Radical Sending: Go to Love and Serve

Demi Prentiss · Fletcher Lowe

Oct 2015 · Church Publishing, Inc.

About this ebook

As congregations explore their emerging visions, they need support in “equipping the saints” for their day-to-day lives and ministries beyond the doors of the building. The Dismissal — “go in peace, to love and serve the Lord” — becomes as important as the Eucharist in feeding the people for the journey. But churches often fail to focus on this baptismal calling to “go” into the worlds of work, family, and community. This book fills that void, focusing on how the baptized become “go-ers,” providing practical and tested ways of fulfilling that calling.

Go to Love and Serve builds on and complements the work of Stephanie Spellers’ Radical Welcome, which called congregations to move beyond diversity and inclusion to be places where the transforming gifts, voices, and power of marginalized cultures and groups bring new life to the mainline church. Each chapter is followed by discussion questions for use with small groups or for personal reflection.

About the author

J. Fletcher Lowe was a parish priest for 37 years with a passion for empowering the laity for their ministries in daily life, authenticated with the 1979 BCP's focus on the centrality of Baptism. Aside from his parish and diocesan efforts, he co-edited with Linda Grenz Ministry in Daily Life, Living the Baptismal Covenant and compiled Baptism: the Event and the Adventure. He died in 2021.

Stephanie Spellers serves as Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Canon for Evangelism and Reconciliation. The author of The Church Cracked Open, and The Episcopal Way (with Eric Law), she has directed mission and evangelism work at General Theological Seminary and in the Diocese of Long Island. A native of Kentucky and a graduate of both Episcopal Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, she lives in Harlem, New York.