Sensei Joshin Byrnes is the founder and guiding teacher of the Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community near Middlebury, Vermont. His background in Catholic social justice and his Zen Peacemaker practice of social action has led him to participate in Faith and Money Network programming, most recently attending the Fall 2023 Trip of Perspective to Central Appalachia. In this interview, he explained how [Read More …]
Leading together: Lydia Kelsey Bucklin on empowering followers of Jesus through mutual ministry
Lydia Kelsey Bucklin isn’t afraid to bring an expansive sense of creativity and mission to her work in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan. As Canon to the Ordinary for Discipleship & Vitality, she lives and works in a beautiful, remote region of the United States where the traditional model of one priest per congregation isn’t self-sustaining, and hasn’t been for decades. In this [Read More …]
Investing in a credit union that changes the paradigm
It’s been just over a month since my return from the Deep South Investors Tour sponsored by Faith and Money Network and Hope Credit Union. Since I got back, I’ve shared so much about the trip with so many people — it was simply that powerful, and there was so much to say about all the towns and neighborhoods we visited, as well as memorials, museums, and historic sites. Right now, I want to [Read More …]
Economic mobility: A gift for all in the Deep South
In the first full week of June 2023, Faith and Money Network hosted a trip with Hope Credit Union. The purpose of this trip was to show Hope investors firsthand the impact that their deposits are making in the Deep South, particularly for low-income and rural Black families. This is a reflection from participant Sara Loving, who runs a project centered around ethical banking practices called [Read More …]
Learning from repairers of the breach
A week ago, as I write this, we visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s also known as the "Lynching Memorial," which gives a clearer idea of the emotional impact of time spent there. The main part of the memorial is a covered square area surrounding an open courtyard. Walking through the space, you are surrounded by hundreds of six-foot-long steel [Read More …]
Photo Album: 2023 Deep South Investors Tour
In June 2023, Faith and Money Network took a handful of current and prospective investors with Hope Credit Union on a Trip of Perspective through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Participants saw firsthand how Hope Credit Union is working to build wealth for Black Americans in a historically and currently underserved and underbanked region of the United States. The trip also took the group [Read More …]
Rich in culture: Jess Mullins Fullen on intersectional community organizing in Southern Appalachia
Faith and Money Network Trips of Perspective have taken members to countries and communities with vibrant cultures, including Haiti, India, and Bosnia. In recent years, the network has focused on domestic trips, visiting Wise County, Virginia originally in 2011 and since taking groups to experience Southern Appalachia nearly a dozen times. Ahead of our fall 2023 trip to visit our friends [Read More …]
2023 Trip of Perspective to Central Appalachia
Join Mike Little and others from the Faith and Money Network on a Trip of Perspective to Central Appalachia this fall (Oct. 19-22) to Wise County, Va. to learn about the devastating effects of mountaintop removal and how local leaders are organizing for environmental and economic justice. We'll spend two days listening and building relationships with friends from Southern Appalachian Mountain [Read More …]
Trip of Perspective: Deep South Investors Tour
Join Mike Little and others from the Faith and Money Network on the Deep South Investors Tour this summer (June 5-10), traveling through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama to build relationships and make connections between our country's legacy of racial inequity and the ways that anti-Blackness persists today in major systems from home ownership to education to banking. This Trip of Perspective [Read More …]
A community organizing hub advocates for health, healing and humanity in southern Appalachia
I had factored in human greed and destruction, but I had not factored in the human goodness and systemic creativity that we met throughout the trip. I had not anticipated hope. “Mountaintop removal coal mining? My heart can’t take it.” That thought kept me from going to Wise County, VA, with Faith and Money Network’s Trip of Perspective for several years. In part, I was right. [Read More …]