February / March / April 2010 Issue

TO THE READER:

The year 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of Forward Movement. The first issue of Forward Day by Day appeared in 1935, at a time when, like today, the nation struggled to recover from an economic collapse and some doubted the future of the church as well. Charged by the 1934 General Convention to "reinvigorate the life of the church," Forward Movement initially conducted prayer retreats and conferences on discipleship, in addition to publishing a new daily devotional guide. In subsequent years, others assumed responsibility for the retreats and conferences and Forward Movement focused solely on providing quality devotional material to the church. Our readership today extends throughout the Anglican Communion, primarily in the United States and Canada, with numerous non-Anglican readers as well, including tens of thousands of incarcerated persons, overseas military personnel, and hospital patients who receive Forward Day by Day at no cost, thanks to gifts from generous readers.

The next 12 months of Forward Day by Day (from February 2010 through January 2011) will feature reprints of outstanding meditations drawn from the past 75 years, chosen by a team of 50 volunteer readers from across the country who read every meditation ever to appear in the publication, resulting in nearly 1,500 recommended meditations. From their selections our staff has chosen meditations that correspond to the lectionary citations from the 1979 Prayer Book and Revised Common Lectionary on which the meditations for this year would normally have been based.

--RHS