The Center for the Ministry of Teaching (CMT) at Virginia Theological Seminary has just created “Key Resources,” an online compilation of the best resources for and approaches to lifelong faith formation in the Episcopal Church and beyond.
Brand new on the site is a new podcast, “Easter People,” scheduled to post a new episode twice a month. “Easter People” will explore faith, culture, learning, and service, featuring storytelling, a lot of laughter, and even some silly quizzes. The podcasters will be Kyle Oliver, Lisa Kimball, Jason Evans, and Randall Curtis, all members of Forma (formerly the National Association of Episcopal Christian Education Directors or NAECED). In Episode 1, the podcasters talk about what they learned from past jobs, play the Twitter-inspired game “Church Nerd or Not?”, and share “green shoots”—the places where they’re seeing signs of new life and growth.
The creation of “Key Resources” is part of the VTS “digital mission”—the process of making CMT’s work more available by taking it online in a systematic way. As the site describes itself, “Our site includes just what it says, key resources, the stuff we think you really need to know about, based on the conversations we have in the center every day.”
If you’re looking for a clearinghouse of many, many resources, Key Resources is not what you need. VTS recommends instead the Center for Spiritual Resources, home to a large and growing resource portal maintained by a large team of curators (including CMT). The CSR aims to be as complete as possible—not only in the area of faith formation but in other areas of church life and spiritual practice.