Dear friends,

As we find ourselves in a time of year that can be both festive and fraught, we at The BTS Center want to pause and offer you our deep and warm wishes for a beautiful Christmas season.

So many of you have participated in our many program offerings this year, and we are so grateful — it may sound familiar, but the truth is that we could not do what we do without your support, participation, and feedback. And while we'll take a brief pause from programming over the next several weeks to rest and regroup, we do want to let you know about some exciting upcoming offerings.

For the second year in a row, we'll offer our Committed to Listen program on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in partnership with the Maine Council of Churches and Atlantic Black Box. Also starting in January, we have two exciting courses: Wildness and Spirituality for the Common Good and Spiritual Leadership for a Climate-Changed World. For those of you seeking ways of delving more deeply into the themes we've been exploring in our programming this year, one of these courses might be just right for you.

In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to explore more deeply our work fostering spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world. We warmly invite you to join us in that exploration — and for now, we wish you all good things and Christmas blessings for you and yours. We hope that however you choose to celebrate this season, you will be able to tap into the seeds of hope and nourishment in the long nights of winter.

With best wishes,

The BTS Center Team

On Monday, January 17, 2022, The BTS Center invites you to join us for a public reading of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Originally delivered on 31 March 1968 at Washington National Cathedral, this sermon is still prophetic over a half-century later, as we continue to struggle with the injustices of racism, war, poverty, and now also climate change and a global pandemic.

This event will include a reading of a new poem by Portland’s Poet Laureate Maya Williams commissioned for the occasion.

In his sermon, Dr. King writes: “…one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”

With all that demands our attention in the world today, Dr. King’s words point to a powerful truth – it is easier to sleep through a revolution than to be an active, thoughtful, engaged participant in the ongoing work of justice. It is even easier to feel discouraged to the point of turning away when we feel isolated by our own individual lives and struggles. Yet as Dr. King reminds us:

“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”

We hope that you will join us for this public reading, reflection, and celebration of Dr. King’s message. Co-hosted by The BTS Center, the Maine Council of Churches, and Atlantic Black Box, this event will include multiple voices, contemplative music, and space for reflection.

“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.

As Susan Griffin writes in Woman and Nature: “We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature. Nature weeping. Nature speaking of nature to nature.” With that conviction in mind, this course offers the opportunity to consider how a thoughtful relationship with wild nature bolsters our ability to do good work in the world.

Throughout this five-week online course in partnership with the School of Global Citizenry, we will examine ideas of wilderness, experiment with ways of connecting with wild nature, and explore the integration of these insights and practices into your personal and professional context. That means that you, as an expert in your life and work, are a key part of this curriculum.

In order to journey together in the shared project of building a global culture of compassion, we must each show up with our own creative commitments. After all, it takes a host of efforts to make a beautiful world. That’s why we begin with the assumption that each learner is a vital part of the ecology of justice, eager and willing to contribute to the common good.

This course is ideal for social and civic leaders, clergy, laity, and seminarians seeking continuing education units or valuable and relevant professional development credits. Others who benefit from this course include chaplains, nurses, therapists, coaches, consultants, small group leaders, directors, and educators. Two CEUs are available upon completion.

 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.