Stories

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Worship Leaders:
Rev. Rebecca Turner, Christ Church UCC, Maplewood
Rev. Monty Jackson, Christ Church UCC, Maplewood

About our preacher(s):
Rev. Rebecca Turner graduated from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and was ordained at Kirkwood Baptist Church in 1986, making waves as the first Southern Baptist woman ordained in the state of Missouri.

Realizing she was not a good fit for the denomination of her childhood, she began serving UCC churches and currently maintains standing in the UCC and DOC. She has kept on making waves.

From 2001-2015, Turner served as the Executive Director of Faith Aloud, an interfaith denomination focused on sexual and reproductive justice. In that role, she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, featured in four documentaries, was the keynote speaker to 500 Latin American abortion providers in Bogota, Colombia, and received the “2010 Person of the Year” Award from the Abortion Care Network. The religious resources she developed through Faith Aloud have been used extensively on at least four continents.

Motivated by the 2014 murder of Michael Brown and the election of 2016, Turner became Pastor at Christ Church UCC in Maplewood with a determination to address white supremacy in the local church. In 2017, Christ Church developed a ministry to their immigrant neighbors and attracted national attention for successfully sheltering Alex Garcia from deportation for 3 and 1/2 years.

At General Synod in 2021, Turner received the “Movement Makers Award” from the United Church of Christ.

As a part of her commitment to reducing white supremacy in the congregation, Turner led Christ Church to add a second Pastor, the Rev. Monty Jackson. Turner and Jackson have since become a songwriting duo, creating new music for weekly worship which speaks from a lens of liberation and justice. Next month, the church will begin its Social Justice Sunday School, with a new curriculum written by Turner

Monty Jackson, a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity, is a singer-songwriter, record producer, and arranger, who has produced, written, arranged, and performed with Grammy award, Dove award, and Stellar award-winning artists. Monty himself is a three-time award winner for excellence in music and media (EIM).

Monty is an internationally acclaimed artist who has performed throughout America, Canada, the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, the South Pacific Islands, and the Caribbean. He says, “Out of all the places I have performed, no experience compares to singing an American spiritual on the Sea of Galilee.” Monty has also performed at the Sydney Opera House in Australia and is a former member of the Heritage Singers and was on their weekly national television show on the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) for four years in the ’80s.

Pastor Monty and his wife, Patti, have two children, Christian and Cetera.

Contact the Eden Admissions Office to register:  [email protected]
or Phone: 314-918-2642

See Eden’s website for more information  https://www.eden.edu/degree-programs/

Contact us today at [email protected]

A Message from Rev. Dr. Sonja B. Williams, Dean of the Seminary  

Eden Theological Seminary is blessed by the administrative leadership of its faculty. For the last two years, Rev. Dr. Damayanthi Niles has served as Interim Academic Dean. As she returns to full-time teaching as the Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission and Peace, Rev. Dr. Christopher Grundy has agreed to serve as Academic Dean as he continues in his teaching and worship leadership roles as Professor of Preaching and Worship and Dean of the Chapel.

After graduating from Carleton College in Minnesota and Union Theological Seminary in New York, Dr. Grundy served churches in Iowa and Kansas for eight years before seeking an M.T.S. and PhD. in liturgical studies from Garrett Seminary. He is the author of Recovering Communion in a Violent World: Resilience, Resistance, and Risk (see www.belovedcommunion.org) and co-author of The Work of the People: What We Do in Worship and Why. Dr Grundy has also been writing and performing music for local, regional, and national church gatherings for more than two decades. You can find his music on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, www.convergencemp.com, and many other platforms. He is married to Dr. Carla Tellor Grundy, and they have three sons: Ross, Liam, and Gabriel.

“It’s an honor to work with Eden’s outstanding leadership team,” he says, “and to serve a school that has such an important and distinctive role, both in the St. Louis region and the world. I look forward to collaborating with Eden’s faculty and network of partners as we move into the new era of theological education that is emerging.”

Contact Dana at [email protected]

As a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ Dana grew up attending worship and church camps in Colorado where she heard her call to ministry. Dana completed her Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management and Christian Leadership from Colorado Christian University in 2012 and earned her Master of Divinity from Eden Theological Seminary in 2016.

Dana comes to this position with eight years of Seminary admissions experience. As an Eden alum she can testify firsthand to the inclusiveness and growing accessibility of Eden’s programs. As the Interim Director, she hopes to engage students who are feeling God’s call on their life to expand their theological training, leadership, and knowledge of the Progressive Christian Movement.

Since she’s been in Missouri, Dana met and married her husband, Ryan. Dana and Ryan have a gaggle of dogs and cats in their household and enjoy taking the dogs, Mars and iO hiking as often as possible. 

Contact: Rev. Cynthia Owen Jarrold, Sr. Advisor for Funding Strategies and External Affairs
[email protected] /(913) 219-3198

The Gamaliel Network announces new partnership with Eden Theological Seminary

Chicago, IL – April 21, 2022 – The Gamaliel Network is pleased to announce that it is entering into a partnership with Eden Theological Seminary (ETS) as part of our ongoing effort to dismantle structural racism through our Race and Power Institute.

“The partnership with Eden Seminary in the development of Gamaliel’s Race and Power Institute is a testament to the recognized need for faith leaders to help to repair the soul of our nation or in the words of Kelly Brown Douglas, the ‘moral imaginary,’” said Rev. Dr. John C. Welch, Chairman of the Gamaliel Board of Directors. “Seminaries are where formation happens and where the conversations can begin.”

ETS is a Progressive Christian institution located in St. Louis, MO. Since 1850, ETS has been committed to the theological and spiritual formation of Christian leaders and the pursuit of justice. According to Eden President Deborah Krause, “This partnership empowers Eden to combine impactful resources of theological education for social justice with Gamaliel’s proven capacity to move people to change systems of domination and structures of oppression. We are excited for what this means for ministry and for justice organizing!”

Through this partnership, courses focused on race and power in community organizing will be taught to ETS students and will launch on May 31, 2022. A certificate in Race and Power will also be added to ETS’s course offerings.

These efforts are part of Gamaliel’s ongoing effort to launch the Race and Power Institute (RAPI), an entity within Gamaliel that aims to create a bridge between race analysis and organizing work and provide ongoing professional development and resources for organizers and leaders within and outside the Gamaliel Network at the intersection of policy, praxis, and philosophy. Already at work to fulfill its purpose, the Gamaliel Race and Power Institute will fully launch at Gamaliel’s biennial Race and Power Summit in December 2022.

Ms. Angela James, a 30-year veteran faith-based community organizer and national staff member in the Gamaliel Network, and racial equity specialist, is the Director of the Gamaliel Race and Power Institute. Rev. Dr. Dietra Wise-Baker, Eden Assistant Professor of Community Engagement and Contextual Education, serves as Organizing Director of the Gamaliel Race and Power Institute at Eden Theological Seminary.

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Gamaliel is a grassroots network of non-partisan, faith-based organizations in 13 states and 43 regions that has, for 35 years, trained ordinary people to effectively participate in the political, environmental, social and economic decisions affecting their lives. Gamaliel’s work is rooted in a shared set of values like diversity, inclusion, and democracy. Gamaliel is committed to a long-term transformational agenda that creates structural racial equity, builds the people’s control of government and the economy, and expands the public sphere. Gamaliel builds power to transform the world as it is into a new world marked by equity, compassion, hope, shared abundance, and radical inclusiveness.

Download the full press release here.