On February 19th the St. Louis City NAACP will present the Freeman/Seay Commitment to St. Louis Award to presidents and alumni of schools of higher education in the St. Louis area. Eden Theological Seminary is honored to be among them. Congratulations to Eden’s president, Rev. Dr. Deborah Krause and alumni, Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould on receiving this award. The award is presented annually in recognition of exemplary service, distinguished leadership and commitment to improve the cultural, social and economic growth and development of the St. Louis area. The award is named in honor of the late Attorney Frankie Muse Freeman and the late civil rights activist Norman R. Seay.
Ordained in the Missouri Conference of The United Methodist Church, The Reverend H. Russell Ewell II currently serves as The Pastor of Terrace Lake United Methodist Church (Kansas City MO). Additionally, he is the Chair Emeritus of The United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities, and serves as a board member of Missouri Faith Voices. As a person with a disability in pre- ADA America, his personal and systems advocacy skills began to develop the day his parents enrolled him in kindergarten. There, ophthalmologists and educators forewarned, “Blind students could not succeed in integrated classrooms.” So “don’t bother dreaming of one day seeing your son graduate from high school with a diploma.”
Proving conventional wisdom wrong, Russell graduated from Normandy Sr. High (St. Louis MO) and earned a B.S. in Sociology from Southern Illinois University (Edwardsville). In 2009 he distinguished himself by becoming the first blind student to graduate from Eden Theological Seminary in its 168-year history. He also has the distinction of being the first blind person to be ordained in The Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Rev. Ewell advocates for people to realize their power and apprehend their life goals. He gives talks across the country on Disability Advocacy and Awareness, The Disability Rights Movement, The Intersections of Religion and Disability, and The Intersectionality of Disability and Black Theology. Russell is a tireless advocate for a more liberating and inclusive theology of disability. He is passionate about empowering the disenfranchised and assisting all people in realizing their potential, purpose, and worth in The Church and society. Rev. Ewell is the proud husband of The Reverend Adrienne Denson Ewell.
Join Chalice Press for a FREE author Q&A with guests who were in the frontlines of the protests, including Eden’s president, faculty, and alumni. We will discuss the lasting changes and hope from this movement.
Monday, January 31st, 7 pm CST
Register with Chalice Press over on their event page.
Did the protests that started in Ferguson, Missouri in 2015 have a lasting change or effects?
About this event
Faith after Ferguson, Leah Gunning Francis’s follow-up to her landmark book Ferguson and Faith, revisits the activists who took to the streets in 2014 to protest the killing of Michael Brown, a young Black man, by a white police officer. In this livestream, Gunning Francis is joined by others who participated in those protests and have seen what has — and has not — changed as a result of those protests and the political changes locally and nationally. How has social activism changed the lives of the protestors? What barriers must still be overcome? How can we be better allies? Hear from those who have seen first-hand what remains to be done.
Congratulations! Eden Seminary’s Professor of Worship and Preaching, Christopher Grundy, has been awarded a $17,500 Teacher-Scholar Grant for the 2022-23 academic year by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, one of 16 to be given this year. Dr. Grundy will be coordinating a project aimed at inspiring congregations to begin establishing the kind of local, outdoor worship spaces that are needed for an era of ecological crisis and recovery. The project will focus on fostering imagination about worship spaces that can help to draw people into a deeper relationship with their natural environment, experience that environment as sacred and sacramental, form them spiritually as agents of ecological justice and recovery, and help them to process and respond faithfully to increasing ecological disasters. The point is to shift not just the language, symbolism, and subject matter of worship, but also the locations and embodied practices in worship spaces designed for an era of ecological crisis.
Teacher-Scholar Grant
The project includes events to which the public is invited. Watch for these events in the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023. These public events will launch and then cap off a cross-disciplinary design competition for theological students of Eden Seminary and landscape architecture students of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University, St. Louis. Competition teams will include both seminarians and landscape architecture students. The design contest will provide a vehicle for conversation, imagining, and grounding of theory in actual designs. Work on designs and accompanying narratives for the competition will be built into coursework offered at the two schools. A second public event, held in the spring of 2023 will reveal winners of the competition and provide an opportunity for the winning teams to present their designs to the public.
In support of this project, Dr. Sonja B. Williams, Dean of the Seminary writes, Dr. Grundy’s “keen sense of how to balance innovation with tradition in worship have been central to the formation of a whole generation of students. As the world continues to come to grips with climate change, environmental racism, and increasing climate disasters, this project promises to foster much-needed imagination among worship leaders and students of the sacred.”
This program is made possible through a Vital Worship Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Grand Rapids, Michigan, with funds provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. Since 2000, Vital Worship grants by the Calvin Worship Institute have been awarded to worshiping communities and teacher-scholars in 45+ states and provinces and in 40+ denominations across the spectrum of Christian traditions, including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, and Non-Denominational communities. Geared toward teacher-scholars in any field doing integrated research that connects worship with other disciplines of study and practice, the grant funds a research project that shows promise to serve worshiping communities by strengthening Christian public worship spaces. The program is generously supported by Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. Founded in 1937, the Endowment’s major areas of programming are religion, education, and community development.
Learn more.
The Eden Seminary Student Social Justice Council presents “Women on the Frontline: Faith and Justice Panel” Guest host: Rev. Dr. Cynthia Hale and Panelists: Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, Bishop Leah Daughtry and Dr. Barbara Williams-SkinnerWednesday, February 9, 2022 at 3pm CSTJoin on Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/EdenTheologicalSeminary
Current Eden Students. Check out this opportunity to compete for a registration scholarship for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference 2022. (Conference dates: Feb. 19-26)
https://www.facebook.com/EdenSocialJustice
Eden’s student social justice council recommends 2/3/22 UCC Just Peace Network and CHHSM event to you.
“Don’t Shoot: MLK and Gun Violence Then and Now”
Register here: https://bit.ly/JP2022MLK
The Social Justice Council is pleased to announce our Dr. Cynthia L. Hale Faith and Justice Scholarship recipient.
Dr. Hale is a trailblazer of trailblazers. She is a woman of vision and revered worldwide for her leadership, integrity, and compassion. Dr. Hale was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. She also served as a member of the 2016 Platform Committee for the Democratic National Convention and delivered the Invocation at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. During her 42 years of ministry, her ministerial gift has drawn thousands, young and old, to witness the anointing of a woman totally sold out for the Kingdom of God.
Congratulations to Dr. Zaria Davis who is a current MDiv student and is on the rise and continuously diving into areas that promote freedoms for those who are justice impacted. Her desire is to grow deeper and more connected to the area of ministry. It is our prayer that she will be richly blessed while attending the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference.
The faculty and students gather for the week, exploring topics and building community. Each day starts and ends with worship led by Dr. Grundy and the students and throughout the day students interact with members of the Eden community.
We Each cohort has a unique focus (1st year- Getting up and running with the DMin as they shift their focus to thinking about how their ministry setting can be a place for exploration and research; 2nd year- Exploring Practical Theological Research Methods that they might consider as they continue to find a focus for their research focus; 3rd year – Drilling down to a focus for their research and getting a sense for how they might frame it)
The DMin Intensive is a time to do all that, as well as continue to celebrate the relationships they are building with each other and Eden.
The Rev. Beth Long-Higgins is the Executive Director of the Ruth Parker Center for Abundant Aging and one of the Co-facilitators of Eden’s NEXT Steps program. NEXT Steps is an eight session, sixteen week program that is a collaboration between Eden Seminary and the Ruth Parker Center. Rev. Long-Higgins brings her considerable expertise to the project and has created a curriculum that encourages the participants to “grow whole” not old. The program challenges the participants to engage with many topics as they imagine a future of purpose and meaning, in their mid-life and beyond.
The program builds on topics such as “How do you think/talk about age?” “The paradox of Limited Time,” “Call and Vocation,” “Generativity,” “A Spirituality to Sustain,” all topics that she has researched extensively and brings not only humor but resources and spirituality to each session. Participants have expressed that they discovered, “I liked that you brought forth a fun factor- but it was much more than that-it brought forth how we make transitions.” Rev. Long-Higgins brings her expertise in both the process of aging and retirement, and shared resources for confronting and engaging life’s transitions as we age and grow. Her kindness and career as an ordained pastor of the UCC helps all participants to fully engage with the process in a safe and caring NEXT Steps community.
“I experienced a change in personhood!” NEXT Steps participant.
“Given increased life expectancy and extended general health, it is beneficial to consider and plan for more than just the financial aspects of life post-primary careers. NEXT Steps provides an intentional process for participants to journey along with others as they reflect and imagine their future selves.” ~Rev. Beth Long-Higgins
On the night of Friday, Dec. 10th and early morning of December 11th, tornadoes caused catastrophic destruction of lives and property. Up to fifty tornadoes struck eight states, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee. A group of those tornadoes were on the ground for 250-plus miles, cutting swaths of devastation in their paths through eastern Arkansas and western Kentucky. Multiple lives were lost (perhaps as many as 100) as the storms hit while people went about their daily lives – at home, at a nursing home, in college dormitories, working in a candle factory in Mayfield, KY or at a warehouse in Edwardsville, IL. Precious lives were lost. Homes, businesses and places of worship were flattened. Possessions were turned into debris.
The scope of the loss creates overwhelming grief. Kentucky Governor Beshear reflects, “We’re going to have to grieve together before we can rebuild together.” The uncertainty caused by such catastrophic weather events shakes our foundations. Survivors report, “Everything happened so fast.” The randomness of the destruction leaves us without direction. “The whole town is gone.”
The day after the storms, Mayfield, KY mayor, Kathy Stewart O’Nan, was asked by news reporters what people could do to help. Her reply, “We are a praying people. Join us in prayer.”
The people of Eden Theological Seminary join the prayers of those impacted by these natural disasters. We pray for those in search and rescue and immediate response. We pray as response will indeed turn into recovery. We pray with action in the long-term. As we take in the particular dimensions of these tragic storms, we pray for God to stir our hearts to greater compassion to serve those who are suffering. May we be moved to deeper attention and advocacy to protect workers with safe conditions and our planet from the ravages of climate change.
Churches with which Eden is connected are acting and will be involved for the long-term. For those able to contribute financially, you can be part of response and long-term recovery by donating through disaster response ministries, including: UCC Disaster Ministries Severe Storms Appeal https://www.ucc.org/appeal-severe-storms-2021/
Or Disciples Week of Compassion https://www.weekofcompassion.org/stories/after-the-storm-an-update-and-a-prayer-following-tornado-outbreak
We join you in prayer; for God is among you. This is the real Emmanuel.
-Rev. Dr. Deborah Krause, President
Eden Theological Seminary
