ELCA Coaching is collaborating with Rev. Brenda Smith (ELCA), Deacon Tammy Devine (ELCA), and Rev. Candy Holmes (MCC) as we discern where Spirit might be collectively leading us as people of faith. We began gathering online with faith leaders in March of 2020 to wrestle together with Being Church in a global pandemic, which transitioned over the summer of 2021 to Courageous Leadership, as COVID revealed our perceptions and misconceptions about most things in life.
Jesus is our primary model as we look toward Creating Beloved Community: Healing Together, beginning Wednesday, September 4, with a Service of Lament, and gathering the first Wednesday of each month for the next year as we learn together and experiment in community with a variety of spiritual practices and focus areas (such as healing circles / circles of trust, liberation, decolonization, and much more), while also creating a template for faith communities to use in their own contexts.
We believe this is in attunement with our call as Christians from:
- Scripture and our expanding understanding and expression of love for ALL of our neighbors
- MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail and Vision of the Beloved Community
- What Is the Beloved Community and Why Is It Important?
- The Idea of the Beloved Community: The creative friendship of Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh
- ELCA Teaching, and especially our "connection to all of life"
- ELCA Living Our Baptismal Covenant
- ELCA Truth and Healing Movement (as facilitated by Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations)
- ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations
- Dr. Shawn Ginwright's The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves
- And so many other diverse voices and sacred ways we engage with each other and with the world.
