Racial Justice with Michael Curry
• Whiteness and Racial Justice with Kelly Brown Douglas
• Theology and Racial Justice with J. Kameron Carter
• Racism and Racial Justice with Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• Reparations and Racial Justice with Jennifer Harvey

This series is for those looking to deepen their understanding and conversations on racial injustice.

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

In case you missed it…

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Next Forward Day by Day issue begins in August…order your subscription!

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Dear friends in Christ,

This morning, I gave thanks that this is the first day of a new month. I didn’t used to pay much attention to the changeover from one month to the next, but that changed a few years ago.

Almost every morning, I pray morning prayer. Several years ago, I started using the 30 day psalter. This is a plan to read all the psalms over the course of a month. You can see it spelled out in your Book of Common Prayer if you turn to page 585. Right there above Psalm 1, it says “First Day: Morning Prayer.” So we read the first five psalms this morning. Then this evening, we’ll read starting at Psalm 6, where it says, “First Day: Evening Prayer.” Tonight’s portion is three psalms. By the end of the month, we’ll have prayed all 150 psalms.

So every month, my morning starts off

Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, *
nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!

Their delight is in the law of the Lord, *
they meditate on his law day and night.

Day in and day out, I am reminded that a life patterned on God’s commandments is how we are meant to live. The psalms are infused with a sense of praise and gratitude for God’s commandments. They are understood not as things which constrict us, but as ways to live the abundant life that God desires for all people.

Sometimes people mistakenly believe that following Jesus means we do not have to follow commandments. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus himself gave commandments, and they are all rooted in the law. His own Great Commandment, to love God and love our neighbors, is of course a quotation of Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Jesus gave this Great Commandment as the lens through which to do all that he commanded and all the law that he himself followed.

Perhaps you’ll join me this very day in reading the psalms this month. You can do this with a prayer book, where the whole psalter is found starting at page 585. Or you can find the psalms online. You can also use the Forward Movement prayer website to pray the daily office. If you go to the preferences page, you can switch to the 30 day psalter and say morning and evening prayer. Our app (for Apple or Android) also has a setting to allow you to use the 30 day psalter.

Try it out. I hope you find the same blessing I have enjoyed in delighting in God’s law.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

Subscribe to receive Forward Today in your inbox.

Image: Pixabay

Building Racial Justice

This series was made in partnership with Trinity Institute in 2016 based on their 2016 conference, Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice. Courses are built on lectures by some of our leading teachers on the subject of race in America.

• Spirituality and Racial Justice with Michael Curry
• Whiteness and Racial Justice with Kelly Brown Douglas
• Theology and Racial Justice with J. Kameron Carter
• Racism and Racial Justice with Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• Reparations and Racial Justice with Jennifer Harvey

This series is for those looking to deepen their understanding and conversations on racial injustice.

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

In case you missed it…

Pre-order | The Way of Love: A Practical Guide to Following Jesus

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Responding to Racist Violence | The Episcopal Church

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Dear friends in Christ,

Today the church commemorates the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. We always enjoy a couple of weeks with this singular figure each Advent when the appointed Gospel invites us to remember his work as a prophet. But today we recall his birth.

At John’s birth, his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaimed the words we now sing in the canticle Benedictus Dominus Deus (Canticle 16). Zechariah foretells the important work his son will do, “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, * for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, To give his people knowledge of salvation * by the forgiveness of their sins.”

I wish we remembered this more often. We gain the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of our sins. In other words, we can understand that we need a redeemer when we learn that we can’t fix our broken selves. By God’s gracious gift in Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven, we are made new, and we can be saved. It’s very good news, the Gospel itself.

Knowing that God loves me, a sinner, helps me love other people too. There is always more than enough grace.

The news these days doesn’t seem to have much good news, let alone Gospel. But Zechariah has made another promise: “In the tender compassion of our God * the dawn from on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, * and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

God has great compassion for us, meaning that God knows our suffering, our pain, and our deepest needs. And God loves us through all our sins, all our failings, and all our struggles.

If we who follow Jesus want to know the peace that passes all understanding in our own lives, we can find it in Jesus Christ. And if we can find the peace of Christ in our own hearts, we might have the clarity, the grace, the mercy, and the courage to proclaim peace and Good News in this world.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Gunn
Executive Director

Subscribe to receive Forward Today in your inbox.

Building Racial Justice

This series was made in partnership with Trinity Institute in 2016 based on their 2016 conference, Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice. Courses are built on lectures by some of our leading teachers on the subject of race in America.

• Spirituality and Racial Justice with Michael Curry
• Whiteness and Racial Justice with Kelly Brown Douglas
• Theology and Racial Justice with J. Kameron Carter
• Racism and Racial Justice with Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
• Reparations and Racial Justice with Jennifer Harvey

This series is for those looking to deepen their understanding and conversations on racial injustice.

Tune in!

Listen to today’s Forward Day by Day reflection on the Forward Day by Day podcast. Find morning prayer on the Morning at the Office podcast and end your day with the Evening at Prayer podcast. Available anywhere you listen!

In case you missed it…

Pre-order | The Way of Love: A Practical Guide to Following Jesus

Responding to Racist Violence | The Episcopal Church

Most Honored Greening Force: Contemplative Ecology and the Living World | Earth & Altar

Implement Revive Online | Revive