Lent Madness’ new organizers seek to expand saintly tournament’s audience

The bracket for the 2026 edition of Lent Madness shows the 32 saints who were selected for this year’s event. The image at the bottom is from the Dancing Saints Icon at St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, California. The icon writer is Mark Dukes. Photo: David Sanger

[Episcopal News Service] Lent Madness, the annual matchups of saints in a sports-tournament-style bracket, is nearing its final showdown of the year, with the announcement of the “Golden Halo” winner on April 1.

And while the popular Lenten activity has been around since 2010 – the brainchild of the Rev. Tim Schenck, now rector of the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida – 2026 marks its first year under new management.

Now at the helm are the Rev. Michael Sahdev, senior associate rector at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, and the Rev. Christian Anderson, vicar at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church  in Stuart, Florida. They follow Schenck and the Rev. Scott Gunn, executive director of Forward Movement, who shepherded Lent Madness through more than a dozen seasons.

Both Sahdev and Anderson, in an interview with Episcopal News Service, called Schenck and Gunn “great servant leaders” who had created and expanded something successful and have been generous with their successors. “They’re really allowing us to run with it,” Anderson said. Sahdev agreed, adding, “I’m so thankful that they let these two weirdos jump on the ship and have some fun.”

The new organizers wanted to extend Lent Madness’ reach through social media and to go beyond existing channels that tend to appeal to an older demographic. “How do we make sure we are creating content that can hit Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z?” Anderson asked, referring to groups of Americans born between 1965 and 2012.

As graduates of Virginia Theological Seminary – Anderson, class of 2016 and Sahdev, class of 2017 – they share a focus on “evangelism, having fun and engaging people through different forms of media,” Sahdev said.

The two priests, who together now form Lent Madness’ Supreme Executive Committee, are making more use of YouTube videos and have brought in media-savvy people from across The Episcopal Church and beyond to share the stories of the 32 saints who are matched up this year.

The Rev. Michael Sahdev (left) and the Rev. Christian Anderson talk about a match-up during Lent Madness. The two priests took over this year as organizers of the annual face-off that helps people learn about ancient and modern saints. Photo: YouTube

Daily written blogs about each saint are supplemented by videos in which Anderson and Sahdev talk about the strengths of weakness of that day’s matchup with an energy often seen in passionate sports fans – which, they said, they are. Episcopal clergy with large online followings, including the Rev. Alberto Cutié (@padrealbertocutie on Instagram) and the Rev. Joseph Yoo (@joseph.yoo), were brought in to talk about Lent Madness to their followers.

It even has gone beyond the “Episcopal bubble,” Sahdev said, into Lutheran, Methodist and Roman Catholic online spaces. “Michael is showing up in Reddit pages for Lutherans and Methodists and dropping links that say, come join us,” Anderson said.

While the bracket-style matchups haven’t changed since Lent Madness began, Sahdev and Anderson have introduced both an overall theme for the year’s “competition” and quadrants – akin to the NCAA March Madness basketball regions – that put saints into matchups based on similarities.

This year’s theme, Bridge Builders and Community Makers, points to the duo’s desire to build bridges through Lent Madness and, Sahdev said, “highlight not just the different people, but the different organizations and history of The Episcopal Church” to help people get excited to learn about saints both ancient and modern.

The four quadrant categories of eight saints each are Denomination Domination (including notables like John Wesley, Martin Luther, Richard Hooker and Thomas Cranmer), Apostles and Allies (Paul, Peter, Thomas and the Martyrs of Uganda), Founders and Fellowship (Benedict, Scholastica, Anthony, Clare) and Modern Mercifuls (Desmond Tutu, Taize’s Brother Roger, Janani Luwum, Elizabeth Ann Seaton).

Sunday school students at the Cathedral of St. James in South Bend, Indiana, have made small figurines and information cards for all 32 saints that have been featured in the daily videos.

When asked if they had seen anything that surprised them in Lent Madness voting this year, Sahdev said he was “shocked” that Martin Luther had prevailed over John Wesley, “but all the Lutherans came out” for their founder. Lutherans “have been all over Lent Madness this year,” he said, “so I could see him running all the way through. He even beat Richard Hooker, our guy.”

On the technical side, Sahdev said he also was surprised by the amount of work and time involved in recording and editing daily and weekly videos. While Forward Movement continues to provide back-end support for the website and other needs, he creates all the videos that are distributed across a variety of social media and other platforms. “It’s certainly a labor, but one of love and one that we get to live into,” he said.

When the winner is announced during a livestreamed event on the Wednesday in Holy Week, there also will be appearances by some of the bloggers who have been sharing saintly content this year. “It will be a sort of Golden Halo celebration,” Sahdev said, “where people get to see some of the folks behind the scenes.”

And both Anderson and Sahdev have encouraged people to be vocal about the saints they are supporting. They mentioned that girls who attend St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis have been valiantly pulling for Constance and her Companions, also known as the Martyrs of Memphis, who died in 1873 while ministering to people during the city’s yellow fever epidemic. An email supporting Nino of Georgia was sent by the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, which has a mission in Tbilisi named for St. Nino.

“We want a lot of campaigning,” Sahdev said, encouraging people to share their votes among friends. “Lent Madness can be like March Madness. It can be your Super Bowl. We want people advocating for the saint they love, because when you’re passionate about something, that’s what changes and affects the heart.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.