 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Emma Brewer Wallen. I'm the Minister of Environmental and Economic Justice for the Southern New England Conference. And I'm here with Reverend Rich Gamble, who's the Executive Director of the Justice Leadership Program, a new partner for the conference, and also a pastor at a local church who's had members participate in the Justice Leadership Program. And so Rich, today I'm especially interested in hearing from your perspective as a pastor watching a member of your congregation go through this program. What was that like? Well, not just one, we had two. We had a member from my congregation join a class and then a couple of years later, another member of mine went through. So I have two different experiences. And both experiences were great. For me as a pastor in my congregation to see people who were interested in justice, but really didn't know how to get started. And then they joined the Jubilee program. They followed through with all the aspects of the program and came out the other side. And while they were in the program and then even now, a years later, they have been very active when it comes to the work of justice. We had a program here called Meaningful Movies where we showed justice films on a regular basis and then had community discussions about that. And one of our participants made that their community program that they got involved in. And that brought such life to that aspect of the life of the congregation because it was happening in the congregation, but it was run by a community group. And so for us to be able to have one of our own dive in and take a lot of leadership was great. And since then he's gone on to lead our environmental justice work and also to be a part of a much larger efforts in the broader community is now very well networked in the community and is a resource for us. A second person was interested in homelessness. And so she got involved with an agency that does advocacy work on behalf of those who are homeless. And she got very excited about that program and got involved and then started carrying information from that program into the congregation so that other people could get involved in the work of advocacy. And that became part of her regular contribution to the congregation. So that now, even years later, almost on a weekly basis she provides people opportunities to get involved not just on homelessness, but a whole range of justice issues. Every week she provides information about how people can get involved in the work of advocacy for justice. And to have lay people take those pieces on and do it without the need to be supervised to do it with enthusiasm and energy and confidence is a real gift to the congregation. And I would suggest to any pastor who would love to see some enthusiasm around justice spring up in their congregation to see if you might have some people that would be interested in participating. This sounds really exciting. I love to hear both how those individuals were transformed but also how it has shaped the life of your congregation for many years since then. As pastors might be watching this video and thinking about people in their congregation what are some signs to look for that someone might be a really good fit to participate in this program? The people that I look for are people who are interested in issues. They wanna talk about what's going on in the world and they wanna talk about what they can do. But may not have a good idea about how they can do it or may feel like they need someone to tell them exactly what to do each step along the way. I look for people who have time and energy to be able to do that. It can be challenging for people if they have lots of commitments. But for people who have the time this is a wonderful way of giving vocation and meaningful use for the time that they have and giving them an enthusiastic jolt if you will to get involved in meaningful work that can carry on for the rest of their lives. So I look for those kind of people. People who have interest, people who have capacity and people who will be able to I believe stick through a program that's six months long. I know those people are out there. I've met many of them and we're really looking forward to hearing or to seeing the Southern New England Conference cohort come together for this program that will start in October. Are there, what are the ways that a congregation might support one of their members as they're engaging in this program or as they're activating their leadership once it's over? Well, the initial way would be to assist them with the participation fee. There is a participation fee with the program and I think it's important for the church to pay some or all of that fee so that the church can then claim that the work of this individual isn't just the work of the individual, that it is the supported work of the congregation, that the congregation is calling them to get this training and this background with the hopes of reaping the rewards of that training within their midst, within the life of the congregation. So that's one way. The second way is to find ways once the person comes out to acknowledge that they have these gifts and figure out, and that can be with the church council or the pastor or pastoral leadership, figure out how best to make sure that that person's experience and training is then utilized within the life of the congregation to magnify the work of justice there. This sounds like really excellent ideas ways to lift up and to affirm the leadership that lay people can and do offer in our congregations and particularly through this kind of justice ministry. So thank you. You can apply for the Jubilee Justice Leadership Program at justiceleadership.org and be sure to click on the S&E cohort button to apply for the cohort that will be specifically offered for folks in the Southern New England Conference. Thank you, Rich.