Wren Bellavance-Grace

Full name: Wren Bellavance-Grace (she/her)

Congregational Life Staff

New England Region in Congregational Life

Email: wbellavancegrace@uua.org

Telephone: (617) 948-4258

Wren loves working with lay leaders and religious professionals serving congregations of all sizes across New England. She serves as the New England representative on the national Safer Congregations Team, which curates best practices for safer church communities and responds to misconduct and ethical breaches.

Before joining the New England Region, wren was a religious educator. Through a fellowship granted by the Fahs Collaborative at the Meadville Lombard Theological School, she authored a paper, Full Week Faith, which proposed a new approach to our ministries of faith formation in response to the social, demographic, technological, and spiritual realities of 21st century America.

From Wren Bellavance-Grace

Displaying 1 - 10 of 26

It will be Love that leads the course of healing for First Parish. A Love that will hold space for tears, for fear, for outrage and betrayal. A Love that will encourage (a word whose derivation is ‘to make strong’) the congregation toward not just healing, but growth.

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | July 12, 2024 | From Covenanting

Summer’s coming! Kick off those flip-flops and slather on the SPF! We’ve got five surefire tips to get more out of your congregational life this summer!

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | June 14, 2024 | From Covenanting

What is bringing you JOY? How can we make things EASIER for you? Last month, we focused on the first question. This other question - how can your congregation make things easier for you? - is both powerful and in a way, countercultural.

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | May 17, 2024 | From Practice Makes Possible Blog

What is bringing you JOY? How can we make things EASIER for you? What good questions for all of us. Whether we are parents, children, youth, or elders; whether we are long-time engaged volunteers, or occasional worship-goers, trust me-your congregation wants to know the answers to these questions.

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | April 15, 2024 | From Practice Makes Possible Blog

Love is the doctrine of this church….Love is the spirit of this place….We Side with Love…

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | January 29, 2024 | From Covenanting

We are a species wired for connection, for collaboration, for community; various fields of study have affirmed and documented this. But when did you know it? Maybe you were fortunate to grow up in a country, a culture, a church, a home where community was as central an element as water and air....

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | November 29, 2023 | From Practice Makes Possible Blog

Julian, do you not know? Do you not know about sorrow? And Julian, do you not know? Do you not know about pain? As our November newsletter was approaching final edits, horrific news of our country’s 565th mass shooting of the calendar year broke out of the city of Lewiston, Maine. As sometimes...

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | October 31, 2023 | From Centering Gifts

My grandparents had a découpage plaque by their front door with President Kennedy’s famous words, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” A simple collection of words I could read for years before I started to really consider what they meant, and what...

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | August 21, 2023 | From Practice Makes Possible Blog

“Have you been to the bathroom yet?” It’s not the typical pre-workshop conversation my colleagues and I share as we set up projectors, easels, and workbooks for participants. My answer was no, so my colleague proceeded to describe what she found there. There was a beautiful painting in an...

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | March 7, 2023 | From Covenanting
Tagged as: Covenant

Leadership in our dominant culture tends to evoke images of politicians inspiring crowds with fiery speeches, or breathless heroes leading the charge. But church leadership isn’t a political campaign or an action movie. Many of us engage in church life through meetings — of boards, committees,...

By Wren Bellavance-Grace | January 24, 2023 | From Doing Our Inner Work

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photograph of a woman, head and shoulders, against a lavender background

Wren Bellavance-Grace, Safer Congregations, New England Region

Read the Fahs Fellowship project here: Full Week Faith