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[World Council of Churches] The Council of Bishops of the Zambia Anglican Council issued a pastoral statement on post-election tensions in their south-central African country. “Our concern is Zambia. Our concern is justice. Our concern is peace. Our concern is unity,” the Sept. 21 statement said. “Our concern is the dignity and well-being of every Zambian, regardless of political, ethnic or tribal affiliation.” Last month, incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development won the general elections, though his main competitor, Brian Mundubile, claims that the counting of the votes had been rigged. After the election, government authorities raided a house, resulting in an exchange of gunfire that killed former Zambian minister Mutotwe Kafwaya. Eleven people were also arrested in this raid, including senior opposition figures. They were accused of planning a coup with the help of foreign militia, which they have denied. Retired Botswana Bishop Trevor Mwamba, a Zambian national who now leads Zambia’s United National Independence Party, was among the arrested opposition figures. He remains in custody as of Sept. 18, according to a report from The Telegraph, a British news outlet. “Where prosecution is not warranted, alternative lawful resolutions should be pursued without unnecessary delay,” the statement said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. Justice must not only punish wrongdoing; justice must also protect the innocent from arbitrary treatment.” Read the full article here.

On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston resident and father, was fatally shot by federal immigration agents in the city’s East End. Just days later, ICE fatally shot another man, Johan Sebastián, in Biddeford, Maine. On September 20, an ICE officer shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez as he was making a DoorDash delivery — one of at least two ...

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The post TAKE ACTION: Demand Justice and Accountability After ICE Shootings appeared first on CWS.

[Anglican Communion News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally has called the next Primates’ Meeting, to be held Feb. 28-March 5, 2027, in Johannesburg, South Africa. This will be Mullally’s first Primates’ Meeting as archbishop of Canterbury. The last meeting took place in 2024 in Rome, Italy. The Primates’ Meeting is an “Instrument of Communion” that seeks to foster unity and collaboration between Anglican churches worldwide. The meeting provides space for prayer, fellowship and consultation on shared priorities in church and world affairs. Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The Rt. Rev. Adam James Shoemaker was ordained and consecrated the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Long Island on Sept. 19, making him the first Episcopal bishop of Arab and North African descent in The Episcopal Church’s more than two centuries of history. Nearly 2,000 people attended the service in person at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at Long Island University’s C.W. Post campus in Brookville, New York. As bishop of the Garden City-based diocese, Shoemaker now leads more than 120 congregations across Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties. This next step in his pastoral ministry is also a return home for Shoemaker, who was raised in Huntington. “Returning home to serve as bishop of the diocese that first formed me in faith is an extraordinary gift,” Shoemaker said in a statement ahead of his livestreamed installation. “My own story has taught me to cherish the differences that make us who we are, and in these first months back on Long Island, I have seen again how our diversity is one of this diocese’s greatest strengths.” Shoemaker, 47, was born as Adam James Haggagi in New York, New York, to Jamie Stanforth, an Egyptologist of Jewish descent, and Hamada Haggagi, an Egyptian Muslim. After his parents divorced shortly before his first birthday, Shoemaker lived with his mother and grandparents on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He was baptized at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles near General Theological Seminary, where he would eventually earn a diploma in Anglican Studies. A few years later, Jamie Stanforth married Thomas Shoemaker, and they moved to Long Island. Adam Haggagi’s last name was then legally changed to Shoemaker. Shoemaker’s life experiences as an Egyptian American growing up in one of the most culturally, linguistically and ethnically diverse regions in The Episcopal Church have shaped his faith journey to focus on racial justice and reconciliation and embracing diversity in the church. “I think my story has humanized so many of the differences that can sometimes divide – sometimes in tragic ways – and given me a heart for all that diversity,” Shoemaker told Episcopal News Service after he was elected bishop in April. “It’s been a lifelong journey for me to come fully into my sense of self. It’s been a journey of prayer and introspection.” In his note to the Diocese of Long Island, which was published in the installation bulletin, Shoemaker thanked his six half-siblings, who all live in Cairo. Shoemaker was elected bishop on April 18 by nearly 300 clergy and lay delegates gathered at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. He succeeded the Rt. Rev. Lawrence C. Provenzano, who had served as bishop of the Diocese of Long Island since 2009. Prior to his election, Shoemaker served congregations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Massachusetts. He had also served as a Young Adult Service Corps volunteer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe was chief consecrator at Shoemaker’s installation. Co-consecrators included Provenzano, former Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry, Maine Bishop Thomas J. Brown, Virginia Assistant Bishop Gayle E. Harris, Texas Assistant Bishop Héctor F. Monterroso and the Rev. Katrina D. Foster, bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley preached. She and Shoemaker worked together closely when he was rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, one of three historically Black Episcopal churches in Charleston. While at St. Stephen’s, Shoemaker and Woodliff-Stanley also worked closely with the rectors of Charleston’s two other historically Black Episcopal churches to form the Three Churches United. The coalition hosts and participates in events and initiatives as part of the diocese’s commitment to racial justice and reconciliation work. The ordination service’s liturgy featured music and readings in languages reflecting the Diocese of Long Island’s diversity, including Spanish and Mandarin. The liturgy included readings from Isaiah 2:2-4, Ephesians 2:13-22 and Luke 10:1-9. While a student at General Theological Seminary, Shoemaker met his wife, the Rev. Courtney Davis-Shoemaker, priest-in-charge at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Charleston. They have three children: Malcolm, Aubrey and Hannah. Shoemaker additionally holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Duke Divinity School, a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. “I am humbled and grateful to begin this ministry alongside the people of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk, and hopeful for what God will do among us,” Shoemaker said in his statement.

An ecumenical collaborative document is addressing spiritual violence against Indigenous Peoples in Canada—and suggesting ethical guidelines and calls to healing.

Small churches are an asset for The United Methodist Church, argues a new report from Wesleyan Impact Partners. The report profiles nine U.S. congregations that are outsized in their community impact.

Join us as we explore the opportunity and challenge of engaging the spiritually curious

Rev. Janet Anstead is general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches. During a meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity Reference Group, she took time to reflect on the commitment of churches tor reconciliation, and on her vision of how people are ultimately healed and transformed on a grassroots level. 

[Episcopal News Service] A. Gary Shilling, who has influenced preaching in The Episcopal Church for nearly 40 years, announced Sept. 21 that he is retiring as head of the Episcopal Preaching Foundation. Shilling, who founded the organization in 1987, will become board chairman emeritus. Executive Director Peter Wild will continue to lead EPF’s day-to-day operations. “Few people in The Episcopal Church have given more to the enterprise of preaching than Gary Shilling,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe told Episcopal News Service. “For decades, our whole church has benefitted from his passion for forming strong clergy and lay preachers and his willingness to marshal resources in the service of his vision.” Rowe was a seminarian when he participated in the Preaching Excellence Program, the foundation’s centerpiece program. “The training and mentorship I received there has been central to my formation and my ministry in the last 25 years,” he said, adding, “I will always be grateful to Gary and the Episcopal Preaching Foundation for their generous investment in me and thousands of other seminarians and new preachers.” The Very Rev. Randy Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, said in the foundation’s release that Shilling “has made a unique contribution to the careers of generations of preachers and their Sunday listeners,” including himself. The Rev. Stephen Smith, who has been involved with the foundation since 2005 and now chairs its board, said in an interview that “Gary Schilling changed preaching in the church forever and for the better.” Shilling, an economist, was leading his investment advisory firm in Springfield, New Jersey, when he created, and largely funded, the foundation. He said in the release that his initial motivation was simple. “Too many lousy sermons. What gets people into church – and keeps them there – is the sermon,” he said. “Plus, I simply enjoy hearing a good sermon.” Shilling told ENS that for him one test of a good sermon is “whether you can remember on Wednesday what the preacher said on Sunday.” The sermon, he added, is for most congregants their main continuing point of contact with the church. However, while he believed that strong and vibrant preaching would attract congregants and grow The Episcopal Church, that wasn’t Shilling’s only goal. He hoped that strong preachers would also inspire people in their religious life. “A good sermon changes people in a way that improves their understanding of God and Christianity,” he said in the release. Shilling said the Book of Acts is his favorite book in the Bible because it tells the story of how Paul and others spread “this wonderful concept we call Christianity.” Shilling, 89, who attends Christ Church in Short Hills, New Jersey, decided early on that EPF should work with new preachers as they grew into their ministry. The annual Preaching Excellence Program, the foundation’s centerpiece conference known as PEP, offers seminarians and recent graduates an immersion experience in the art and practice of preaching. Seminarians, homiletics professors and rectors gather for a week of lectures, worship, workshops and small groups in which the students preach sermons for discussion and feedback. The foundation underwrites the cost of registration, travel, and accommodations, except for $375, which the student, their seminary, and their diocese pay in equal parts. Approximately 2,000 clergy have participated in the program since its founding in 1988. The Rev. Elis Hiu-Mei Lui attended Preaching in Excellence in May. She was a transitional deacon when she preached her first sermon to a congregation at St. Mary the Virgin near Times Square in New York City in late August and was ordained a priest on Sept. 12. Lui called PEP “the most retreat-like experience I’ve had in all my years of seminary.” The time she spent in personal prayer was a part of that, she said, adding that the conference also gave her and others “space for you to process and pray about what you’re learning and encountering.” PEP allows participants to “get out of our respective bubbles,” Lui said, and connect with people from other seminaries and local formation programs who will be preaching in different settings. “It was very neat to talk to and connect with peers who are being formed at this exact time, but also with the mentors who’ve been doing this for years.” The preaching foundation expanded its mission over the years with preaching intensives for deacons, including conferences for deacons in the Anglican Church of Canada; a lay preacher program (with help from a $400,000 grant from Trinity Wall Street); an association for Episcopal Church lay preachers; preaching conferences for Spanish-speaking clergy; diocesan preaching conferences; preaching weeks between seminaries’ academic year terms; and Sermon Roundtable to train clergy and lay leadership in giving meaningful sermon feedback (funded by more than $1 million from the Lilly Endowment). It offers Word & Witness, a monthly resource newsletter for preachers. The foundation, with the Seminary of the Southwest, developed the Iona Collaborative, which offers a virtual formation experience for those to be ordained outside a residential seminary. EPF’s Episcopal Lay Preaching Network, founded in 2025, will host the first national conference for lay preachers in October. – The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is a freelance writer who formerly was a senior editor and reporter for Episcopal News Service.

The 2026 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Seoul from 9-13 September, jointly organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC), Christian Conference of Asia, and National Council of Churches in Korea, also marked the 40th anniversary of the historic Glion Consultation, a groundbreaking peace gathering convened by the WCC in September 1986 in Switzerland.