Small Church Voices Newsletter

From the Iona Collaborative

Happy 2024, Friends!

As we look to the new year with wonder, curiosity, and excitement, we celebrate the work happening in small churches across our network. While the landscape of congregational ministry is ever-changing, our small churches offer steady and supportive care to their communities in creative and joy-filled ways. Small churches have superpowers! With bold hearts and spirits, small churches flex and adjust nimbly, raise and develop leaders specific to their settings, and innovate with intention and purpose.

In this month's issue, we're highlighting some of that creative energy in our Ministry Spotlight on Vocational Deacon, Wayne Hanway; sharing a resource for you from our friends at the Small Churches Big Impact Collective; and celebrating new educational paths forged by seminaries across the country (featuring Seminary of the Southwest and Iona!) in the following article from The Christian Century.

Please forward this newsletter widely and send us your own stories about the power of small.

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Facing Theological Ed's

Existential Crisis

Four Schools and the Creative Paths

They're Charting | The Christian Century

“We are learning so much from these small congregations about how to be church together,” [Nandra]Perry said. “We think these little churches are actually an amazing lab for the Episcopal Church.”

Click Here to Read the Article

Illustration by: Daniel Hertzberg

Ministry Spotlight: Wayne Hanway

After retiring from a 41-year career as a public library administrator, Wayne led the project of launching a prison ministry when his men's group at All Saints Episcopal Church in McAlester, Oklahoma decided they wanted to begin the work...

"When I’m ministering to the guys, I work on a very basic level. I’ve been told by them that they’re going to hell. I have to assure them that God loves them, that God’s love is unconditional, that no matter what they’ve done, God loves them. It’s a very basic message and I have to repeat it over and over again. That’s the overall situation that I’m dealing with."

The Rev. Wayne Hanway, Deacon at All Saints Episcopal

McAlester, OK

Featured Resource

The Small Churches Big Impact Collective began with six Episcopal clergywomen who found themselves and their understanding of church transformed by the experience of serving part-time in their small congregations.

This month's Featured Resource is the January 13, 2022 episode of the Small Churches Big Impact podcast.

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