Author

Jason Byassee

Senior minister, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, Toronto

The Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee is the senior minister of Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto, Canada. For seven years before that, he served as the inaugural Butler Chair in Homiletics and Biblical Hermeneutics at Vancouver School of Theology. Previously, he was senior pastor of Boone United Methodist Church in the Western North Carolina Conference.

He worked at Duke Divinity School from 2008-2011, writing and teaching about theology and leadership with Leadership Education at Duke Divinity and editing the now-discontinued Call & Response blog at Faith & Leadership for much of that time.

He serves as a contributing editor to Christian Century, where he was an assistant editor from 2004-2008. He is author of "Trinity: The God We Don't Know" (Abingdon, 2015), "The Gifts of the Small Church" (Abingdon, 2010), "Reading Augustine: A Guide to Confessions" (Cascade, 2006), "An Introduction to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers" (Cascade, 2007) and "Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine" (Eerdmans, 2007). He has a master of divinity and doctorate from Duke University. He also is the co-author, with Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, of "Faithful and Fractured: Responding to the Clergy Health Crisis."

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Lilly Endowment Inc. announces Exploring Christian Practices Initiative

The Exploring Christian Practices Initiative aims to multiply opportunities and increase access to settings that help individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds explore and engage in Christian practices to address their spiritual interests and questions, find and build community with others, nourish their religious lives and grow in faith. 

In this open and competitive initiative, the Endowment invites charitable organizations to submit proposals for grants of up to $2.5 million each that may be used for up to a five-year period to develop new and/or enhance existing programs that present promising strategies for advancing the aim of the initiative and provide compelling and thoughtful responses to its guiding questions. The Endowment anticipates awarding approximately 60 grants and announcing grant awards in December 2026.

The Endowment will host four virtual information sessions (February 17, 19, 24, and 25) to discuss the Exploring Christian Practices guidelines for submitting a proposal. An Interest Form and Letter of Interest are due March 25, 2026. Complete proposals are due May 18, 2026.

Learn More and register for information sessions