By Sarah Levesque, Foundress (Rated G)
I wasn’t planning on starting a new magazine. Sure, the idea had crossed my mind, but I was already stretched rather thin across many activities – a full-time job, babysitting, running a young adult group, volunteering at a couple different religious organizations and working at an online magazine, not to mention trying to spend time with family and friends. I barely had time for my hobbies.
In June, a good friend who was helping me learn about different faith traditions gave me a cross (shown in the picture above) and asked me to pray for the reunion of all Christians – something I was already doing regularly. I didn’t know it at the time, but this, along with other interfaith dialogue, was a seed being planted.
As I worked on the magazine I was then part of, I grew more and more restless. At one point I outlined the goals of that magazine versus my own goals and they were rather different. I was also displeased by the structure of the organization, despite it being the typical structure of a magazine publisher, as far as I’m aware. So one July day I wrote out an outline of how I would prefer that organization to be structured. I didn’t have any expectation that my outline would ever be used. It soon became clear to me that nothing I said would change the way the magazine I was working at functioned, and I took a step away, without any clear idea of what would happen next.
On July 24th, 2019, I went to Adoration* as I try to do weekly. As is my habit, I was talking to God by writing in my prayer journal. I asked him to either give me peace at my current magazine or to lead me elsewhere and give me peace there. I left it up to Him and I went on to pray for specific people and their needs. Then suddenly I started getting ideas, phrases that were disjointed but spoke to my heart. And behind it all like a soundtrack was the song “Build Your Kingdom Here” by Rend Collective. I wrote everything down and shortly understood that I was to leave my old magazine to start a new magazine, this one geared toward helping unite different Christian denominations. Before I left Adoration, I thanked God for giving me a glimpse into His plan.
As soon as I got home, I sent pictures of everything to a good friend I knew would be on board with the idea. Shortly there after a brought on another friend, then another, until I had a whole crew of people of various denominations. We bounced ideas back and forth and throughout autumn we voted in one poll after another until, in November, we had the foundation set to our liking. Thus, LogoSophia Magazine was born!
*Adoration – Eucharistic Adoration, a Catholic devotion where a person prays in front of the consecrated Host, believed by Catholics to be the true presence of Christ.
Author’s notes: Sections of the pages of my prayer journal have been redacted or cropped in the pictures for privacy purposes. The cross in the picture was made by Ian Wilson.
LogoSophia Magazine 