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The Nehemiah Mission of Cleveland is dedicated to rebuilding hope and transforming communities by providing meals, temporary housing, and support for displaced families. During a visit, CWS’s Nick Gliha witnessed their powerful work firsthand—from serving warm meals to offering CWS Blankets and Kits to those in need. Below is his blog written about the recent experience. Providing Hope Through Meals ... Read More

Annika Greco Thompson illustrates why Lent can be a great opportunity to demonstrate God’s compassion and generosity

In this issue: Prayers concerns from Global Mission, Annual Conference registration opens March 5, disabilities leader to present Ministers' Association pre-Conference event, BVS "Visionary Voices" speaker series, job openings, National Council of Churches prayer webinar, Green Lectionary podcast for Lent, Seven Weeks for Water Campaign from the World Council of Churches.

Ambassador Amira Hanania, a Palestinian diplomat and media veteran, serves as the representative of the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Europe. A Christian from Bethlehem, she has dedicated her career to journalism and diplomacy. Recently, she completed a documentary titled “Via Dolorosa: The Path of Sorrows,” which sheds light on the history of Christians in Palestine and the challenges they face. 

The shocking realities of war and how Hope Lebedyn are supporting orphans as a declaration of God's love and protection

The March offering from the Ventures in Christian Discipleship program at McPherson (Kan.) College will be “Acknowledging Grief, Claiming Hope: Reflections from Around the Church of the Brethren” to be presented by Dava Hensley, Church of the Brethren ordained minister and 2025 Annual Conference moderator.

Tim Button-Harrison has announced his retirement from leadership of the Church of the Brethren’s Northern Plains District. At the Feb. 7-8 meeting of the district board, it was announced that he will retire on Dec. 31, 2025, after having served the district for more than 19 years.

The Susquehanna Valley Ministry Center (SVMC) has hired Audrey Hollenberg-Duffey as the new director, beginning May 1. Prior to May, Hollenberg-Duffey will be working with retiring executive director Donna M. Rhodes to provide a good transition.

[Episcopal News Service] The realignment plan for churchwide operations that Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe unveiled last week was primarily focused on reorienting and, in some cases, phasing out departments and staff positions as a part of Rowe’s vision of an Episcopal Church that better serves its dioceses. At the same time, another level of church governance remains in a prolonged state of transition: the church’s canonical leadership team. The Episcopal Church is incorporated in the state of New York as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, or the DFMS. Episcopal Church Canons and the DFMS’ Constitution specify at least five individuals serve as the institution’s officers, starting with the presiding bishop and the House of Deputies president. The other three positions named as officers are the church’s chief financial officer, its chief operating officer and the secretary of Executive Council. In recent years, the secretary role has been held by the executive officer of General Convention, who also has served as secretary of convention. All of those positions are now in transition. Kurt Barnes, the church’s current chief financial officer, announced in December that he plans to retire after 21 years. He agreed to remain on staff while the presiding officers – Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris – recruit and nominate Barnes’ successor. The canons give Executive Council the authority to appoint the presiding officers’ nominee. “We have had a quite tremendously diverse pool of applicants for the position,” Rowe told Executive Council on Feb. 19, the final day of the governing body’s three-day meeting last week. In consultation with current and former Executive Council members, Rowe said he and Ayala Harris have narrowed the field to four finalists. After picking their nominee, they expect to call a special meeting of Executive Council in March for an approval vote. A day after council’s meeting, on Feb. 20, Rowe issued a letter to the church summarizing a series of staff cuts, including 14 layoffs, as well as department reorganizations and changes to certain staff’s titles as he carries out the first phase of the realignment. One of the positions affected was chief operating officer. The church’s last permanent chief operations officer was the Rev. Geoffrey Smith, a deacon who retired at the end of 2022. Then-Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Ayala Harris selected Jane Cisluycis, a former Executive Council member, as their nominee to replace Smith, but when some members of Executive Council objected to the recruitment process, Curry and Ayala Harris agreed to change Cisluycis’ title to acting COO. Executive Council, though still divided over the nomination, approved Cisluycis in February 2023. In his Feb. 20 letter, Rowe stated, “our realignment process has indicated that, at this time, we do not need to fill the role of chief operating officer.” Instead, Cisluycis will remain on staff with the new title of senior director of operations, Rowe said. Cisluycis will retain most of the former responsibilities of the COO, including information technology, human resources, archives, and building services. Rowe did not say when, if ever, the COO position would be filled again, as outlined in the canons – which also leaves vacant one of the officer positions mandated by the DFMS Constitution. The canons say, “upon joint nomination by the Chair and the Vice-Chair [the two presiding officers], the Council shall appoint a Chief Operating Officer who shall serve at the pleasure of, and report and be accountable to, the Chair [the presiding bishop].” As for the Executive Council secretary, permanently filling that position is complicated by the fact that, in the past, the role of secretary has been filled by the person serving as executive officer of General Convention. General Convention’s last executive officer, the Rev. Michael Barlowe, retired at the end of the summer 2024 after 11 years in that office. During the ongoing transition, Barlowe’s former deputy, the Rev. Molly James, was named by Curry and Ayala Harris as interim executive officer, and for now, James also is filling Barlowe’s former role of Executive Council secretary. Barlowe, as head of the General Convention Office, had been the central churchwide official responsible for the administration of church governance. The General Convention Office’s duties have included negotiating contracts for venues and accommodations at each General Convention, coordinating the meetings of all the church’s interim governing bodies, receiving and tallying parochial report data from dioceses and congregations, facilitating the consent process for bishop elections, and ensuring the church has the technology needed to achieve all those goals. Initially, Curry and Ayala Harris announced a timeline for replacing Barlowe that would have culminated in the presiding officers presenting a nominee for Executive Council’s approval this month. That timeline no longer pertains. Rowe was elected the 28th presiding bishop in June 2024 and took office Nov. 1, and one of his first actions as presiding bishop was to propose a new committee structure for Executive Council, including the creation of a committee “to examine the role, function and canonical structure of the position of the executive officer of General Convention.” That newly formed committee, led by Katie Sherrod of the Diocese of Texas, produced a four-page report that was presented and discussed by Executive Council when it met last week in suburban Baltimore, Maryland. “The vacancy in the position of Executive Officer has afforded an opportunity to provide clarity for the church in the search for the right person for that role,” the report says.  “It is challenging to understand because it always has been entangled with the canonical positions of the Secretary of the House of Deputies, the Secretary of the General Convention, and the other offices held, ex officio, by the Secretary of the General Convention.” The role, if it were a painting, “would be by Picasso during his Cubism period,” the committee added. The committee suggested three possible paths to pursue: Separate the duties of secretary and executive officer, completely integrate the duties of the two […]