June 9, 2010, New York, NY – The Episcopal Church Foundation is delighted to announce the 2010 recipients of its Fellowship Partners Program grants: Elizabeth (Liza) Anderson, The Rev. Rosa Lindahl Mallow, and The Rev. Altagracia Perez.
ECF’s Fellowship Partners Program hopes to foster dynamic and transformational lay and ordained church leaders by providing financial support to individuals engaged in academic study and transformational ministries that address important areas of need in the Episcopal Church. For more than 45 years ECF Fellows have emerged as important leaders, teachers, and scholars at all levels of the Church. ECF and our Fellows are truly partners, sharing knowledge, experience and best practices with both local and far reaching faith communities.
“These new Fellows represent a diverse range of interests and talents,” said Anne Ditzler, ECF Senior Program Director. “While they are unique in their actions and thoughts, they all explore and embrace the breadth of the Episcopal Church and Christian tradition in order to educate and empower individuals, communities, and the church as a whole. “
ECF Fellowship Partners Program 2010 Fellows:
Elizabeth (Liza) Anderson Liza will begin doctoral work at YaleUniversity in September, focusing on the early and medieval history of Christianity in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. While Christianity has a long history in the Middle East, India, and North Africa, and had spread through Central Asia as far as China by the seventh century, it is usually studied as if it had been only a European religion until missionaries from the West brought it to other regions of the world. Liza hopes that her research on the history and theology of early and medieval Christianity outside of the West will help contribute to a better understanding of Christianity as a truly global religion from the earliest centuries of the church. While she has spent the last three years studying the history and languages of early Eastern Christianity at HarvardDivinitySchool, Liza also has a previous master’s degree in ecumenical relations from Trinity College Dublin, and cares deeply about the contemporary ecumenical implications of her work. She spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow lecturing classes on ecumenical and interfaith relations at the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Lviv, Ukraine, and this summer she will be teaching at Saint Peter’s Seminary in Ankawa, Iraq.
The Rev. Rosa Lindahl Mallow Rosa will lead a project titled “Identity, Voice and Witness: Ministry in a Post Parish Culture,” which hopes to ease the growing problem of parishes spending more time struggling to stay open then engaging in transformational ministry. She will specifically work with the New River Regional Ministry in Fort Lauderdale, which takes a new approach, stitching together a large congregation, a new Latino storefront ministry and two congregations in financial crisis. Her project will work with all four cells of the regional ministry to ensure that the distinctive voice, story and identity each community brings to this ministry will build up the regional team to do groundbreaking ministry in a large area of Fort Lauderdale. Additionally, the project will focus on leadership development for regional ministry.
The Rev. Altagracia Perez In September, Altagracia will begin a Ph.D. program at Claremont School of Theology. Her field will be Practical Theology, with an emphasis in Christian Education. She currently serves a multicultural, bilingual parish in Inglewood, California, which reflects the diversity of the South Los Angeles county it serves. She is interested in developing resources to support work in urban congregations, and understands that leadership in urban multicultural, multilingual, theologically diverse congregations need training and support to do their ministries. Making connections, learning and respecting cultural differences, developing theological language and methodologies that promote inclusion and unity are the essential tools that she hopes to develop to equip the church to face the challenges of today and the future.
“The diversity in our ministry and congregations is an important part of the Episcopal Church,” said Donald V. Romanik, President of the Episcopal Church Foundation, “The beauty of the Fellowship Partners Program is that it allows for the support of this diversity by enabling projects, such as the work of our new 2010 Fellows, that bring people of all cultures together in the name of Christ”
Renewal Fellowships were awarded to Ms. Rima Vesley-Flad, the Rev. Joseph Duggan, the Rev. Susan Richardson, the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, Mr. Paul P. Clever, the Rev. Kathryn L. Reinhard, and the Rev. Edward E. Thompson.
une 3, 2010, New York, NY – The Episcopal Church Foundation is delighted to announce the 2010 recipients of its Fellowship Partners Program grants: Elizabeth (Liza) Anderson, The Rev. Rosa Lindahl Mallow, and The Rev. Altagracia Perez.
ECF’s Fellowship Partners Program hopes to foster dynamic and transformational lay and ordained church leaders by providing financial support to individuals engaged in academic study and transformational ministries that address important areas of need in the Episcopal Church.For more than 45 years ECF Fellows have emerged as important leaders, teachers,and scholars at all levels of the Church.ECF and our Fellows are truly partners, sharing knowledge, experience and best practices with both local and far reaching faith communities.
“These new Fellows represent a diverse range of interests and talents,” said Anne Ditzler, ECF Senior Program Director. “While they are unique in their actions and thoughts, they all explore and embrace the breadth of the Episcopal Church and Christian tradition in order to educate and empower individuals, communities, and the church as a whole. “
ECF Fellowship Partners Program 2010 Fellows:
Elizabeth (Liza) Anderson
Liza will begin doctoral work at YaleUniversity in September, focusing on the early and medieval history of Christianity in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.While Christianity has a long history in the Middle East, India, and North Africa, and had spread through Central Asia as far as China by the seventh century, it is usually studied as if it had been only a European religion until missionaries from the West brought it to other regions of the world. Liza hopes that her research on the history and theology of early and medieval Christianity outside of the West will help contribute to a better understanding of Christianity as a truly global religion from the earliest centuries of the church. While she has spent the last three years studying the history and languages of early Eastern Christianity at HarvardDivinitySchool, Liza also has a previous master’s degree in ecumenical relations from Trinity College Dublin, and cares deeply about the contemporary ecumenical implications of her work. She spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow lecturing classes on ecumenical and interfaith relations at the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Lviv, Ukraine, and this summer she will be teaching at Saint Peter’s Seminary in Ankawa, Iraq.
The Rev. Rosa Lindahl Mallow
Rosa will lead a project titled “Identity, Voice and Witness: Ministry in a Post Parish Culture,” which hopes to ease the growing problem of parishes spending more time struggling to stay open then engaging in transformational ministry. She will specifically work with the New River Regional Ministry in Fort Lauderdale, which takes a new approach, stitching together a large congregation, a new Latino storefront ministry and two congregations in financial crisis. Her project will work with all four cells of the regional ministry to ensure that the distinctive voice, story and identity each community brings to this ministry will build up the regional team to do groundbreaking ministry in a large area of Fort Lauderdale. Additionally, the project will focus on leadership development for regional ministry.
The Rev. Altagracia Perez
In September, Altagracia will begin a Ph.D. program at Claremont School of Theology. Her field will be Practical Theology, with an emphasis in Christian Education. She currently serves a multicultural, bilingual parish in Inglewood, California, which reflects the diversity of the South Los Angeles county it serves. She is interested in developing resources to support work in urban congregations, and understands that leadership in urban multicultural, multilingual, theologically diverse congregations need training and support to do their ministries. Making connections, learning and respecting cultural differences, developing theological language and methodologies that promote inclusion and unity are the essential tools that she hopes to develop to equip the church to face the challenges of today and the future.
“The diversity in our ministry and congregations is an important part of the Episcopal Church,” said Donald V. Romanik, President of the Episcopal Church Foundation, “The beauty of the Fellowship Partners Program is that it allows for the support of this diversity by enabling projects, such as the work of our new 2010 Fellows, that bring people of all cultures together in the name of Christ”
Renewal Fellowships were awarded to Ms. Rima Vesley-Flad, the Rev. Joseph Duggan, the Rev. Susan Richardson, the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, Mr. Paul P. Clever, the Rev. Kathryn L. Reinhard, and the Rev. Edward E. Thompson.
Complete information about the Fellowship Partners Program can be found on ECF’s website at www.EpiscopalFoundation.org or by calling 800-697-2858.
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