The BTS Center
97 India Street • Portland, ME 04101
May 19, 2021
Dear Friends:
As the weather gets warmer, I’ve spent a lot of time in our backyard playing hide and seek with my five-year-old son. The hiding, with only a slender tree and a decrepit chicken coop to pick from, tends to be an exercise in futility, followed by the main entertainment, which is the running and giggling, always prefaced with a much-too-quick-to-be-fair count to twenty, followed by a gleeful “Ready or not, here I come!”
I find that same phrase ringing far more ominously in my ears when I consider all the challenges that lie ahead for my son and daughter. Never has the future seemed more irresistibly inevitable and impenetrably unknown as it has in the wake of this past year: shaped by a devastating pandemic, nationwide protests over police violence and racial injustice, and an armed insurrection in the capital. I want to hold onto those last shreds of denial with all my might, but ready or not, our future comes; bringing a painful reckoning with untold national stories, seismic changes for our faith communities, and the cries of our hurting planet.
While those challenges are now undeniable, we are not powerless to face into them. Into this future, we also carry all the precious gifts and stories that make us who we are. This gives each of us the unique agency to cultivate hope wherever we find ourselves planted.
In the coming weeks, we’re offering four opportunities to help you engage with this future honestly and courageously:
This may not be the future that we feel ready for, but it is the future that we are invited into nonetheless. Join us, as we say to our world, “Ready or not, here we come!”
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Ben Yosua-Davis
Director of Applied Research • The BTS Center
P.S. Be sure to register for Brave ART by May 25, which is right around the corner, in order to be eligible to receive a creativity packet. We will pop these in the mail to the first 50 people to register! Check out the details below.
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Dawnland — Online Film Screening and Live Q&A
This Thursday May 20, 2021
6:30 - 8:30 pm (Eastern)
In partnership with Upstander Project we are hosting a public online screening of the Emmy® award-winning film Dawnland, followed by a Q&A with film participant Esther Anne of Wabanaki REACH and film senior advisor Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy) of the Abbe Museum.
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We strive to match The BTS Center’s vision — of human hearts renewed, justice established, and creation restored — with the practice of collective self-examination. We need to hear and heed the stories and lived-experiences of the people whose roots are in this place, and who have suffered from the occupation and colonization of their homeland.
At The BTS Center, many in our community are descendents of white, European settlers in this land. Many of us live and work in Maine, which is the homeland of the Wabanaki, the People of the Dawn; the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac, Maliseet, and Abenaki people who have lived and worked here for generations stewarding their own cultures, and stewarding the forests, the soil, the waters, the air, and our more-than-human kin.
We hope that this screening and conversation will help to raise awareness and inspire action among congregations, other community groups, and all people of good will. We hope you will join us in heeding this story.
“For decades, child welfare authorities have been removing Native American children from their homes to ‘save them from being Indian.’ In Maine, the first official Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States begins a historic investigation. Dawnland goes behind-the-scenes as this historic body grapples with difficult truths, redefines reconciliation, and charts a new course for state and tribal relations.” (from Upstander Project’s website)
This event is free, but we are accepting donations. All donations will go to Upstander Project, the creative force behind the Dawnland film. Upstander Project helps bystanders become upstanders through compelling documentary films and learning resources.
Please consider this notice from the Dawnland Viewer’s Guide (available here):
“Watching the film may especially impact those in the audience who were separated from their family, sent to boarding school, adopted or fostered, and we strongly encourage viewers to consider this prior to watching the film so all can be well supported while viewing. Please take care of yourself and others.”
EVENT SCHEDULE (all times Eastern)
Thursday May 20, 2021
- 6:30 pm: Welcoming Videos and Film Introduction
- 6:40 pm: Dawnland Film
- 7:30 pm: Film Team Q & A
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Reimagining The Future
A Climate Reality Presentation and
En-ROADS Interactive Solutions Simulation
led by Bill Middlecamp
Monday, May 24, 2021
7:00 - 8:30pm (Eastern) • via Zoom
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This event will include a Climate Reality Presentation showing the environmental-destruction impacts we are experiencing today, how we got to this point, and what the future may hold. Following that, participants will use En-ROADS to imagine together what our future could be. En-ROADS is a “choose your ending” simulation that uses some of the best available science to compute and present the results of choices in energy, food production, land-use and consumer behavior that society can make today.
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BILL MIDDLECAMP is one of over 20,000 trained Climate Reality Leaders from over 150 countries and is a trained En-ROADS facilitator. Bill has a BS degree in Meteorology, an MS degree in Computer Science, and is a commissioned United Methodist Earthkeeper. For over a decade, Bill has participated in organizing and delivering presentations on environmental issues related to health, economics, science and solutions to the harmful changes we are seeing. Bill is retired and dedicates himself to teaching about our degradation of the critical life-sustaining properties of the environment.
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New Futures for the Post-Pandemic Church
A Continued Conversation
with Kenda Creasy Dean and Paul Nixon
Thursday, May 27, 2021
4:00-5:15 pm (Eastern) • via Zoom
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A year later, with a new normal still out of our reach, we’re inviting them back to check in on the predictions they made a year ago, to share what this last year has taught them, and to hear their dreams and challenges for faith communities in the wake of COVID-19.
Come to join a frank and hopeful discussion about the path forward for the post-pandemic church.
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Kenda Creasy Dean, PhD, an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, is the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to teaching in practical theology, education and formation (specifically youth and young adult ministry, the church as social innovator, and theories of teaching), Dean works closely with Princeton’s Institute for Youth Ministry and the Farminary. She also serves as the coordinating pastor of Kingston United Methodist Church. Dean is the author of numerous books on youth, church and culture, including Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (Oxford, 2010) and Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church (Eerdmans, 2004), as well as several co-authored books, including How Youth Ministry Can Change Theological Education, If We Let It with Christy Lang Hearlson (Eerdmans, 2016); The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry with Andrew Root (InterVarsity, 2011), OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook (Abingdon, 2010), and The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry with Ron Foster (Upper Room, 1998). In 2013 she and fellow pastor Mark DeVries co-founded Ministry Incubators, Inc., an educational and consulting group dedicated to missional innovation and entrepreneurial forms of ministry. A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary, she served as a pastor and campus minister in suburban Washington, D.C. before receiving her PhD from Princeton Seminary in 1997. She is currently the project director and senior strategist for The Zoe Project, a Lilly Endowment initiative designed to foster innovation in congregations around young adults.
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Paul Nixon is the founder of Epicenter Group. He is a pastor, coach, ministry strategist and student of culture. He lives in downtown Washington DC, with an office on K Street. He operates in multiple time zones and cultural contexts each week. An author of eight books, Paul teaches in all sorts of venues from online cohorts to regional seminars to a course at Wesley Theological Seminary. Paul Nixon was doing multi-site before that was a word. Paul planted one of the earliest campuses of a multi-site Protestant congregation, in the 1990s, a site that grew well past 1000 worshippers a week. Paul has been thinking, coaching and working around issues of multi-site ministry longer than almost any other coach or consultant around. Paul is co-creator of the Readiness 360 tool helping churches measure and cultivate their capacity for multiplying ministry. More than 1000 American congregations have used the 360, with hundreds more coming along each year, generating one of the best databases on church vitality anywhere. Paul has been coach to the fastest growing mainline Protestant church in the United States (Embrace Church Sioux Falls). He also has worked with Urban Village Chicago, City Square Phoenix, After Hours Denver, New Day Bronx, The Loft@Westwood in LA, Valley Praise in Harlingen, Texas. Broken Builders in NYC, RISE in Harrisonburg VA, The Gathering Virginia Beach, West UMC in Mooresville NC, HopeGateWay in Portland Maine, and many other creative new ministries.
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Brave ART Retreat
With contemplative painter Bronwen Mayer Henry
Thursday, June 3, 2021
10:00am - 4:00pm (Eastern)
$25 for full-day retreat / Open to the Public
A limited number of full scholarships are available for this retreat. Contact Aram Mitchell at aram@thebtscenter.org to request a scholarship.
Be sure to register by May 25 to receive a creativity packet. The first 50 people to register will receive one!
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So many people hold themselves back from stepping into a creative life. So many of us hesitate to give ourselves permission to play with, experiment with, and strengthen our own creative hearts. Creativity takes courage, needs community, and — if we tend it well — can blossom into expressions of compassion.
Join us for a day-long retreat full of stories, meditations, creative practices and supportive conversations, facilitated by contemplative painter Bronwen Mayer Henry.
“My most consistent personal practice is showing up in the studio each day to spend time going inward, being curious, and watching what unfolds. Though I delight in what appears on the canvas, it is what arises in my heart that captivates me and has me returning each day.” — Bronwen Mayer Henry
This retreat — along with stories, meditations, and practices — will draw on the beauty and intrigue of the natural word as our source of inspiration and subject matter. We will acknowledge heartache while reaching towards freedom, curiosity, and compassion. We will focus on strengthening the creative process and on returning to joy.
If you are feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders, if you are looking for practices to help counter burnout, if you are in need of community, self-compassion, and inspiration to guide you through challenging times — please join us! All are welcome, no artistic experience required, come as you are.
A creativity packet including a retreat workbook and some art supplies will be mailed to you by The BTS Center. You will also need some nature to reference — either nature you can see while you create or images from books or photos you’ve printed out.
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Bronwen Mayer Henry
"I am grateful to be working with The BTS Center where creativity, care for the natural world, and spirituality are the central focus. These are core to my creative practice and it is energizing to step into a partnership with so much synergy. During the pandemic, I have missed spending time teaching and being with others around restorative creative practices and I appreciate the innovative commitment The BTS Center has to making retreats happen in virtual spaces with deep community connection." — Bronwen Mayer Henry
Bronwen is a self-taught contemporary painter specializing in trees and flowers on large scale canvases with acrylic paints. Her work is filled with movement, light, color, and a sense of freedom.
It was an unexpected path through Thyroid Cancer that led Bronwen to commit time to painting. This beginning continues to be reflected in her large scale work and playful approach to color. Her art is an expression of prayer, meditation, hope and joy. She describes herself as “a person facing her fears with a brush, and choosing joy over perfection.” She leads workshops and retreats helping others to break through creative barriers. She has a new book exploring how this cancer treatment lit up her creative practice, “Radioactive Painting” published by Shanti Arts LLC.
Her work has been on display at Abington Art Center, Pendle Hill Retreat, Local Shops, and private collections in California, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Washington State, Canada and South Africa.
She lives outside Philadelphia, PA with her husband, two children, and King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.
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Allen Ewing-Merrill
Executive Director
Kay Ahmed
Office Manager
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Nicole Diroff
Program Director
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Aram Mitchell
Director of Partnerships & Formation
Ben Yosua-Davis
Director of Applied Research
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Our mission is to catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership.
We equip and support faith leaders for theologically grounded and effective 21st-century ministries.
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