The February – April issue of the daily devotional booklet, Forward Day by Day, is now available on the literature rack in the tower entrance. You are welcome to pick up a copy of either the regular or the large print edition.

Have you ever wondered how Forward Day by Day began? Read How a Weary and Divided Episcopal Church Gets Reinvigorated, and moves forward with only twenty people, no budget, and no clear direction to “reinvigorate the life of the Episcopal Church.”

members were asked to pray hard for a month

Here’s an excerpt: Bishop Hobson commented that the Commission faced “probably the vaguest and most inclusive task imaginable.” Commission members returned from General Convention and for several weeks wrote and telephoned one another and asked acquaintances back home how they would reinvigorate the life of the church. Hobson also asked Commission members to “pray hard for a month.”

All day and late into the night commission members talked—and talked and talked, seemingly unable to move beyond bemoaning the problems facing the church. Bishop Hobson asked whether anyone had a plan to propose. No one did. Finally, Hobson mentioned a little essay written by Gilbert P. Symons, a clergyman on Hobson’s staff in Southern Ohio. Hobson asked Symons to read his essay aloud to the commission.

reinvigorating the life of the church would become possible only when church members began to take their discipleship seriously—not generally or vaguely, but in specific ways.

It said that reinvigorating the life of the church would become possible only when church members began to take their discipleship seriously—not generally or vaguely, but in specific ways. Symons discussed discipleship under seven steps: Turn, Follow, Learn, Pray, Serve, Worship, Share. A long silence followed the reading. Bishop Hobson then told the commission members to return to their rooms, pray during the night, and come back in the morning.

After an early communion service and breakfast the next day, the atmosphere had changed. The commission seemed drawn together and quickly hammered out a four-fold plan to reinvigorate the life of the church…