*SPECIAL EVENT!* Navigating Landscapes of Faith - This Coming Monday!

 

Hello LeaderSHIFT Friends,

I would love you to join me in just a few days, if you're able to!

The Very Rev. Gary Paterson will be in conversation with 2018 McGeachy scholar and author Janet Gear this coming Monday - and this remarkable event could not come at a better time, when so many of us are asking the very question: what are we called to do?

I think you've done some work with Janet in the past, or engaged with her book or research. For me, revisiting familiar topics and sitting in community do so offers something new and different and remarkable every time I say yes to the opportunity. I know that if you can make it, listening to and talking with Gary and Janet will be rich with blessings for you! I'm excited for our LeaderSHIFT network to be connected with the United Church of Canada Foundation with this event, too. 

If you're not able to attend yourself, would you please share this post today (because, Monday) to a colleague who you feel may be interested? The event is free, and the invitation is warm and wide.

Let me know if you decide to come so that I can look for you on Monday night! Register here.

Blessings,
Michelle

Navigating Landscapes of Faith: Diving Deep with Rev. Janet Gear
Hosted by The Very Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson


Monday November 6, 2023
6:30 - 8:00pm
Oakridge United Church Sanctuary
305 41 AVE W, Vancouver, BC V5Y 2S5

 

Signed copies of Janet Gear’s Undivided Love are available now - from LeaderSHIFT!

Get your hands on Janet Gear's book 'Undivided Love' - now available! Plus we're extremely excited to be celebrating this book's launch with two in-person evenings with Janet Gear!

Come to one of our book launch parties - this September 13 in Vancouver and September 15 in Victoria. All are welcome.

“Undivided Love is a book about faith: how it is expressed and what it communicates. Janet Gear offers readers a sympathetic way to interpret the belief-inspired actions of those around them without assuming homogenous understandings of God, the church, and our place in the world. … Ultimately, Undivided Love empowers congregations to navigate the terrain of theological diversity.. nurture various longings … receive its unique gifts, and to ultimately address the deeper question: What are we called to do?”

Friesen Press 2022

Signed Copies are Available from LeaderSHIFT!

Affirm and articulate the lived faith of those in your community; Deepen an appreciation of theological difference within a community of faith; Build capacity for theological interpretation of community life - with the Theological Banquet.

Wondering about the Theological Banquet?

‘Undivided Love’ accompanies the Theological Banquet resources that Janet has developed for United Church congregations. The Theological Banquet is an engaging workshop series that LeaderSHIFT is extremely proud to have been supporting for over 10 years.

The materials offered in the Theological Banquet provides a language and a lens for us to talk about the various ways our faith is lived out in our churches, lives, and the world. Bring the Theological Banquet to your community of faith here.

How to we set a welcoming table when we're missing different things?

Beloved,

In June, Pacific Mountain Regional Council Executive Minister Treena Duncan welcomed United Church researcher Rev Janet Gear to one of the PMRC online Townhall sessions. Treena has gathered folks online, from across the Pacific Mountain regional council since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a way for United Church people to review and flush out important, logistical pandemic information through our UCC lens, the PMRC Townhall sessions grew to embody and make space for community, shared experience, prayer and reflection.

LeaderShift has a long relationship with Janet Gear and her research project The Theological Banquet - and you may have participated in one of Janet's sessions. We're pleased to share this recording of the PMRC's June 24, 2020 Townhall meeting for you and your networks - for the gift of hope and grounding it brings. Janet explores what we know, understand and feel about being United Church, and missing church, in these COVID-19 days.

 
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We are still living a physically distant reality, bearing witness to racialized prejudice and murder, labouring for justice and transformation, yearning for ease and peace, and we hear how weary and isolating it feels at times. Janet's work and this recording calls us back to the table of grace, community and love. Articulating the ways United Church people live and experience God, Janet's conversation with Treena and those gathered online, reminds us how well we are connected, supported and ever-growing when we listen for, and respond to the Christ-call to be heart-open and present to one another, especially in our differences, especially when we're not gathering in person.

Gosh -- our work of birthing, raising, walking God's kin-dom isn't finished. What a gift to never be done in growing with God and our church! After a few weeks of intentional space and rest, LeaderShift is readying more ally workshop sessions with Angela Ma Brown, getting excited for Kootenay Faith Fest, and refining opportunities for personal and professional reflection for church leaders - for you. Maybe your rest time isn't quite finished yet - that's okay, keep still till it's time to rise. We'll write again soon.

Faithfully,
The LeaderShift Team

Tressa Brotsky - communications
Rob Crosby-Shearer - LeaderShift Church Plant Project
Allison Rennie - director
Rhian Walker - program staff
Brenda Wolff - administrative assistance