Gamaliel Network is thrilled to announce the Rev. David Bigsby Religious Leaders’ Development Fund, which has been established to honor Bigsby as he approaches retirement and acknowledge his commitment to developing effective religious leaders.
For more than three decades, Gamaliel has successfully trained men and women to build deep relationships with their wider communities. Hundreds of religious leaders have gone through Gamaliel’s training and attested to its power and efficacy. Many of them have come to recognize that the attitudes, arts, disciplines, and spirituality of community organizing are key in making their congregations and the wider faith community relevant.
At a time in our nation’s history that is characterized by disruption, uncertainty, and profound division, religious institutions like those that make up the base of our Network have an opportunity to reimagine themselves: To ask the hard questions of what it means to be a community of faith in this time and place; to act with courage; and respond to the needs of millions of people crying out for purpose, for hope, for connection, and for the power to transform their communities. It is our hope that the Rev. David Bigsby Religious Leaders’ Development Fund will foster this hunger for transformation in a new generation of religious leaders.
Rev. David Bigsby is a courageous pastor who has served in a variety of capacities across the Gamaliel Network for more than two decades. As President of Gamaliel of Metro Chicago, President of Gamaliel of Illinois and Iowa, Chair of the Gamaliel Council of Presidents, and Member of the Gamaliel Board of Directors (just to name a few positions he has held), Rev. Bigsby has advanced the need to develop religious leaders in the attitudes, arts, disciplines, and spirituality of community organizing.
“Rev. Bigsby is one of Gamaliel’s brightest north stars,” said Ana Garcia-Ashley, Gamaliel’s Executive Director. “In the Bible, hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. Rev. Bigsby is hopeful. He has always reminded us that Gamaliel’s ministry is of God, and no matter how difficult things get, our hopes are going to come to pass. Thank you Rev. Bigsby. You make us a better Gamaliel.”
We hope to seed this fund is $5000 by the close of our virtual fundraiser, We Are Gamaliel: Passport to Power on February 27. We will also honor Rev. Bigsby during the event.
Supporters may invest “seed money” in this fund through March 15 here.