Thanks so much for reading this month‘s news from The Initiative, a community committed to “walking in deeper friendship with Jesus and his followers, so that the love of Christ might exceed all divisions.” We do this primarily through prayer, sharing of our lives, and proactive work for greater unity. 

This month, we’re looking back on a wonderful week in Memphis, offering some resources for engaging the potential political divisiveness of the next month, and encouraging you to save the dates for our summer gathering.

Walking (and praying and connecting across difference) in Memphis

     Once again this fall, The Initiative had the privilege of participating in the Christian Churches Together annual Forum that took place last week. I was there as an ecumenical guest, Tom Masters was there as a Catholic participant, and two of our members from Memphis (Israel C and Richard R) joined for the day on Wednesday. 
The experiences were similar to last year in Savannah, as we heard presentations from the five church “families” represented (Catholic, Historic Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical & Pentecostal, and Historic Black), prayed and ate together in some local churches of those traditions, took pilgrimage walks to places of both healing and pain (such as the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was murdered in 1968), and gleaned wisdom from our young ecumenical friends from the “five families” as well.
This year’s theme was “Come Holy Spirit: Renew, Restore, and Reconcile”. Like last year’s theme centered on baptism, we saw how the Holy Spirit has been at work throughout the centuries to bring to fulfillment Jesus’ prayer for our oneness in the Godhead. And yet Christians have disputed with (and even separated from) one another over the centuries around the nature and work of the Spirit. Once again, it was good to press into that tension and allow God to draw us out of ourselves, towards others, and way from simply relying on the comfortable patterns of our traditions.
I was also reminded how much the Forum parallels the work that we do, and how God uses that space to help form us and renew us in our own work of “love greater than division.”

After the Forum was over on Friday, Tom and I stayed around for the weekend to help as Israel put together and led a Memphis-area Initiative encounter across difference. It was a wonderfully diverse group, with folks there spanning from the Church of God in Christ to the Churches of Christ (which kind of sound the same by name, but are very different from one another, even within the Evangelical/Pentecostal family).
Every time The Initiative hosts one of these events, I’m struck by what happens as we worship, pray together, reflect on Scripture, share our stories and talk together about Jesus’ prayer in John 17. The Holy Spirit was truly at work once again – renewing, restoring, and reconciling.

Resource of the Month: The Church and Civic Engagement

     Even amongst committed followers of Jesus, the next few weeks have the potential to manifest pretty much the opposite of “love greater than division”. Which is why we want to commend “The Church and Civic Engagement” series from our friends at UniteBoston, “featuring curated articles, resources, and action steps on how we can all engage in this time following Jesus with peace and courage across deep divides. Our hope is to stand as a public witness to our churches and city, demonstrating that the Way of Jesus is to cross divides and seek out the Imago Dei of all our neighbors across typical lines of difference.” 
These resources offer opportunities for all of us to prioritize prayer, practice discernment in media consumption, reach across divides, get curious, get involved in local politics, and lead others to do the same.
This is yet another opportunity to be formed in the way of Jesus’ missional love: when we are tempted to avoid discomfort by civically disengaging, we can instead be sent by Jesus towards others in our community.
The resource page can be found here.

Save the Date: Gather with The Initiative in June 2025

     Building off the tradition of our past Green Lake gatherings and last year’s Chapter Launch gathering, we want to invite you to consider joining us for three days of formation, prayer, discernment, and pressing deeper into what it means to “make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).

• June 16-18, 2025 (Monday – Wednesday) at the Carmelite Spiritual Center in Darien, IL (less than 30 minutes from O’Hare). Cost will be roughly $300/person. Further details and a registration page will be coming soon.

Mark your calendars, pray, and hopefully we’ll see many of you then!

I’m so deeply grateful for each of you who reads these updates, prays, engages in your part of Christ’s body, and gives generously to help us move forward in our way of missional love.

May the Lord bless you and send the Holy Spirit to you and through you to renew, restore and reconcile the fractured Body of Christ.

Yours in Christ’s Love,
Scott Brill
Executive Director