Tuesdays at 6:15 a.m., Bob Nelson gets in his car and drives 120 miles from his home in Milwaukee to Chicago. There, he picks up his 91-year-old father-in-law, Charles Custer, and accompanies him to the rehearsal of Good Memories, a choir for people with early-stage dementia and their caregivers. Anna Brothers of South Holland also…
The Diocese of Chicago had a specific vision in mind when it instituted its new partnership with the College for Congregational Development (CCD). “I think CCD has the capacity to really change how our churches approach their futures,” says the Rev. Andrea Mysen, director of ministries. “It is all about creating practitioners on the ground who…
As the church adapts to serve a changing world, the traditional model of a single congregation worshipping in a single building, with a single full-time priest is no longer the norm. More than half of Episcopal congregations do not have a full-time priest, and more clergy are bi-vocational or serve more than one community. In the…
Life changed for the members of Spanish-speaking communities in the Diocese of Chicago after the election of Donald Trump. “As a Latino/Hispanic clergy and person of color in the United States after the election, I have been reminded again and again that some people think I don’t belong here,” says the Rev. Victor Conrado, associate…
If media accounts are to be believed, pundits, psychologists and professors all agree that millennials—people born since 1980—are fragile, lazy and entitled. Ask many Episcopal leaders about young adults and you’ll hear that getting them to come to church is both nearly impossible and essential to the denomination’s survival. But campus ministers in the Diocese…
Sometimes quietly, sometimes reluctantly but most often with great joy, lay leaders are coming to the fore in parishes across the Diocese of Chicago, sharing their gifts for ministry and building the church, not just in times of trouble or transition, but day-in, day-out. For some—including churches that can’t afford a priest and parishes whose clergy…
