By Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence
For the past five years, Beki Greenwood has wowed our world with beautiful issues of the Messenger, and while we wish her well in her departure, we are surely sad to see her go. Her first issue was the February/March issue in 2020, which we will remember was at the very cusp of the outbreak of the COVID shutdown. During this phase of anxiety with lockdowns and shortage of gatherings, Beki stepped in with beautiful graphic design skills to nourish our imagination during that year and longer. She also helped strategize a streamlining of a publication system that prioritized online delivery with all its colorful attributes while minimizing the expensive black-and-white print versions via the US and Canadian mails. Looking through her issues over the past half-decade provides a vivid picture of the life of the Swedenborgian Church of North America. Her work continued an important function in our Church’s history, given that the Messenger has been our official organ of denominational communication since 1855.
At that time the still young denomination decided that it was time to have a regular organ coming regularly to homes and churches, and the name they chose was The New Jerusalem Messenger. The name has evolved some over the many decades to New Church Messenger for nearly a century and was shortened simply to The Messenger in the late Sixties that was clarified a tagline in smaller print: “Official Organ of the General Convention of Swedenborgian Churches,” which itself evolved in the mid-Nineties to tag The Messenger the “Official Organ of the Swedenborgian Church of North America.”
It is our official organ of communication, and if you line up the full run of Messengers from beginning to the current moment (and I have done this in our library), Beki’s Messengers jump out with their vivid colorful and artistic designs. You can spot them from thirty yards away.
With great gratitude and appreciation, we salute and celebrate Beki Greenwood’s contribution and gift to our current life and our history. We are delighted to report as well that we have an interim editor to step in immediately in Brittany Price, who was recently our Central Office manager, who possesses excellent editorial and graphic design skills. We will be running an open search for the permanent editor’s position, but for now we pause to be thankful for the talent and production of Beki Greenwood.
—Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence
Read the full issue of the April/May 2025 Messenger
Meet Jim Lawrence
Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence is the president of the Swedenborgian Church of North America. He was the dean of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies for 21 years prior to being elected President in 2022.
