Hello everyone, I’m Shana Peachey Boshart, the project facilitator for Shine’s new grant-funded initiative, Everywhere Faith. I’m thrilled to join the Shine team because I’ve known Shine and admired its creative team ever since it started. In those days, I was the conference minister for Christian formation for the Central Plains Mennonite Conference of Mennonite Church USA. I was a Shine trainer, showing teachers the features of the new curriculum and how to use it.
During the pandemic, I was impressed with how quickly and competently the Shine team adapted the curriculum to the new realities with Shine at Home Curriculum. By that time, I was denominational minister for faith formation for Mennonite Church USA and in 2021 co-hosted a webinar with Shine editors introducing the new features of Shine.
We’ve been calling this new initiative “Everywhere Faith,” but we are strongly considering “Shine Everywhere” instead. Stay tuned to see what we decide! Our goal for the initiative is to build a community of families and churches who discover and practice the everywhere habits that grow faith.
I’ve been on the job now for two weeks, and have been spending my time getting acquainted with the initiative, learning to articulate what it’s about, and starting to dream about exactly what it will look like. Right now, I can tell you that over the next five years, some of the ways you could participate are surveys, focus groups, and cohorts of Shine users who share with us the joys and challenges of equipping parents and caregivers to share their faith with their children and youth.
This summer, we will be asking for your feedback on our first at-home resource for families, “Follow the Peace Path” cards. This card deck invites families to follow the peace paths in The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible. Even sooner, in February and March, we plan to host some interest sessions on Zoom where you can share what appeals to you about participating with us in this exciting initiative and you can hear more details about what we’re going to do.
The whole Shine team is excited about having new opportunities to hear from congregations and families who use Shine and to incorporate what we learn from you into new Shine materials and products. We invite you to be part of this Everywhere Faith (or Shine Everywhere) community! Let us know you’re interested below. We look forward to growing in faith together!