Convocation 2022
Imagination and Collective Liberation for a Climate-Changed World
Thursday & Friday, October 6 - 7, 2022
As we hear daily news of traumatic change, suffering, and crisis, we long for a world that holds justice and peace for all people and all beings. But how do we co-create such a world — one in which thriving is the right of all?
Join us for Convocation 2022: Imagination and Collective Liberation for a Climate-Changed World. Inspired by a group of thoughtful presenters, artists, and leaders, we’ll explore what it means to nourish our imaginations toward a world of joyful possibility and embodied hope, while also holding space for the difficult realities we are facing.
Over the course of two days — Thursday afternoon and evening and all day Friday — we will gather for online presentations, small group engagement, and worship. We will also offer time to connect in intentional affinity groups for continued learning and reflection. Incorporating music, the arts, and contemplative practice, Convocation 2022 promises both challenge and respite, a space where we can gather to root with honesty and compassion in our climate-changed world, while also turning our imaginations toward the collective liberation of the earth and all beings.
Climate Changed
A Podcast from The BTS Center
The BTS Center's new podcast, Climate Changed offers intimate interviews and conversations around some of the most pressing questions about faith, life, and climate change. Hosted by Ben Yosua-Davis, Director of Applied Research, and Nicole Diroff, Program Director, and produced by Peterson Toscano, the podcast features acclaimed guests such as Corina Newsome, Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, poet Criag Santos Perez, and many more, all exploring what spiritual leadership looks and feels like in a climate-changed world. New episodes will premier monthly. You can click here to find Climate Changed on your favorite listening platform – subscribe now so you can listen to new episodes as soon as they are available!
The Intersectional Environmentalist Book Study
Five Tuesdays, October 18 - November 15, 2022
5:00 - 6:15 pm (Eastern) • Online
Please join us as we delve into the important questions, challenges, and opportunities of an intersectional ecological lens through a book study on The Intersectional Environmentalist. Co-facilitated over the course of five sessions by Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, rev. abby mohaupt, and Rev. Nicole Diroff, this book study will offer opportunities for:
- Sharing insights, questions and stories that emerge from each chapter of the book
- Interfaith conversation on how to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people & planet
- Presentations on the nuances of environmental racism from a public health perspective, and
- Discussion of opportunity for direct action within participants' local contexts
We hope you will join us for these essential conversations!
Lament with Earth
Thursday, October 27, 2022 • 7:30 - 8:30 pm (Eastern)
Fall Event: Via Negativa, with the Element of Air
In the Fall, as the natural world becomes more still, and stark, we, too are invited to let go — to, in the words of Matthew Fox, "embrace the lonely, quiet moments in our lives when we are asked to sink into nothingness, to let pain be pain, and accept the mysteries of life." When the trees lose their leaves, spaces open up — and we can see things differently. We see the world starkly, as it really can be, absent the robust greenery that hides the structures of the trees’ branches and trunks — and, in the cities, can also hide the angularity of the built environment.
In the same way, when we are stripped of our illusions — the false sense that the climate isn’t really changing, it was just a particularly hot, or wet, fiery, or dry summer this year — we can see things differently. We need to have our illusions peeled away, to face the hard truths of our times. It is better to live in the truth. But we need to have real, loving company in order to do that...otherwise, in our isolation, we are far more subject to despair.
EcoPreacher Cohort
November 2022 - November 2023
Once a month from 1:00 - 2:15 pm Eastern • Online
With the desire to support, educate, and engage preachers in the integration of climate consciousness into their preaching, The BTS Center has partnered with Creation Justice Ministries, a Christian eco-justice organization with a long history of religiously grounded environmental advocacy. Together, we are pleased to offer this year-long cohort of learning, companionship, and exploration.
Facilitated by Rev. Nicole Diroff of The BTS Center and Avery Davis Lamb of Creation Justice Ministries, with collaborators Rev. Dr. Leah Schade and Dr. Rebecca Kneale Gould, this cohort will offer an expansive opportunity for connection, creativity, and grounded responses to climate change through the art of preaching.
Upwelling
Welcome to Upwelling, the inaugural issue of The BTS Center’s new, occasional print newsletter. We are delighted to connect with you in this way, and we hope that when you are finished reading, you might pass your copy along to someone else who might be interested.
Report to the Community 2022
With gratitude for all the ways you support, encourage, and enliven the work of The BTS Center, we are pleased to share with you a PDF version of our Report to the Community — our first ever publication like this, at least in recent memory, and a true labor of love. We hope you will take some time to flip through its pages, to scan its colorful images, to read its stories, and to find your place within the ever-expanding community that we are convening.
Would you believe me if I told you we were the forerunners a great spiritual renewal? What if I said this renewal would change our global culture at the end of this century? That it will see the emergence of a new mysticism in contrast to technology and a strong social conscience of sustainability and justice. We are at the very beginning of this movement. We will not all live to see its first moments of birth, but we will have the joy of knowing that we were the shoulders on which others stood to make it a reality. History will show that what we did today to lift up an open-minded spirituality, welcoming to all people, made a difference. Our choice to stand together, to advocate for justice, and to heal this planet will be recognized as the breakthrough. Because we did not give up, they excelled. Would you believe me if I told you that?
