Godly Play applied insights from Montessori education to children’s formation, but it became more than Montessori for churches. The Godly Play Foundation’s website shows a map and links to its presence in more than 60 nations, including Cambodia, Ethiopia, Germany, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia.

Berryman was born in Ashland, Kansas, and the Godly Play Foundation is based there. He married Dorothea Schoonyoung in 1960, and they had two daughters in the same decade.

Their younger daughter, Colleen, was born with spina bifada. She painted and was a reading teacher at School of the Woods in Houston for many years, until she died in 2020. Thea Berryman was the music teacher at the same school for more than 35 years.

Berryman was a graduate of the University of Kansas, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Tulsa Law School. He also read theology at Oxford University’s Mansfield College during the summer of 1966 and graduated from the year-long program at the Center for Advanced Montessori Studies in Bergamo, Italy, in 1972.

He had three post-doctoral residencies in theology and medical ethics at the Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center in Houston (1973-76). Both General Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary gave him honorary degrees.

Berryman was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1962 and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1984.

Berryman often remembered encountering the “God of Power” during his childhood, especially when he engaged with nature and was guided by supportive adults. He felt that the “church God” was more rigid and formal, and he began seeking a bridge between children’s experiences and formal Christian teaching.

The foundation said the Berrymans “embarked on a journey to develop a new approach to spiritual nurture that honors the centrality, capacity, and competency of children,” which led them to develop Godly Play. He founded the Center for the Theology of Childhood in 1997 to continue to inspire research and theological discourse on the spirituality of children. That center is now part of the Godly Play Foundation.

The center keeps a 4,000-volume library and a Godly Play room based at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church in Denver. Berryman retired in 2007 as executive director of the center and became its senior fellow. In his retirement, he was based in the Diocese of Colorado.

“I had the privilege of meeting with Jerome almost every week since I started this role in 2020,” said Dr. Heather Ingersoll, executive director of the foundation. “It is hard to describe someone who was one of the most brilliant minds in Christian education and Children’s spirituality, yet so practical, personable, and kind. His fierce dedication to ensuring that our religious and academic spaces honor children’s spiritual journeys is inspiring and was a transformational gift to all who encountered and will encounter his work.”

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl Minor, director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood, said she met Berryman in 1992. “It will be my privilege to honor his legacy, continuing the important work of advocating for children in the academy and the church. In Godly Play, we often talk about endings that are also beginnings. May it be so for Jerome and for us as we both grieve and carry on his work in the world.”

He was a native of Baltimore, and an alumnus of the University of Rochester, the University of Notre Dame (from which he earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mathematics), and the University of Indiana School of Law.

He was ordained deacon in 1973 and priest in 1974. He served most of his years in Texas, but also in Indiana and Maine. He was chaplain to Daughters of the King in the Diocese of Texas. He composed seven liturgical songs that were published by the World Library of Sacred Music and J.S. Paluch.

He wrote books and articles on mathematics, calculus and statistics, axiomatic geometry, computer law, Alzheimer’s disease, and spiritual formation. He was a certified community health worker and certified long-term care ombudsman, and was active in protecting the rights of the elderly.

He is survived by a brother, three children, and two grandchildren.

The Rev. John Harnish Loving, a U.S. Army veteran, musician, and ecumenist, died May 16 at 85.

He was a native of Richmond, Virginia, and a graduate of the University of Richmond and General Theological Seminary. He served in the U.S. Army Security Agency in Monterey, California, and Frankfurt, Germany, from 1961 to 1964, between completing college and attending seminary.

He was ordained deacon in 1967 and priest in 1968, and served multiple churches in the dioceses of Texas, West Texas, and Northwest Texas. He served parishes in Oklahoma and Virginia before his ministry in Texas. After retiring, he continued serving as an interim priest and in supply ministry until he was 80.

While he was rector at Emmanuel Church in San Angelo, Texas, the parish formed a companion relationship with St. Andrew’s Russian Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg after the fall of the Soviet Union. He and his wife made several trips to Russia and led two tour groups there. He was a supply priest for one month at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Moscow.

As a pianist and organist, he loved the music and liturgy of the Episcopal Church and was a passionate opera fan.

He is survived by Nancy, his wife of 56 years, a sister, two sons, and three grandchildren.

The Rev. Marie Odgers, who began ministry as a deacon after supporting her husband’s ministry as a United Methodist pastor for decades, died June 10 at 91.

She was a native of Fremont, Nebraska, and a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University. She married her husband, Richard, on the same day that she graduated from NWU. Her husband served in seven Nebraska churches from 1958 to 1993.

They retired to Lincoln, and she returned to Nebraska Wesleyan to complete an associate’s degree in library science. She was ordained to the diaconate in 2010, and served at St. David’s, Lincoln, alongside Deacon Sarah Grubb.

She was active in Girl Scouts from 1941 until 2017 — serving at camp, leading troops, and working as an employee of a Guiding Star Council. Her childhood dream was to visit Our Chalet in Switzerland, the original worldwide site for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides. She fulfilled that dream three times as an adult.

She is survived a son, a daughter, and a granddaughter.

Other Deaths

The Rev. Arthur Cameron Chard, May 17
The Rev. David Elsensohn, June 27
The Rev. Dr. Donald William Kimmick, Ed.D., July 6
The Rev. Peter David Mackey, June 19
The Rev. Deacon Everett Powell, May 18

Appointments

The Rev. Yaa A.K. Addison is associate rector of Grace, Silver Spring, Md.

The Rev. Canon Andrew Arakawa is the Diocese of Hawaii’s canon for ministry formation.

The Rev. Dave Bauec is the Diocese of Wisconsin’s Region A missioner.

The Ven. Bert Bibens is the Diocese of Oklahoma’s archdeacon.

The Rev. Lisa Bornt is interim rector of Good Shepherd, Towson, Md.

The Rev. Mac Brown is rector of St. Bartholomew’s, Pittsboro, N.C.

The Rev. Jody Burnett is rector of St. Paul’s, Mobile, Ala.

The Rev. Deacon Teri Calinao is curate at St. Mary’s, Green Cove Springs, Fla.

The Rev. Brian Cleary is rector of All Souls, N. Fort Myers, Fla.

The Rev. Sandra Curtis is chaplain at Palmer Trinity School, Miami.

Mr. Keith Daw is the Diocese of Florida’s chief operating officer.

Dr. Colin Donnelly is Virginia Seminary’s assistant professor of church history.

Ms. Katie Forsyth is the Diocese of Southern Ohio’s canon for communications.

The Rt. Rev. Daniel Genovesi is rector of St. Andrew’s, Emporia, Kan.

The Rev. Melissa Hartley, Ph.D., is priest associate at Nativity, Huntsville, Ala.

The Rev. Canon Kelley Hudlow is instructor of preaching at Bexley Seabury Seminary.

The Rev. Sean Kim is rector of St. Mary’s, Kansas City, Mo.

The Rev. Esther Kramer is the Diocese of Wisconsin’s Region D missioner.

The Rev. Kyle Mackey is rector of St. Patrick’s, Albany, Ga.

The Rev. Charles Mercer is long-term supply priest at St. James’, Lafayette Square, Baltimore.

The Rev. Eric Miller is rector of St. John’s, Charleston, W.Va.

The Rev. Canon Jason Oden is rector of Indian Hill Episcopal-Presbyterian, Cincinnati.

The Rev. Jimmy Pickett is priest in charge of St. John’s, Athol, and missioner for community, formation, and outreach at Sts. James and Andrew, Greenfield, Mass.

Mr. Eric Ridenour is the Diocese of West Virginia’s chief financial officer.

The Rev. Deacon Audra Ryes is rector of St. Patrick’s, Zachary, La.

Mr. Paul Schutz Jr. is the Episcopal Church in Western Oregon’s director of communications.

The Rev. Jennifer Scott-Jones is rector of Iona-Hope, Ft. Myers, Fla.

Ms. Jessica St. Clair Smith is Diocese of Upper South Carolina’s director of communications and marketing.

The Rev. Sarah Smith is head chaplain at Holland Hall School and associate priest at Christ Church, Tulsa, Okla.

The Rev. Brian Staude is rector of St. James, Manitowoc, Wis.

Mr. Mark Sullivan is office administrator for the Diocese of the Great Lakes.

The Rev. Michael Sweeney is priest in charge of Christ Church, Guilford, Conn.

The Rev. Jana Troutman-Miller is the Diocese of Wisconsin’s Region E missioner.

The Rev. Dr. Herschel V.E. Wade III is associate for discipleship at Redeemer, Cincinnati.

The Rev. Nathan Webb is interim rector of St. Matthias, Athens, and vicar at St. James on the Lake, Kemp, Texas.

The Rev. Preston Yancey is interim associate rector of St. Paul’s, Waco, Texas.

Ordinations

Diaconate

Central New York: Edwin Way

Louisiana: Less Mut

New Hampshire: Nicole Benevenia, A.J. Boots

Northern Indiana: Thomas Anthony Gresik

Western New York: Phil Cunningham, Rich Inserra, Jeffrey Tooke

Priesthood

Atlanta: Caroline Mae Carter (assistant rector of St. Paul’s Memorial, Charlottesville, Va.), Kathryn Claire Crewdson (middle school chaplain, Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School, Atlanta), Robert James Farrow (priest in charge, St. Nicholas, Hamilton, Ga.), Christopher P. McAbee (associate rector, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Jackson, Miss.)

California: Erin Wiens (assisting clergy, St. Paul’s, San Rafael)

Central Pennsylvania: Kevin Matthew Lowe (assisting clergy, St. John’s, Bellefonte)

Easton: Stephanie Bernadette Clayville (vicar, St. Mary the Virgin, Pocomoke City, Md.)

Indianapolis: Cory Irwin (curate, St. Paul’s, New Albany and St. Paul’s, Jeffersonville, Ind.)

Maryland: Connie Thompson Bowman, Karin Jori Ekholm (curate, Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.), Kristen Elizabeth Paul (rector, Christ Church, Natchitoches, La.), Natalie Deloris Tinner

New Hampshire: Joe Rose (associate rector, St. James’s, West Hartford, Conn.)

Northwest Texas: Zachary John Bartkus (curate, All Saints,’ Fort Worth)

Washington: Aaron Robert Dunn (associate rector, Grace Church, Silver Spring, Md.), Mary Caitlin Frazier (curate, St. Mark’s, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.)

West Missouri: Silas Engstrom (curate, St. James, Springfield), Katherine Louise Mansfield (curate, Christ Church, Springfield)

West Virginia: Marilou McClung, William Bill Sigler (priest in charge, Good Shepherd, Hansford), Martina Steiner Unger, Scott Williams

Wisconsin: Rob Davis, Hunter Farrow, Meredith Harmon (assisting clergy, St. Paul’s, Watertown), Ryan Robinson-Delaney (assisting clergy, St. Mary’s, Dousman), Chris Warne

Dudley-Smith wrote the texts for his hymns but not the music. “I can’t read music and I’m totally unmusical,” Dudley-Smith told Canon Herbert Taylor early in his vocation as a priest, but Taylor included his text for “Tell Out My Soul” in the Anglican Hymn Book in 1965.

“Everyone knows Tell out my soul (May 1961) and Lord, for the years (February 1967) but, after those …?” Canon Michael Saward, a fellow hymn-writer, wrote in 2006. “Yet, of all today’s hymn-writers, he is probably alone in producing the highest percentage of Rolls Royce texts and a very small scrap-yard of old bangers.”

He was born in 1926. Dudley-Smith’s father was a schoolmaster, and he died when his son was 11.

Dudley-Smith was a leading figure among evangelicals in the Church of England. He became editor of Crusade magazine, created in 1954 after a Billy Graham crusade in London. He was a long-standing friend of John R.W. Stott’s, and wrote a two-volume biography of Stott. He preached at Stott’s funeral. Church Times reported that John Betjeman described “Tell Out My Soul” as “one of the few modern hymns that will truly last.”

He was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 2003 for his “services to hymnody.” Among his many other books was Snakes and Ladders: A Hymn Writer’s Reflections (The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2009). His final book was A Functional Art: Reflections of a Hymn Writer (Oxford).

This transition came at the perfect time for me and my family. I was wrapping up my first year of full-time teaching, a year that had proved rather difficult for personal, familial, communal, ecclesial, and financial reasons. I’ll spare the gory details except to note that a move away from a deep community in the affordable Midwest to the isolation and expense of the Bay Area, coupled with the need to temporarily rehome our beloved dog, the inestimable Professor Argyle P. Woodford, was taxing. It was bad enough that I’d decided to give it another year, after which, if things had not markedly improved, I would leave academia and find something else to do with myself. Taking on the editorship cannot account for all of the improvements that came to our life at that crucial moment, but it did play a role. My wife’s employment clicked into place with a job she loves, we were able to move into a place that would allow us to keep a dog — thus ending the exile of the “Avignon Pup-acy” — and so on and so forth. Editing Covenant was an ingredient in salvaging my career and my family’s overall wellbeing.

And what a ride it’s been. Working as an editor has joys and frustrations that only those behind the editor’s desk can truly appreciate. To see the wind catch the sails of an excellent piece, or to watch a promising but not ready for primetime essay go through iterative growth until it’s ready to see the light of day and make its important contribution, are eminently satisfying. Similarly, the opportunity to foster public discourse, to help give shape to vital conversations affecting the life of my church, the Communion of churches of which it is part, and, beyond both, the wider church catholic is a high calling and a great honor. I’ll leave the frustrations to the side. It is a part of the editor’s calling to bear those in silence, in deference to the platform and the authors, though I do metaphorically give anyone else who’s done this work a knowing look and say, “real ones know.”

There are so many moments of which I’m proud from my editorial tenure, during which time Covenant published 1,440 essays. We published our first genuinely interreligious essay, a Muslim reflection on the Blessed Virgin Mary. We tackled such hot topics as how churches were weathering the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, or protests concerning police brutality, or how to approach the questions of race and racism. While my political commitments are decidedly leftward (I sometimes joke about how frustrating it is to live in California and have all these liberals to the right of me), I hope that we’ve published a fair representative spread of outlooks and perspectives on these issues.

One of the particularly cool things about editing Covenant is that one day I may be working with and publishing work from theologians of the highest stature within and beyond our Communion, and then the next, featuring the work of a faithful parish priest, or a layperson whom no one has ever heard of. While we are not singular in this regard, I do think we’re relatively unique in having that sort of range in what we offer and from whom.

Relatedly, as I look back, one of the themes of my time as editor is an attempt to broaden our scope. While The Living Church and Covenant have a (largely earned) reputation for conservatism, this is only a partial truth. Our ranks are not monolithic, and a considerable part of our mission is to eschew partisan factionalism and instead foster open and authentic dialogue within the church and the Communion, and beyond. In keeping with this mandate, I have sought to feature authors and essays that move beyond our perceived party line, sometimes to the consternation of those who’d like us to just be a bunch of conservative Episcopalians — no Catholics or progressives welcome, thank you very much! In general, though, I have judged this broadening to be well-received, and at the very least worth the cost of sometimes fraught receptions.

During my five years at the helm, we have also expanded our roster of regular contributors, with a particular eye toward diversity (racial, gender, and geographic), and now boast authors from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, and, of course, the Canadian, American, and British core that one would expect when dealing with Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church.

I have not shied away from controversy in the role, attracting umbrage from all points along the political and ideological spectrum. While there was a time that I’d have said that if you’re being attacked by both the left and the right, it’s a good sign you’re doing the right thing, I don’t necessarily subscribe to that notion any longer. It’s possible to be so wrong that even folks who disagree on most else can clearly see it. However, I have tried to operate with clarity within the mission of The Living Church and Covenant. We face fraught, vexing, and divisive issues, and the only faithful way forward is to find a way forward together, forgoing schism or coercion, and instead walking in the way of communion, of charity, and of persuasion. Our conservative reputation notwithstanding, in the end our mandate and mission is not to be conservative, but to help all Anglicans — and, beyond Anglicanism, all Christians — of whatever party persuasion to hold one another fast, even amid our disagreements, for the sake of that unity for which Jesus Christ prayed, that unity for which he died. I know for a certainty that I’ve not always gotten this right during my editorship, but I take comfort in knowing that this has been my consistent aim.

And now, consistent with that aim, the time has come for me to hang up my editorial hat, and to mix the metaphor by passing the baton to my successor, the Rev. Dr. Calvin Lane. Cal is a fine church historian, and brings a depth of pastoral wisdom, gained through years of parish ministry, into the mix. When I spoke with him about the realities of the work involved in editing Covenant and heard his vision for how he’d like to see this online journal develop, I was confident that I’d be leaving the publication in worthy, competent hands.

For all things there’s a season, and the season for me to edit Covenant is drawing to its close. Having given five years to the endeavor, I’m satisfied with what I’ve done, and I think I’ve done just about all that it’s in me to do. As I’ve reached middle age, I’ve had the growing conviction that life is all too brief. The promise of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come notwithstanding, there’s a truth that we only get this one life. There are other tasks, callings, and responsibilities that I want to devote myself to, and allowing Cal to take the reins will free precious time to do so. I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had to do this work, and I’m so hopeful for the time that remains to me to work on other things.

Orate pro me, amici.