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[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church’s largest congregation by membership and attendance has named a new rector. St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, announced in a message to its members that it has selected as its next leader the Very Rev. Dane Boston, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina. Boston is scheduled to begin as St. Martin’s fifth rector on Aug. 1. “Dane is passionately committed to the rich tradition of Anglican theology, prayer and worship,” the church said in its March 28 announcement. “A lifelong singer, Dane has a deep appreciation for the power of the Anglican choral tradition as an integral part of our worship services.” Boston will fill the rector position last held by the Rev. Russell Levenson, who retired in May 2024 after leading St. Martin’s since 2007. During his tenure, Levenson helped grow parish membership to more than 10,000, and the church reported average Sunday attendance of nearly 1,300 in 2023, according to the latest available data. St. Martin’s, founded in 1952, is a parish in the Diocese of Texas. It also is known as the family church of late President George H.W. Bush. Boston had served as dean of the 4,000-member cathedral in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina since January 2021. He previously served for four years as rector of Christ Church in Cooperstown, New York. He has degrees from Washington and Lee University, Yale Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School. He and his wife, Debby, have four children. “I cannot express how mightily Debby and I have wrestled with this utterly unexpected call,” Boston said in a message to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral announcing he was stepping down as dean. “St. Martin’s is an extraordinary place, and I am deeply humbled, profoundly honored, and incredibly excited at the opportunity to serve its people as their next rector.”

[Church of England] Parish revitalizations, work with children, young people and families and training for mission in rural areas are among a range of programs to spread the Christian faith backed by the latest round of grants awarded by the Church of England. The dioceses of Carlisle, Chelmsford, Rochester, Sheffield, St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and Winchester are to receive awards for programs to support parishes and serve communities, ranging from funding for new congregations in churches to funding for clergy and lay workers in urban and rural areas. The awards, made by the Church of England’s Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board, invest in low-income communities and seek to promote diversity in congregations and church leadership. The Diocese of Chelmsford is to receive £6.45 million – or $8.3 million – for its “Believing in Barking” program in east London (Barking is a town in east London), including support for children and youth workers, mission on estates, and ministry in minority languages in parishes across the traditions of the Church of England. Chelmsford Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani, said, “’Believing in Barking’ reflects our commitment to participative change, enabling and empowering local parishes, deaneries and worshipping communities to discern how they are to be God’s people in their own very different contexts and as part of one diocesan family.” The Diocese of Sheffield has been awarded £14.3 million – or nearly $18.3 million – over the next three years for plans to build on the successes of its centenary project with children, young people and families. These include making Sheffield Cathedral a center of mission through funding for music “missioners,” a digital evangelist, and support for a new religious community focused on mission and evangelization and new congregations. The funding will build on parish revitalization and mission work in Rotherham and Goole, following successful work at St. John’s Goole and Rotherham Minster. There will also be a plan for mission in Doncaster, with Doncaster Minster and St. James Church in the city acting as centers of mission. The plans include work with children, young people and families and support for clergy costs, music, lay ministry, a young leaders’ community and investment in clergy well-being and buildings. In the Diocese of Carlisle, a £6.8 million – or nearly $8.7 million – grant will fund a range of work including new worshipping communities with churches in Barrow in Furness, Carlisle and the rural Derwent Deanery. There will be investment to help train over 200 new leaders and a focus on supporting young Christians to grow in faith. A three-year pilot will also support parish growth and leadership development in rural mission communities. The Diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich has received £2.7 million – $3.4 million – to build and expand on successful mission in Ipswich and rural areas of the diocese. The funding will support new congregations in rural areas, mission to people on newly built estates, and outreach through music. The Diocese of Rochester has been awarded funding of £11 million – $14 million – over the next five years for work to revitalize parishes and work with children and young people in Medway, north and west Kent, and the London boroughs of Bromley and Bexley. The grant will help fund leadership development and well-being programs to support clergy and lay people. The funds will also back an apprentice scheme for children, young people and family work. The diocese will seek to build on the successes of work already backed by Strategic Development Funding, such as at St. John’s Church, Chatham; St. Augustine’s, Slade Green; and Christ Church, Erith. Carl Hughes, chair of the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board, said, “I am really delighted that we have been able to fund such a range of awards across the country, from cities to ambitious programs of mission in some of the most rural areas of England. “The awards reflect the commitment of the board to investment in parishes and their leaders, and the work of parishes in developing new services and congregations to serve those they are not currently reaching, particularly in the most income deprived contexts. “Many of these awards build on previous investments in parishes.” St. Clement’s Church in Boscombe in the Diocese of Winchester, in an area of high deprivation and cultural diversity, has been awarded £412,333 – $526,000 – for mission to children, young people and families. The award will fund an administrative post and a children and family worker for schools outreach, with the hope of a youth worker in due course. It also includes funding for improvements to the church hall and church building, subject to the approval of awards from other grant funders. The award is the third parish revitalization to be funded by the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board in the Diocese of Winchester.

[Episcopal News Service] Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, fifth-grade students at Grace Episcopal Day School in Kensington, Maryland, communicated with U.S. Army Reserve soldiers through an educational and interpersonal pen pal program. “There are these little moments where the students and the soldiers just connect so beautifully over some sort of shared interest or shared experience that’s really very special,” the Rev. Anna Broadbent, an Episcopal chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve, told Episcopal News Service. “It feels really good to hold a letter that someone else has written just for you.” Broadbent also served as the chaplain for Grace Episcopal Day School before she deployed to Kuwait in July 2024. The school, just north of the nation’s capital in the Diocese of Washington, enrolls students in preschool through fifth grade. Around the time the new school year commenced, Broadbent connected with fifth-grade teacher Rachel Martinez and began collaborating on the pen pal program. After matching each student with a soldier volunteer based on personalities and shared interests, the eight students in Martinez’s class wrote their first letters in September.  Martinez told ENS that most students’ only experience with formal letter writing was through a pen pal program with students at another private school the year before, so they practiced letter formatting and editing drafts. At first, they asked why they couldn’t just email the soldiers. Martinez explained that writing, sending and receiving letters would be a good way to practice patience and anticipation.  “They wanted that instant gratification, and they were a little bit concerned about the length of time it would take. But I said, ‘You guys will soon get how cool it is to wait for a letter, then finally get it in the mail,’” Martinez said. “I think this project not only helped their letter-writing skills, but also appreciate the value of actual snail mail and how meaningful and exciting that can be.” Every time a package of letters was sent, the students would follow the tracking number together in class and see the parcel “ping pong back and forth” between cities. Broadbent said it would take two or three weeks for mail to arrive in Kuwait, but longer for mail to arrive in the United States because of additional processing in Bahrain. The pen pal program was also a geography lesson for the students, who learned about Kuwait and its hyper-arid desert climate. That’s why, they learned from putting together a Christmas care package for the soldiers, they can’t send chocolate in the mail. The soldiers were, however, able to send the students special patches featuring the U.S. flag and “GEDS” for Grace Episcopal Day School. The patches represent a bridge between the soldiers and students. For transparency and safety reasons, none of the letters were individually sealed in envelopes. Instead, Martinez and Broadbent read every letter before sending them in bulk parcels to ensure that none of the conversations were inappropriate, as the students are minors and the soldiers are in their early 20s-30s. However, Broadbent said she and Martinez didn’t need to censor any letters. Martinez also had been communicating with the students’ parents throughout the year. “For these kids and soldiers, it’s really fun for them to hear from each other, but we needed to make sure that this program was safe first,” Broadbent said. Martinez said the students were initially “weirded out” by the idea of communicating with people who are at least 10 years older than they are, but they quickly realized they shared many of the same hobbies and interests. For example, one student and soldier pair plays the same video games, and another pair shares the same interest in learning different languages. Another pair shares the same sarcastic sense of humor, and another enjoys reading the same book genres. “It’s been pleasantly surprising for everyone to see how easy it is for the pen pals to relate to each other,” Martinez said. In the first round of letters, students asked about the kind of everyday work the soldiers were doing in Kuwait. They were surprised to learn that soldiers do much more than fight in wars. Many of them, like Army Spc. Jamir Matthews, work to make equipment like radios, computers and satellites function properly. “It’s something that I was surprised to learn when I first joined the military in 2019, the kinds of jobs that are available. It’s eye-opening to see what possibilities there are and how these jobs can transfer from the military to the civilian world,” Matthews, who’s with the Army reserve unit in Baltimore, Maryland, told ENS. Matthews was pen pals with a student who stutters, a condition Matthews had when he was a child. He offered to mentor his pen pal and be a source of inspiration for him. “Oh my gosh, my kid is very kind. … He’s more of a shy kid, but he has a wonderful imagination. He’s so bright, and you can tell by his letters that he wants to do big things in the future, and I’m all for it. I see a little bit of him in me every single time I get another letter,” Matthews said. “This job can get stressful at times, being away from family and the things that I usually do when I’m home for so long. Connecting with someone through these letters has given me moments to step away from being a soldier and just being a human being.” Matthews said he and his fellow soldiers who were part of the pen pal program would sometimes sit and talk about their pen pals, and he was always excited to share what his pen pal had written to him. “It’s been an incredible experience, and I definitely would recommend it to a lot of other people because these letters – even though they come every three weeks or so – give me more hope for when I go back home and more motivation […]

The celebration of the 2025 Climate Hope Art Contest for children and youth of the United Church of Christ was held on Saturday, April 5. This was the third annual event awards ceremony, and the UCC’s Susan Mueller, Climate Hope…

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As the church works towards gathering this summer at General Synod 35 in Kansas City, Missouri, a special webinar series seeks to bring women from across the denomination together in an intimate workshop and community space.  “It’s not going to…

The post ‘Not your typical webinar’: Womxn 2 Womxn series aims to foster community appeared first on United Church of Christ.

[Episcopal News Service] England’s Choir of King’s College Cambridge is completing its mini U.S. tour this week with two concerts at 7 p.m. Eastern on April 8 and 9 at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. Tickets are still available for both concerts. “I think that the Anglican choral tradition represents the best of choral history because it is so vast, and we include within Anglicanism everything from all Christian faiths,” Stuart Forster, Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s associate for music and liturgy, organist and choirmaster, told Episcopal News Service. “The choristers of King’s College Cambridge in particular perform this tradition exceptionally well. … I doubt if I could name a church musician who would go to England and not make a pilgrimage to Cambridge to hear them perform.” The Choir of King’s College Cambridge’s primary duty since its founding in 1441 by King Henry VI of England is to provide daily singing for worship services in the King’s College Chapel at the University of Cambridge. The traditionally all-male choir is best known today for the annual BBC broadcast of its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols performance, which is listened to by an estimated 370 million people.  The choir launched its mini U.S. tour on April 4 at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee, followed by a second concert on April 6 at Washington National Cathedral. Forster said getting the Choir of King’s College Cambridge to perform at Bethesda-by-the-Sea was a “career goal” of his, along with, he hopes one day, the Choir of Westminster Abbey. “I’m very, very happy it’s finally happening,” he said. The Choir of King’s College Cambridge’s two-day stop in Palm Beach also will serve as an educational opportunity for the community. From 10 a.m. to noon Eastern April 9, the choir’s director of music, Daniel Hyde, will work with the Bethesda Choir – Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s vocal ensemble – during an open rehearsal. Choirs of schools from the Palm Beach area also have been invited to participate. “This is an opportunity for people to watch a master at work, and I would love to share this with as many young people as possible who may not ever get the chance to experience something like this in person,” Forster said. -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

On the 80th anniversary of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer for his opposition to Hitler, the moderator of World Council of Churches has paid tribute to the deep faith of the German theologian, saying his life and witness continue to inspire the ecumenical movement.

[Melbourne Anglican] The Rev. Glenn Loughrey, an Aboriginal priest who for the past year has served as the Diocese of Melbourne’s archdeacon for reconciliation, First Nations recognition and treaty, has been appointed Aboriginal co-chair for Reconciliation Victoria, a body promoting reconciliation across the state of Victoria. Loughrey said he hopes his leadership role in the statewide body would help build stronger relationships and provide resources in regions and parishes toward treaty. Reconciliation Victoria board secretary Keith Gove said Loughrey brings strong alignment and lived experience with the organization’s values of bravery, deep listening and standing strongly against racism. “His work as the Anglican archdeacon for reconciliation, First Nations recognition and treaty, as well as artist, speaker and writer, provides an inspiring background to help RV lead reconciliation across Victoria,” Gove said. The key issues are church properties on unceded lands and how Aboriginal people have been treated, often sanctioned by the church. “They’re not things we’re going to resolve in a short period, and they’re not things to be fearful of,” Loughrey said. “Our scripture is full of evidence that there is enough for everyone and the grace of God is sufficient for everyone,” he said. “[We need to] talk to each other and listen to each other without fear.” With the Anglican provincial council and attorney Michael Shand, Loughrey has been building a formal structure to operate alongside the church as an Aboriginal ministry body, enabling self-funding and self-management. He has worked closely with bishops in the Melbourne diocese to develop good relationships with Wurundjeri people. This work included a pilot program to have a regular traditional owners and diocese consultative group. He said this group aimed to ensure the church was talking to elders and traditional owners and engaging at a level that supported what they needed to do. “It takes time to do that,” he said. “We’ve come a long way.” Loughrey said treaty negotiations between the First Peoples’ Assembly and the state government were underway. He said the negotiations would provide an overarching framework for local-level discussions with traditional owners. He said third-party organizations like the church would be invited into the treaty process at the local level to help resolve issues such as truth-telling and land rights. There will be treaty information sessions with the First Peoples’ Assembly for bishops, leaders, clergy and parishioners. “We’re working on ensuring they get to know how the process is working and where we might fit as a church in that process,” Loughrey said. Loughrey worked with the Rev. Shannon Smith on the Bendigo diocese’s Reconciliation Action Plan and the Rev. Kathy Dalton and Canon Phyllis Andy in Gippsland. He has raised support among parishes along the southern coast for Yoorrook Commissioner Travis Lovett, who will walk from Warrnambool to Melbourne in May. The Walk for Truth from Portland to Parliament will begin where Victoria was first colonized 190 years ago and end at the steps of Parliament House. Loughrey said there will be theological seminars in May and August where anyone could come and learn about the intersectios between Aboriginal and traditional theology.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay will visit Bangladesh from 10-14 April for meetings with churches, interfaith leaders, and faith-based organisations. He will also have a dialogue with theological teachers and students.