The Shaping Waves: Holding Communities in Transformation training will be offered for Renaissance credit at Star Island July 16-23, 2023. The module will be led by Lifespan Faith Engagement Office Co-Directors Shannon Harper and Anna Bethea, CRE – Leadership Level. Learn more and register.

Theme Talk Description

Our planet is dying; or at the very least, transforming. Our congregations are not the same institutions they were 3 years ago. Our children are navigating a very different world than the one we grew up in. Our elders are often at a loss for how to connect and inhabit the role of future ancestors.

Considering all of this, how do we meet the moment and steward our theologies of love, resilience and pluralism into the future? How do we disrupt the cultural expectations that tell us we must be bigger, faster, stronger, better?

We believe the answers to these questions don’t lie with any one of us, but rather in our collective wisdom. During this facilitated time, we’ll reflect, practice, and share around grief and trauma, play and pleasure, radical care, and becoming wise ancestors.

Workshop Description:

Join Shannon Harper and Anna Bethea for this 5 session workshop imagining and shaping whole community faith engagement for the future. These workshops will expand on the theme talk, widening our lenses and perspectives for dreaming and implementing together in your own communities.

Here are things bubbling up for us right now: noticing shifts in how (we and) young people experience the world, ancestral companioning of cyclical patterns of human behavior, moving energy and spirit through grief and change work, and joyfully approaching radical care for ourselves and others in our lifetimes. What’s bubbling up for you?

These workshops, in conjunction with the theme talk, will include optional pre-/post-work (about one hour each) for those seeking credit for the Religious Education Credentialing Program. The workshops will be interactive and participatory, with time for personal reflection, creative mapping, and embodied practices!

Shannon and Anna are religious educators who’ve been collaborating for nine years. We like to imagine faith development which meets people where they’re at - betwixt and between the spiritual and mundane - and empowers us all to reclaim our inherent interconnectedness.

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