January 20, 2022
Dear friends,
Today I'm excited to share with you our Leadership Commons, an emerging online community and resource space for faith leaders and educators serving spiritual communities. These resources are about processing what it means to be living in a climate-changed world, discerning our responsibility as people of good faith, and imagining how we can collectively contribute to a livable future.
So much of what our world needs is found in small collectives of people with open and aching hearts. The communities to which you each belong have a particular role to play in the ecology of justice. And it is only within your communities that you can identify and give shape to those distinct contributions. The Leadership Commons is meant to support you and your community as you seek formation, practice contemplation, and commit to action together in your specific and local context.
Our newest offering on the Leadership Commons is this self-guided workshop: Pursuing Our Passions in a Climate-Changed World. On the Pursuing Our Passions page you’ll find everything you need to lead a small group of adult learners through the workshop.
Each Leadership Commons resource differs in content, but they all include a detailed Facilitator’s Guide to aid you as you bring your community into the important work of spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world.
We will continue adding new offerings to the Leadership Commons, so please stay tuned in the weeks and months ahead. Meanwhile, you can send your questions and ideas anytime to leadershipcommons@thebtscenter.org, and let us know if you’d like to consult with one of our team about how you might make use of the Leadership Commons resources in your community. We'd also be grateful for your feedback on this brief survey – as we seek to expand and enrich these resources, your input is deeply valuable to us!
With thanks for the good you do,
|
|
Aram Mitchell
Director of Partnerships and Formation, The BTS Center
|
|
Pursuing Our Passions in a Climate-Changed World
A Workshop and Facilitator's Guide
|
|
Too often, the work of addressing climate change feels just like that – work. We can feel overwhelmed when faced with so much awful news, and we can feel like there is nothing that one person or small group of people can do to stem the devastation. Yet each of us holds particular passions in our lives – hobbies or talents which light us up and help us to feel the joy of being alive. What would it mean to bring those things – whatever they might be – into our understanding of climate change? How would that change what is possible for us, individually and collectively?
This workshop offers the opportunity to lead participants in the process of discovering how to imagine a better world and use what they love to get there. Through a series of prompts and creative exercises supplemented by short videos, participants will delve deeply into what helps them to come alive and will be invited to creatively leverage those passions to engage with the problems and possibilities of climate change.
|
|
Eco Grief Circle
Offered collaboratively with the Creation Care Alliance of Western North Carolina
Seven Mondays, starting February 7, 2022, 7:00 - 8:15 pm ET
|
|
This program has a maximum enrollment of 24 individuals, including facilitators. There are ten spots for those who register through The BTS Center on a first come first serve basis. We ask, if you register, you make a commitment to attending as many of the sessions as possible.
"Every one of us must undertake an apprenticeship to sorrow."
— Francis Weller
We live in a culture that generally ignores grief, which makes it very difficult to give our sorrow the kind of sacred attention it requires in order to help us stay fully open. This is particularly true for the growing sadness so many of us feel as we witness the damage and loss of our planetary home. Whether these are familiar feelings for you which you have held inside for lack of a place to express them, or are just becoming aware of these often-unfamiliar emotions, we invite you to join us in company and companionship as we create and hold space for not only grief and sorrow, but also other feelings of anxiety and fear, guilt and shame, anger, and despair. Engaging in the grief process in community supports resiliency, and helps us, in the words of Francis Weller, "to keep our hearts open and soft," which, in turn, allows us to be more deeply attuned to the actions we are called to take.
We know from experience the power of gathering in small groups, and so we are co-offering Eco Grief Circles in collaboration with our friends at the Creation Care Alliance of Western North Carolina. This series of seven weekly, facilitated online groups are designed to offer time and space for the ecological and climate losses we are all experiencing, but not necessarily expressing. We do this so we may have company in our grief, share rituals and practices that help us to move through these feelings — and so rededicate ourselves to the work of planetary healing and health.
Eco Grief Circles are designed to offer mutual support, healing, insight, and love, though are not intended to be therapy. Participants have expressed profound gratitude for being among people who could talk honestly about grief, suffering, and the ecological and social challenges of our time. The leadership team and facilitators include counselors, pastors, and environmental advocates. Each session includes a brief teaching, opportunities for individual reflection and meditation, conversation in small groups, and rituals for self-care.
|
|
Lament with Earth
Thursday, February 10 • 7:30-8:30 pm (Eastern) • Online
|
|
Heart of Winter Event: Via Creativa, with the Element of Earth
The third of our five seasonal Lament with Earth events
In the winter, even as the natural world looks so lifeless, there is also the reality that creative things are going on which we cannot see. Sap is rising in the trees which look dead, and bulbs and seeds are swelling under the ground which looks barren. We, too, are invited to seek, in the words of Matthew Fox, "the fertile moments in our lives when we find creative expression, and put words to our joy and suffering of our existence. Freeing creativity helps us to move beyond our sorrow or stagnation."
Right now, the climate crisis certainly looks bleak — the damage which has been done is “baked in” to the future — this is true. And yet, there is an extraordinary amount of creativity, and life force, alive and working to save what can be saved, and to mitigate the effects of rising temperatures, sea level rise, massive migrations, and other profound effects of the climate crisis.
Considering the element of earth, we are reminded this element is both something which contributes to climate change — because of the way it has been treated, in extractive and exploitative ways — and yet also holds great potential to be a factor in addressing climate change, when understood and treated with respect.
To create space for these feelings, The BTS Center has teamed up with The Many, an extraordinary group of songwriters, spoken word artists and liturgists to create Lament with Earth — five seasonal events which will include original music, poetry, rituals, images, scripture and videos to reflect different seasons of loss through the liturgical year. These events will be interactive, inviting you to pray and sing along. You are invited to bring your own sense of loss and sadness. We will lament together, and also share that which has been a balm to our grief, strengthening us for the work we know awaits us.
|
|
“I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy... and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation...”
— James “Gus” Speth
Climate change is no longer the science community’s prediction for the future — we are now living in a climate-changed world. This reality raises provocative questions, challenges, and responsibilities, especially for people whose worldview has been formed by a Western perspective, and in particular for spiritual leaders. We are pleased to be offering this course in partnership with the Maine School of Ministry as an opportunity for spiritual leaders in the Global North to engage those questions, navigate those challenges, and embrace those responsibilities in their particular contexts.
Over the course of four months, students will engage assigned readings and other multimedia resources, form and share personal reflections, participate in four day-long facilitated sessions featuring guest presenters, and complete a final project. This course is designed for self-directed students whose learning needs are related to their professional roles as ministers — ordained and non-ordained, clergy and laypersons, leaders of traditional religious communities and other communities of practice.
Our present reality is a tumultuous reality. While we may not be able to smooth out the complications, this course will provide accompaniment and a community of mutual learning to form and inform how leaders might embody their vocation of spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world.
|
|
Our mission is to catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership. We offer theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual formation, including workshops and retreats, learning cohorts, public conversations, and projects of applied research.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
