Dear Building Faith Community,

Happy Advent! I hope this season has brought you meaningful moments of waiting, hoping, and preparing for God to come and be among us in new ways.

As Christmas and the end of the year draw near, I want to share with you some highlights of Building Faith from 2025. I decided to write this letter from the editor as a remix of the final verse of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. So I invite you to take a deep breath and join me in a musical countdown through 2025 at Building Faith.

12 Resource Lists

This year we published 12 new and updated compilations of resources that cover a range of ministry areas, liturgical seasons, and important occasions. Here is one of our new lists that you may find helpful: “Stations of the Cross and Seven Last Words Resources for All Ages.”

11 Perennial VBS Curricula

In March, we wrapped up a project that was two years in the making: updating our perennial Vacation Bible School curriculum top picks list. A wonderful team of reviewers (more on them below!) did a ton of work to research, assess, and construct a fresh list of recommended VBS curriculum options that are available from year to year. Our final list includes 11 curricula for planning VBS, camp, and intergenerational summer formation opportunities in a variety of contexts: “VBS, Summer Camp, and Intergenerational Curriculum Perennial Favorites.”

10 Months of Contributions from New and Returning Authors

I am deeply grateful to all of our 2025 authors. They brought rich wisdom, resources, stories, and ideas to Building Faith and to this community. I appreciate what I learned from them, and I want to thank all of them for sharing their expertise, voices, and creativity in service of forming people of all ages in Christian faith in meaningful and life-giving ways.

9 Articles from Roots & Wings on Intergenerational Worship

An exciting collaboration began this year between Building Faith and Roots & Wings: Intergenerational Formation Collaborative, a new grant initiative in Lifelong Learning directed by Sarah Bentley Allred that is working to support and equip churches in intergenerational worship, ministry, and communal life. As part of that collaboration, Sarah and members of her team wrote a total of 9 articles addressing intergenerational worship that Building Faith had the privilege of publishing.

If you’re curious about intergenerational worship or are wondering what “intergenerational” means, then I recommend checking out “Intergenerational Insights: What Is Intergenerational Ministry?” by Wendy Claire Barrie and Sarah Bentley Allred.

8 Building Faith Places and Spaces to Know About

Our website now has an archive of more than 1500 articles. You can find a lot on Building Faith. If you’re new to the site, though, it can be challenging to figure out where to begin and how to find what you need.

So here’s a quick tour of Building Faith in 8 stops that you may want to know about as 2025 wraps up and 2026 approaches:

Curriculum Center

Where: Main Menu Resources or Articles by Topic

The place to find our top picks for formation curriculum for all ages and to start your curriculum search and discernment process

Planning Calendars

Where: Home Page Featured Articles

Two articles with free downloadable planning calendars:

• “Annual Planning Calendar Templates: Years A + B + C“
• “A Free Tool for Formation Planning“

Articles by Topic

Where: Main Menu Articles

A hub for doing topical and seasonal searches for articles; each topic leads to a page that offers a minihub of relevant articles

“Prayers and Blessings for the Church Year“

Where: Home Page Featured Articles

An article that includes links to all our articles with prayers for the seasons and major holy days of the church year

Search Tool

Where: Main Menu Magnifying Glass Icon

The place to do more specific or narrow searches for articles using keywords, topics, titles, and more

Our Writers

Where: Main Menu About

A page that highlights our recent authors where you can read their bios and learn more about them and their ministries

Building Faith’s Facebook Page

Where: Home Page Footer

The place to find us on social media, where we post articles daily from our archives and new publications

“Recovering from Christmas“

Where: Christmas Articles

An article for formation leaders and church ministers with ideas for rest and rejuvenation after Christmas

7 Articles to Support Ministry Leadership

During 2025, we published 7 articles focused on topics and resources to support and inspire you in ministry leadership. Several of these articles addressed difficult issues that do not get discussed often in ministry or in churches. Our hope is that these articles may open up more spaces for conversation and discernment about how to minister and lead in both joyful seasons as well as in hard situations.

Here are a couple that may be helpful: “Keeping Watch: Suicide Prevention and Youth Ministry” and “Best Practices for Talking about Death in Ministry Settings.”

6 Things to Look Forward to in 2026

Along with highlights from 2025, I want to share some opportunities and plans in the works for 2026:

• Building Faith will be at Forma Conference 2026 in Denver, Colorado! I am facilitating a workshop at the conference and will also be at Lifelong Learning’s booth, so if you’re there, please stop by and say hello! I’d love to meet you and hear about your ministry.
• VBS reviews – Be on the lookout for our annual review of new VBS resources around February.
• More seasonal toolkits – Easter comes earlier in 2026, so we’re already prepping a Lent toolkit to send to our subscribers in January (and you can sign up for free at our subscription page). We’ll also keep sending toolkits for other church seasons throughout the year.
• More curriculum top picks updates – In 2026, we will be updating our top picks for adult formation and Bible study curricula as well as for catechesis and confirmation curricula.
• Call for articles and writers – Be on the lookout for an open call for articles and writers in upcoming months as well. If you have a resource, activity, or experience from your formation ministry that you would like to share, please get in touch with us!
• More new articles to equip and inspire formation ministries

5 Seasonal Toolkits

This year we sent out 5 toolkits full of Building Faith articles geared toward simplifying and inspiring formation planning for different liturgical seasons. These toolkits include activity ideas, teaching tips, and printable resources, and you can receive them in your inbox by subscribing to Building Faith or through our Facebook page. You can check out our Epiphany 2026 Toolkit to learn more.

4 VBS Curriculum Reviewers

I had the privilege of working with 4 wonderful Vacation Bible School curriculum reviewers this year. They examined a host of both new and long-standing resources for VBS and summer camp programs and wrote thoughtful, informative reviews based on their expertise and experience as formation leaders. Many thanks to each of them!

Sally Benton

Molly Herman-Gallow

Juniper LaNunziata

Marvin McLennon

3 Stalks of Wheat in Our New Logo

This summer Building Faith got a new logo to give our site and communications a fresh look. It features 3 stalks of wheat, which not only evoke growth, life, bread, parables, and more in Christian formation, but also resonate with the familiar wheat image on our home page. It also includes a colorful stained glass backdrop to reflect our roots in Lifelong Learning and Virginia Theological Seminary.

2 New Intergenerational Resources Pages

Thanks to the work of Roots & Wings, we have 2 new pages on our website dedicated to providing resources on intergenerational worship and ministry (and you can find both on the main menu dropdown under “Intergenerational Worship”):

• Intergenerational Worship & Ministry Resources – A hub of articles on intergenerational ministry organized under 4 main categories: Intergenerational 101, Curriculum & Lesson Plans, Activities, and Worship
• Hallmarks of Intergenerational Worship Toolkit – A page with information and instructions for conducting a survey of your congregation’s worship to discern strengths and areas for growth in intergenerationality

And 1 Amazing Team Behind the Scenes

Building Faith could not be what it is without the contributions of numerous people behind the scenes. I want to express my sincere gratitude for everyone in the Department of Lifelong Learning for supporting Building Faith’s ministry. I also want to offer thanks specifically to the following people:

• Sarah Bentley Allred, my co-editor, who is an integral part of our editing team and has done so much this year to bring the wisdom and fruits of her work on intergenerationality in Roots & Wings to serve the ministry leaders and communities that Building Faith reaches
• Wallace Benton, Associate Director of Lifelong Learning, who is also a member of our editing team and has provided invaluable support in everything from article planning and editing to logo visioning and website troubleshooting
• Evan Graber, who joined our editing team this fall and has been vital to our editing and publishing over these past few months
• Josh Brown, Lifelong Learning’s Operations Manager, who provides much-needed logistical support to Building Faith and has helped to keep things running smoothly behind the scenes
• Kim Arakawa, Samantha Clare, Elizabeth DeGaynor, Lindsey Lewis, Allison Liles, and Rich Nelson, who, along with the folks I’ve already mentioned, participated in a brainstorming session for Building Faith this fall and generated a bunch of article ideas to enrich Christian formation in this current moment and beyond

It is a privilege to know and work with all of these colleagues. Many thanks to all of you!

Finally, wonderful readers, I thank you for being here, for the work and ministries that you do, and for supporting one another in formation through Building Faith. I wish you, your communities, and all those close to your hearts a Christmas and holiday season full of unending love.

– Jodi

Featured image is by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash