live & learn

“Talking the Times”

We have witnessed the extraordinary and unique stress that pastors and other leaders have faced over the last several years of multiple pandemics. We have listened to how the “things we didn’t learn in seminary” often become pain points in the field. We have learned that flourishing in ministry includes the ability to have regular conversations with similarly situated others—colleagues in the work.

We hear you and we want to support you. This spring, we are seeding small communities of faith leaders to gather around a pressing question or area of ministry practice. Each community will meet online and be guided by a facilitator who is not there as an expert but as a catalyst. While this facilitator will bring practical experience, the community itself will form the seedbed of knowledge, wisdom, and support for the group. Each community will meet every two weeks for a total of six meetings.

People: management, support, and supervision with Rev. Bobbi Kaye Jones

Return: coming back together in divisive times with Rev. Tracey Beadle

Spring Cleaning: what is essential to the life of the church and what can be let go? with Rev. Dr. Sarah Allen More Groups to Come! Most small groups begin in February.

“Soul Shop”

Soul Shop™ equips faith community leaders to minister to people affected by suicide as a regular aspect of their ministries. This one-day workshop includes practical exercises that help us to overcome the obstacles to dealing with suicide such as stigma, fear, and shame; give statistics/facts about suicide; and demonstrate how ministries can create a supportive environment while shifting the culture around how people deal with this subject. This workshop is for faith leaders and benefits counselors, lay ministry leaders, first responders, and essentially anyone interested in learning how to minister effectively to those impacted by suicide. Date and Time: March 2, 2023, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., Austin Seminary; Cost: $50, includes lunch and refreshments.

AustinSeminary.edu/EBW/workshops

EBW receives grants

Education Beyond the Walls (EBW) has been awarded three $5,000 Innovating Forward seed grants to initiate projects at the intersection of faith and mental health. The grants are provided through the Spiritual Mind Body Institute at Columbia University Teachers College with generous funding from The John Templeton Foundation. The grant period is September 2022 through August 2023, and the three projects are: Responding to Black and African American Women in Ministry; Connecting for Clergy Well-Being; and Tools for Trauma: Responding to Immigrant and Asylum-seeking Latinas. For details on these grants, read the full release here:

AustinSeminary.edu/about/news

Festival of Sacred Stories

On the weekend of World Communion Sunday, Hope Presbyterian Church (Austin), hosted its first Festival of Sacred Stories, inviting the community to listen for the sacred in the lives of people who are often marginalized and ignored. The focus of the inaugural year was listening to stories told by undocumented immigrants.

Rev. Josh Robinson, Pastoral Leadership for Public Life alumnus and current DMin student, collaborated with Mónica Tornoé, EBW’s director of Latino/a programs, to gather storytellers and erect a gallery of written testimonies. Robinson shared, “Too often, we allow dehumanizing partisan and prejudicial factors to distort the imago dei rooted inside the ‘other.’” The festival was the culmination of work Robinson did for his DMin project on Resacralizing the Other and followed his sabbatical trip along the US-Mexico border.

Pastors Needing Renewal & Refreshment–Grants Available

Applications for College of Pastoral Leaders (CPL) grants open in January 2023, with applications due in May. Six small groups of pastors will receive $10,000 for self-designed programs of renewal and refreshment. We want to support you!

AustinSeminary.edu/CPL

Sarah Chancellor-Watson (MDiv’16), Meghan Vail (MDiv’17), Meghan Findeiss (MDiv’18), and Kathy Lee Cornell (MDiv’16) received a grant from the College of Pastoral Leaders and gathered in Austin this October to consider what improv has to offer the life of the church. While on campus for a workshop with Erica Knisely, they visited the new Wright Learning & Information Center and had ice-cream with Professor Cynthia Rigby.