Join us in April for All We Can Save: Book Circle

All We Can Save: Book Circle

Four Thursdays in April:

April 8, 2021 • 4:00pm-5:30pm (Eastern)
April 15, 2021 • 4:00pm-5:00pm (Eastern)
April 22, 2021 • 4:00pm-5:00pm (Eastern)
April 29, 2021 • 4:00pm-5:00pm (Eastern)

All sessions offered on Zoom

Registration:

Cost: $20/person covers all four sessions.

Participation scholarships and book scholarships are available as needed. Contact Aram Mitchell at aram@thebtscenter.org to request a scholarship.

Learn more

Registrations are coming in, and we'd love to welcome you for this four-week Book Circle, which starts on April 8.

Here's an opportunity to join with a community across borders to explore All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. The BTS Center looks forward to partnering with Montreal City Mission to host this online group, drawing together our communities in Maine, in Montreal, and beyond.

From the Introduction:

The climate crisis is a leadership crisis. For far too long, far too many leaders have been focused on profit, power, and prestige; and many of those committed to change have been ineffective. The climate crisis is the result of social, political, and economic systems that are wildly skewed to benefit those who already have so much. It is the result of unfettered economic growth, extractive capitalism, and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, who have known plenty but cared too little and continue to block efforts for change. Humanity simply cannot survive the status quo, and neither can many other species and ecosystems.

To transform society this decade — the clear task science has set before us — we need transformational leadership. We need feminine and feminist climate leadership, which is wide open to people of any gender. This is where possibility lives — possibility that we can turn away from the brink and move toward a life-giving future for all.

— Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson, co-editors

Together we will engage select portions of the book over the course of four weekly sessions. Each session will be grounded in spiritual curiosity, centered around small-group conversation, and designed to compel hopeful responses to difficult realities.

During these four weeks participants are not required to read the entire book. Our aim is to spark connection with the book as a resource of insight and inspiration for the continual task of weaving active care for the earth into our lives and our work.

About the book:

All We Can Save is a collection of essays, poems, and artwork amplifying feminist voices that help grapple with the existential threats of climate devastation. It highlights a host of women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. It is candid, insistent, inspiring, and rooted in the conviction that everyone has a part to play.

More about the book at: www.allwecansave.earth/book. Order the book in advance here.

Book Circle facilitators:

Wendy Evans is Chair of the Board for Montreal City Mission and an ordained minister in The United Church of Canada. She has served in global justice contexts for many years and was a delegate at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2019. Wendy is passionate about the ‘heart work’ of relationship building in the climate justice movement and her favorite place to feel connected is in the forest.

Aram Mitchell is the Director of Partnerships and Formation at The BTS Center. He is a Registered Maine Guide with a Master of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Chicago Theological Seminary. He lives on a little plot of land in Maine with his spouse, two dogs, a cat, and several chickens.

About the host organizations:

Montreal City Mission is a community ministry of the United Church of Canada that has been finding long-term solutions to problems of poverty and social exclusion since 1910.

“At Montreal City Mission, we are delighted about our promising partnership with The BTS Center, as we join networks and put care of creation at the center of our ministries.”

— Rev. Paula Kline, Director of Montreal City Mission

The BTS Center, based in Portland Maine, develops programs and convenes conversations that catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership.

"We at The BTS Center are inspired by the vision of human hearts renewed, justice established, and creation restored. We are so grateful to partner with Montreal City Mission in this way, and we hope you'll join us."

— Rev. Allen Ewing-Merrill, Executive Director of The BTS Center