The Church Lab Annual Report 2021

THE CHURCH LAB

2021 ANNUAL REPORT

EXPLORING INNOVATIVE PATHS TO SPIRITUAL MATURITY, HELPING THE CHURCH FIND HER FUTURE.

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HOW WE WORK The Church Lab experiments with meeting spiritual needs in effective, meaningful ways.

As we learn from our experiments, we walk with other leaders, helping them take meaningful experimental risks in line with their call to service.

In all we do, we most highly value depth and nuance in one’s spiritual life.

Our central experiment to pursue this is through sustained, small group interfaith dialogue facilitated by a pastoral facilitator.

We meet biweekly for interfaith dialogue. Beyond this, we share opportunities for local and global service/mission, creative worship experiments, and discipleship for participating Christians.

Pastoral care is offered to anyone, no matter what one’s beliefs are, with no strings attached.

There are folks who identify with many faiths, or no faith at all, or who are not sure what they believe, that find this informal, small community process as a beautiful way to ask questions and explore one’s evolving convictions in a safe, encouraging dialogical space.

Then we take all our leaps of faith, our failing up and our learning's lessons, and we share them with others who want to try experiments with good lab partners. We do this by pastorally facilitating pastors' cohorts, lay leaders' cohorts, community discernment retreats, trainings, workshops and specialized consulting projects.

We need you to keep up this vital work!

Together, we are finding the future of faith practice for any who seek it.

Amen.

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Powered By Generosity While our affordable consulting work helps us do ministry full-time, our operational budget is powered by your generosity exclusively. It is run entirely off donations! You can ALWAYS give online at thechurchlab.org.

Our most impactful giving is through monthly pledging.

To become a monthly or annual partner, visit thechurchlab.org and scroll to the giving section. It is easy to give online, and you can set up recurring donations there!

We ask for 3-year pledge commitments where possible, as this helps us minimize ministry time used for continuous fundraising asks. We are thrilled for 1-year commitments, if donors are more comfortable with this or any other donor-chosen timeframe. Please email carrie@thechurchlab.org to let us know the timeframe of your commitment.

CONNECT WITH US!

WEBSITE: www.thechurchlab.org Learn more from our community at thechurchlab.org/blog Sign up for weekly mailchimp updates and calls for dialogue RSVP’s by signing up at the bottom of our homepage: thechurchlab.org.

Facebook: facebook.com/thechurchlab EMAILS Rev. Carrie Graham, founding pastor: carrie@thechurchlab.org Ollie Jarvis, pastoral assistant: help@thechurchlab.org Natalie Traylor, bookkeeper: TCLdonorhelp@gmail.com

Instagram or twitter: @thechurchlab

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"There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear…”

1 John 4:18

2021

What. A. Year. Indeed.

It's been an explosive year to help others with our mission, thanks to YOU! This has been our most widening-and-deepening year yet. We have been grateful for a steady ship for our core ministries, as they have been spaces of consistent care and growth for our community. We have also reached people we never could've imagined getting to walk with, in ways of which we could not have conceived.

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THIS YEAR We are celebrating our 2nd year of full-time work between our core ministries and consulting work at The Church Lab! The Church Lab was featured in Pastor Carrie's first nationally published article in April's edition of Christian Century. She explored meaningful risks pastors are taking during the pandemic.

Via an empowering partnership with Texas Impact, we have worked with 11 churches across the state of Texas this year! One of these churches is in their 2nd year with us now.

This year introduced TCL's first opportunity to build a Pastoral Facilitation Team, creating a curriculum and hiring and training an incredible team of TCL Pastoral Facilitators who have worked with us all year! Shout out to rockstar facilitators Rev. Laura Murray, Jenelle D'Alessandro and Stephen Norberg.

Our core dialogue community continues to thrive digitally! It continues to be our core ministry and a beloved community. We are learning and connecting and growing from each other's diverse perspectives at every turn. We have found our community is strong and steady, supporting each other in this trying time. It is beautiful to witness.

Our monthly "Chortle" discipleship group has been able to lift each other up in prayer and conversation all throughout this difficult year, at times in mysteriously Providential moments.

Our Lab Partner Pastors, who subscribe to work with The Church Lab throughout the year, have stuck together through the thick and thin of this year, exploring creative and boldly faithful ways to navigate this unique era for all of us.

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We have been able to continue to offer Navigating Divisive Conversations and Facilitation Training digitally!

We were able to welcome 2 gifted interns this year, Dash Kees and Julia Burkley, who contributed significantly to ways we can share about who TCL is to new and expanding participants.

Our board has seriously stepped up this year, owning their roles and bolstering the mission of The Church Lab in impactful ways.

Our Advisory Council has been on the wings throughout the year to help us strategize with big picture thinking.

We are so grateful to Natalie Traylor, who stepped up to the plate this year, overhauling and updating our entire bookkeeping system. The benefit of this to TCL cannot be overstated.

We are thrilled to share all about this and more with you here in our 2021 annual report. Please celebrate with us by reading on.

With immense gratitude, Pastor Carrie and Team TCL

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IN THE MEDIA TCL Pandemic Lessons Shared

One way we are able to help the Church find her future is to share what we're learning with others, whether that be in our Lab or visiting other neighbors' ministries. Here are some spaces where we were honored to share our ideas this year:

Christian Century: Covid and the Faithful Risks Pastors Have Taken

by Rev. Carrie Graham, April 2021

WE HAVE BEEN GROWING! TCL Over The Years This October, we celebrated our 8th birthday of tinkering in the lab for the greater good! We have much to share and celebrate with you, because of you!

Over the last 8 years, TCL has celebrated learning from failure and successes both in ministry content and exploring operational structures that will sustain it. We have intentionally gleaned lessons in hopes of walking with others with effective support as they engage their own experiments in this age of religious change.

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We Have Been Growing! continued From our Backward Bible Study and Dog Church to “Chortle” Discipleship + Karaoke, from our Family Portraits for Harvey victims who lost all their photos all the way to Pandemic Pen Pal community care, complete with surprise packages at community members' doors, our experiments have offered lessons, evolutions and layers of “aha!” moments in how we can serve God and God’s people.

We are excited to continue discovering ways that speak to changing dispositions and growing needs - around connecting to God and to each other more deeply and securely.

In 2018, we began our 1st offered consulting project to help share gleanings from our experiments with other leaders. We want to help others who wish to take risks in bold faith for the future of spiritual growth.

In 2019, we had over 20 requests for consultations, trainings and workshops!

In 2020, we took the leap to try to be fulltime. When the pandemic hit, we wondered about our timing! Then God provided a path for us to help our dialoguers and many faith communities to creatively navigate the pandemic, and help their wider communities in so doing. We were honored to get to do so.

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We Have Been Growing! continued In 2021, we have worked with 11 church cohorts across the entire state of Texas. We have provided Facilitators' Training. We have spent a weekend in Logan, Utah, helping university students and members of First Presbyterian Church of Logan to level up in their abilities to navigate divisive conversations.

We have prayed and rooted on our Chortle discipleship crew through unforseen lows and evolving, grounded joys.

As for our core spiritual growth ministry, our interfaith dialogue community: With about 165 dialogues under our belt, we cannot wait to get back in the Lab for more.

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DIALOGUES

"I love TCL because I believe that we are called by God to be in relationship with people, even our enemies. Dialogue is a place where my “others” become friends, where my walls are broken down." - Sarah Shannon-Wildt Every two weeks, a group of 6-10 people gather from the 4 corners. Among us may be mainline Protestant, Evangelical Christian, Catholic, Pagan, Ahmadiyya Muslim, Baha’i, Jewish, spiritual-but-notreligious, non-identifying/seekers, humanist perspectives and more.

Thanks to video chat, even preceding the pandemic, we have become a hybrid local, national and even international community!

This year, we’ve had digital dialoguers -or observers preparing for training- in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., California, Utah, and Puebla, Mexico.

It is vital for us to have conservative and liberal viewpoints in the room together. At first, dialogues are about education and awareness. As participants see each other again and again, and sincere community becomes possible, our time grows us in rich ways.

We acknowledge one another’s dignity of experience, we laugh together, even as we approach issues where disagreement is inevitable. We are challenged in our own spiritual lives to reckon with the mutually exclusive angles of our friends’ beliefs with our own. Our prayer life may change, our perspectives may shift, our ability increases to hold neighbors in love that approach life so differently than us. We inevitably discover a more nuanced faith, and a capacity to extend love in a deeply meaningful way in our current political, cultural, social climate.

2021 TOPICS: Tradition Show & Tell Dialogue: Music and My Faith Snowpocalypse Check-in with Dialoguers Group (pastoral, non-dialogical convo) Steadfastness, led by Ollie!

Cancel Culture Conspiracy Theories Injustice and Brokenness Parenting & Religion Doubt Ugly Sides of Institutional Religion Mystery & Logic Faith & Dress, Costumes, Regalia: Dash leads for the 1st time!

Vulnerability: Giving and Tradition Uncertainty Body, Health and Spirit Spirituality and Economy Individual and/or Community-Centric Living Ancestors Outdated Traditions Final (recorded) of 2021: Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Learning

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SPECIAL EVENTS The inevitable result of spiritual groundedness?

Of exploring faith intentionally?

Love in action.

Our 2021 Special Events: Post-Election Navigating Divisive Conversations workshop with 1st Presbyterian Church of Austin TCL Facilitators' Spring Training The Utah Project: Pastor Carrie and Pastoral Facilitator Ollie Jarvis co-facilitated a 2-day event in Logan, Utah, in which 20 university students and 20 adult community members, many of whom were members of First Presbyterian Church of Logan, came together in a unique inter-generational format. We spent interactive time introducing our Navigating Divisive Conversations principles to them, while Ollie also preached twice at 1st Presbyterian Church of Logan worship services, which culminated in a provided lunch and discussion. It was a uniquely wonderful weekend!

Every December, we invite any and all parts of our community to gather together and share stories about causes close to their hearts. Then we decide together where to give 10% of TCL's operational budget based on our heartfelt stories. It is a celebration of TCL's contextual and missional core.

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COMMUNITY CARE

We continue to intentionally care for those who make up our community; Ollie has held space with particular attentiveness this year to make sure TCL honors this high priority of ours.

We care for each other in several ongoing ways, especially through our pen pals program, by checking in with financial partners quarterly, or even just informally reaching out to our TCL neighbors to let them know we are thinking of them. When we are aware of community members having a rough season, we love to make concerted efforts to let them know in word and action that we are indeed here to be a sincere community for each other.

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REIMAGINING SERVICE In summer 2020, Texas Impact -a non-profit who connects people of faith to public policyinvited The Church Lab to prototype a special cohort in response to covid-19's effects on our state. A brave group of lay leaders from University Presbyterian Church of Austin (UPC) agreed to be our prototype cohort. TCL worked with them to cross-section their own dormant or shifting church resources with strategies to meet rising community needs due to the coronavirus and other seemingly infinite 2020 challenges.

At the end of their experience, UPC decided to partner with The Church Lab in 2021 for a second year of work to flesh out this experience further, considering how Reimagining Service's content and structure might help the church family as a whole approach mission and service with a fresh lens.

While furthering our work with UPC, our partnership with Texas Impact continued forward.

Through this partnership we have facilitated Reimagining Service for 10 additional churches across the state of Texas in 2021!

We worked with contexts new and well-established, affluent and financially struggling, urban and rural, and across generational representations. From Boynton Chapel United Methodist Church in the 3rd Ward of Houston to Vox Veniae in East Austin, from Living Word Lutheran in Buda to Bells United Methodist Church in North Texas, we walked with lay leaders and pastors through a 15-week process for how to creatively serve community needs in a pandemic. We designed, coordinated, facilitated and implemented this process from start to finish!

We introduced creative exercises to help teams assess their own shifting resources, research community needs and then creatively discern how to meet those needs with the resources present to them. The meetings explored what is necessary for being creative in times of trauma and grief: getting spiritually grounded in Scripture reflection, checking in and caring for one another always comes first. From there, we engage with exercises to help discern where God is guiding.

Through this process, we are grateful to have realized our dream to create a curriculum from one of our processes, and to hire and train our first official team of TCL facilitators to fulfill this project's mission.

Our year working with these 10 churches was made possible by our incredible Pastoral Facilitation Team. More about this and them in the Operational Highlights section!

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Reimagining Service Continued

PARTICIPATING CHURCHES & LOCATIONS Boynton Chapel UMC in the Third Ward of Houston Vox Veniae in East Austin First Presbyterian Church of Austin Living Word Lutheran Church in Buda First Presbyterian Church of Round Rock

Divine Redeemer Presbyterian Church in San Antonio First Presbyterian Church of Elgin Bells United Methodist Church Island Presbyterian Church Faith United Methodist Church in Spring

University Presbyterian Church of Austin

2021 INTERNS We were pleased to work with 2 whip-smart interns this year. Both used their gifts to further TCL's mission as they discerned more about their own long-term callings.

We are grateful to call them part of Team TCL!

DASH KEES Dash Kees served in many capacities, including creating cards that teach people about the various facets of TCL's work, training and practicing as a TCL dialogue facilitator and creating a series of youtube videos about TCL!

JULIA BURKLEY of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary interviewed community pastors across the Central Texas area, gleaned patterns from our Reimagining Service work to help us learn about the effectiveness and nature of our initial processes. Among several pursuits, she also created manuals for helping to train future TCL Team members. Julia provided vital website and social media upgrades to our online presence and she experimented with our Bramble account, a creative online space for meetings and possible worship opportunities.

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PASTORAL CARE & DISCIPLESHIP Because The Church lab runs off donations, rather than members that pay fees, those donations free us up to offer care to all. The Church Lab then becomes a community-invested system, more and more deeply over time. We offer care to anyone that needs a listening ear, or has big questions about spiritual life, no matter one's background or beliefs. This is a vital practice as another structural experiment that keeps pastoral care from being restricted in any capacity, since increasingly those that need care do not have a spiritual home/institution.

For Christians in TCL's community, we offer a small monthly gathering for Christian discipleship. We find our dialogue community can healthily sharpen the specificities and roots of our faith, so we get together and talk about how we're growing into a deeper relationship with God from a Christian perspective. We reflect on how our reflections intersect with daily decisions and behaviors. Our ongoing reflective question when we share updates on our lives is "...and where is God in all this?!"

Many folks who participate in TCL's community have their own worshipping communities, whether Christian or not. Some claim TCL as their primary church family. Discipleship is a particularly great place to be if TCL is both your primary interfaith and Christian family.

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THE CHURCH LAB'S GEOGRAPHIC REACH The Church Lab community is anchored in Austin, though we have beloved participants from other regions in Texas, as well as from Washington, D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, Utah, Georgia, California, Washington, Puebla City in Mexico, and more!

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2021 ONGOING PROJECTS We continue to share our neighbors’ voices through our blog, which can be found at thechurchlab.org/blog. This year, we expanded this to include a youtube channel!

We will continue to regularly offer our Navigating Divisive Conversations and Facilitators' Training workshops.

We continue to keep an eye on opportunities to help in-person around our communities as we emerge, or swing back and forth, in pandemic times.

We continue to keep an eye out for worship experiment opportunities in pandemicemerging times as well.

We continue to explore ways to strengthen our ability to raise money for operations and to differentiate our funding sources for specific dreams to evolve our mission's effectiveness, primarily including grant applications.

2022 PREVIEW As we prepare for 2022, we are excited to: sustain and deepen dialogue community, leadership empowerment among our dialogue community. return with increased strength and energy back to safe in-person volunteer and worship experiments. pursue writing as possible, to share our lab's lessons in an even more accessible format. working with faith leaders and faith communities to help them find their part in the future of faith practice. pursue more relationship-building through our social media platforms. complete our Strategic Plan with our board. grow our board meaningfully. recruit more interns and/or pursue more mentoring opportunities and partnerships with educational institutions and/or non-profits.

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TCL OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS One of our most vital experiments is not about content, but rather about the operational framework that upholds and sustains the mission of experimental ministries. Here are our 2020 operational milestones:

We raised $52,775, nearly $10,000 more than we've ever raised for operations before! We stewarded this carefully to meaningfully grow in our mission! We are so grateful to our generous financial partners. Every penny goes a long way for our mission.

Pastor Carrie learned from an executive coach who generously donated her time to help Carrie develop as the leader of TCL. She was a part of Mission Capital's CEO Circles cohort in the spring. She attended a 2-part supervisors' training through Mission Capital to level up her supervisory skills. Carrie developed TCL's first curriculum and then hired, trained and oversaw our Pastoral Facilitation Team as they implemented the Reimagining Service project throughout the state of Texas! She continued to facilitate our core dialogue ministry as well as our Chortle Discipleship group.

Ollie, our pastoral assistant, went above and beyond to step in for Carrie when personal circumstances kept her from facilitation at times, among other supportive acts that meant a lot to TCL and to Carrie. Ollie managed donor relations, curated the weekly mailchimp, curated the monthly blog, designed and curated the mailchimp social justice block. Ollie coordinated community care for TCL community members near and far, whether dialoguers or donors or some other part of our community. Ollie helped us transition our bookkeeping system early in the year. Finally, Ollie pitched a project to a colleague in Utah, then trained for and co-facilitated a Navigating Divisive Conversation weekend workshop, including preaching at 2 services as part of the weekend. We are immensely grateful and proud of Ollie's work toward TCL's mission. While we are sad to see Ollie transition out of being pastoral assistant, we are excited to continue enjoying Ollie's company in our community and benefiting from Ollie as an ongoing facilitator and consultant with TCL!!

Natalie Traylor has overhauled our bookkeeping system and maintained it throughout the year. This is a gift to TCL of paramount importance, that has involved taking on untold challenges. We are beyond grateful for Natalie's contributions this year!

Pictured on this page is our first Pastoral Facilitation Team formed this year and it included (top to bottom) Rev. Laura Murray, Jenelle D'Alessandro and Stephen Norberg. They were incredible and showed professional excellence in their work for our Reimagining Service project across the state of Texas.

We are proud to have grown our team and for it to include such stellar pastoral professionals and all-around great human beings.

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TCL BOARD OF DIRECTORS HIGHLIGHTS Our board of directors met new challenges this year, and yet it was arguably our best year EVER! Our board culture has evolved to be a genuine team culture. They work hard for The Church Lab, putting in countless hours to further our mission in a myriad of ways. Their ownership of their roles has impacted TCL organizational health and the reach of our mission in perhaps immeasurable ways:

JULIE HAGEN of Washington, D.C., came on this year as our first active Chair. Her leadership has taken the board to new heights. She facilitates our now monthly meetings, meets regularly with Pastor Carrie and both oversees and encourages all board endeavors and functions!

ANDREA CARROLL of Austin, Texas, is our fundraising chair and could not possibly do a better job with it. She has revitalized all of our social media platforms this fall in a way that other organizations are probably already jealous of! We are lucky to have her.

WENDY COOPER of Houston, Texas, is our treasurer and heading up our Strategic Plan process. Her devotion to TCL is steadfast. Her understanding of both the content and logistics that call for attention as a board keeps us chugging forward as a healthy system. Her contributions and presence are priceless!

JENNA PONTIOUS of Riverside, California, is our newest board member, yet is an already beloved part of our team!

Jenna serves as our secretary and has made immediate, bold moves in getting the message out about TCL, in her fundraising efforts, in her imaginative and courageous work already offered to our mission. It is already unclear what we would do without her!

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FINANCIAL REPORT & NEEDS

We are trying to raise the same amount for 2022 as we did in 2021.

As of Dec 8, 2021, we are $12,882 from our goal.

Please consider financial partnership with us!

OUR 2021 RAISED BUDGET IS THE SAME AS OUR 2022 PROPOSED BUDGET:

Mission 10% of What is Raised

Pastor Pastoral Assistant: Bookkeeper Logistics Help Squarespace Domain Name LGL monthly purchase (donation tracking)

DOLLARS $5,300.00 $28,484.36 $3,600.00 $1,200.00 $5,200.00 $200.00 $20.00 $600.00

Taxes

$700.00

Misc Fees (tax & LGL indiv)

$200.00

Google Suite

$156.00

Zoom Subscription

$165.00

General Liability Insurance

$700.00

Errors and Omissions Insurance General Supplies Mission Capital membership

$675.00 $0.00 $250.00

Teachable subscription

$350.00

Misc

$0.00

Discretionary: including Help with unfulfilled line items as warranted BOD Retreat

$2,820.00

$0.00

(space, travel, help, food) Marketing

$1,654.64

Grant writing

$0.00 $0.00

Fundraising officer

Annual report & Graphics Continuing ED (Mission Capital, etc)

TOTAL

$500.00

$0.00

$52,775.00

2020 TCL Budget Line Item Mission Pastor Assistant Grant Writing Squarespace Domain Name LGL monthly purchase (donation tracking) Taxes Misc Fees (tax & LGL indiv) Google Suite Zoom Subscription Pay back capacity building General Liability Insurance Errors and Omissions Insurance General Supplies TOTAL

$4,240.00 $28,484.36

$4,870.52 $1,800.00 $200.00 $20.00 $600.00 $100.00 $200.00 $109.00 $165.00 $343.12 $350.00 $675.00 $0.00

$42,157.00

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IN LOVING MEMORY The Church Lab's ministry in 2021 is dedicated to the memory of Mopie (also known as Juanita Dear) & Father Thomas McKenzie MOPIE (pronounced "maw-pea"), Carrie's beloved grandma, moved in with Carrie's family when she was 11 years old. She and Carrie had a special connection indeed.

Mopie taught Carrie her favorite litanies and liturgies from the Episcopal Church. Carrie prefers to administer communion using the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer to this day. Carrie's favorite liturgical holiday is Maundy Thursday, which TCL celebrates each year, and which Mopie taught her all about.

There is no way to quantify Mopie's influence on Carrie's life and ministry. Mopie was also a proud supporter of The Church Lab, generous in prayer, energy, spirit and donations. The Church Lab is and always will be laced with the goodnesses Mopie brought into the ministry and mission of Carrie and The Church Lab.

FATHER THOMAS MCKENZIE has been the most consistent mentor and pastor in Carrie's life since she was 18 years-old. He encouraged Carrie to become a pastor and helped her through a discernment process in summer of 2004. He helped Carrie on a journey which led to the vision of The Church Lab and its mission. He took care to express his belief in Carrie and her calling, sometimes even when she wasn't so sure of it all herself.

Of course Thomas leaves a monumental legacy in this world because of his ministry, his calling, lived out at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee.

In a myriad of ways, Mopie and Thomas are Carrie hopes that TCL's mission and the most influential people in Carrie's ministry vision will endure in the ways it honors formation and ongoing vocation. Their Thomas, his own calling, ministry and unexpected absence this year leaves grievous wisdom. silences in their stead. Yet The Church Lab's work stands in their honor, as does your and all of our part in it. We celebrate them in this report, by celebrating the ways we have been faithful to TCL's mission. Thanks be to God for Mopie and Thomas. May they rest in Peace which surpasses all understanding. May we honor them as we seek to honor God and God's people with our lips , and more importantly, with our lives. 21

2021 SHOUT OUTS Our donating partners directly make TCL possible, and we are thankful for the ways God weaves our friends’ generosity together to make this endeavor a reality. Thanks be to God for you!

Our beloved dialogue community, who is the heartbeat of The Church Lab. Our amazingly fun Lab Partner Pastors and their PCUSA churches, who graciously experimented with this format alongside us this year: Rev. Amy "Amos" Meyer of First Presbyterian Church of Elgin and Rev. Rob Mueller of Church of the Divine Redeemer in San Antonio.

Anyone who participated in the Lab this year, whether in a worship experiment or a training or workshop! We are lucky to get to cross paths with the coolest people on the planet. We are so glad you joined us in the Lab this year.

Consulting TCL Pastoral Facilitators Rev. Laura Murray, Jenelle D'Alessandro and Stephen Norberg for their excellent work leading our Reimagining Service teams across the state of Texas!

Texas Impact, especially Bee Moorhead and Sid Earnheart, for taking a chance on partnering with The Church Lab these last two years. We are so grateful for the good we've gotten to do alongside Texas Impact through our Reimagining Service project!

Our original Reimagining Service team at University Presbyterian Church, and their pastor Rev. Matt Gaventa, for their stellar teamwork over not 1, but these last 2 years, and for their openness and generally just being a gift of a team.

Rev. Meg Vail, Jeannine Caracciolo, Dr. Bonnie Glass-Coffin and First Presbyterian Church of Logan, Utah, for making our weekend Navigating Divisive Conversations workshop possible and wonderful to experience with y'all!

Andrea Carroll, our fundraising chair and "can-do commander," for providing the support our board needs to meet our collective fundraising goals! She did absolutely incredible work putting TCL back into the social media world again.

We are beyond grateful!

Our wonderful board members: Chair Julie Hagen, Treasurer Wendy Cooper, Secretary Jenna Pontious, Fundraising Chair Andrea Carroll.

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Natalie Traylor, who overhauled our bookkeeping system in spectacular fashion!

Carlos Quinones for his hard work, and for Stacey Schwenker Mayo, who both devoted time and energy to help us with updating and organizing bookkeeping projects this spring.

Absolutely fantastic TCL interns Dash Kees and Julia Burkley, both of whom helped TCL reach new depths in our mission and communications. We delighted in journeying with both of them and are proud to call them part of Team TCL. Our second year of Advisory Council: Rev. Matt Gaventa, Rev. Elizabeth Mclean, Dr. Jen Rosner. Your questions, insights, confidence in our capacity and enthusiastic support for our mission means the world.

Our new support team for Carrie to receive insights, encouragement and prayer for her work in steering TCL's ship: Laura Jacob and Jana Sarnowski of Recovery Revolution.

Mission Capital, an organization who continues to offer us stellar resources and support throughout the year.

Pastor Carrie has a support system that makes her experimental work possible from behind the scenes, whether by mentors, family, friends, folks that help her process leadership decisions or simply help her get some rest or play in. She is immensely grateful for those that help her become a better pastor by making sure she is a whole human.

Thank God for y’all.

Special Shout Out to Ollie Jarvis OLLIE JARVIS, Pastoral Assistant We are deeply grateful for Ollie’s hard work, creativity, competence and passion. His integrity and devotion to The Church Lab’s mission, not to mention to being a great team member, has been an invaluable gift to our community. We are particularly grateful for Ollie as he shifts his role in the community from pastoral assistant to consulting pastoral facilitator. We are excited to see what his new role holds for him and TCL's mission in coming months and years.

Thanks be to God for you, Ollie.

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PLEASE PLEDGE!

We absolutely need your generosity to be able to keep up this good work!

If you’d like to give a one time donation, we would be so grateful!

You may do so right now at

thechurchlab.org.

Monthly pledgers are our most impactful donating partners. To become a pledger, you can also set it up online at thechurchlab.org. Please email carrie@thechurchlab.org to let us know if you’re able to commit to a 3-year recurring donation, or another timeframe of your choosing.

We are immensely grateful for your generosity, both in resources, prayers and participation.

We look forward to seeing you in the Lab soon!

©The Church Lab

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