Claiming Your Call
for a Climate-Changed World
A Three-Day Retreat and Year-Long Community of Practice
for Northeast Congregations
Designed for congregations ready to meet this moment with faith and imagination, Claiming Your Call invites faith communities to listen deeply for their collective calling in a climate-changed world — and to respond together.
What does climate-changed mean?
A climate-changed world is one where our planet’s margins of distress are thin. Climate change impacts human conflict, food systems, the migration of humans and other species, natural disasters, and more.
Claiming Your Call is an invitation to place-based justice work for a climate-changed world.
At a Glance
Application Deadline
March 25, 2026
Accepted congregations announced by April 6, 2026
Year-long community of practice
April 2026 – May 2027
Location: remote, determined by each participating congregation
Retreat for program participants
Thursday, May 14 at 10:30am – Saturday, May 16 at 12:30pm
Location: Schoodic Institute, Winter Harbor, Maine
Program fee
$250-$2,500 per congregational team, sliding scale
No fee to apply
Claiming Your Call is designed for congregations listening deeply for their collective calling in a climate-changed world.
Throughout the year, each congregation will be accompanied by one of four experienced guides.
At the heart of the program is a three-day retreat centered on congregational discernment in a climate-changed world. In cross-congregational discernment groups, participants will engage:
- Biblical study and theological reflection
- Spiritual practices and ritual for grounding and courage
- Insights from Western climate science and traditional ecological knowledge
Claiming Your Call is not about quick fixes for our church buildings or grounds. It is about faithful presence, honest discernment, and learning how our congregations are called to embody hope, justice, and resilience—together—in a world that is changing before our eyes.
About the Year-Long Community of Practice
Team Composition
We’re seeking 12 New England congregations to participate in this year-long transformative experience, each bringing a team of four leaders. From April 2026 through May 2027, congregational teams will form a community of practice grounded in shared inquiry and real-world application.
Each team should include the congregation’s pastor or functional equivalent. Congregations are encouraged to consider diversity in age, identities, background, and professional interest when forming their teams. The ideal team will be intergenerational.
Congregations that participated in the 2024-2025 cohort may choose to apply again. These congregations must assemble teams with laypeople who did not previously participate.
What to Expect
The program consists of pre-retreat preparation, a transformative retreat experience, and post-retreat experimentation—supported by structured virtual meet-ups to share reflections, learning, and mutual encouragement.
Participating congregations will:
• Build community, learn, and engage in vocational formation with theologians, scientists, and indigenous leaders
• Learn about the unique role that the Christian tradition and your congregation can play in a climate-changed world by offering care and advocating for justice in the places you call home
• Engage in place-based formation, song, worship, and play with the grounds of Acadia National Park as your classroom
• Integrate what you’ve learned through a Community of Practice by taking on a “small experiment with vocational intent,” supported by a community of peers
About the Retreat
Claiming Your Call will begin with a three-day retreat at the Schoodic Institute in Acadia National Park in Maine.
In the company of this coastal boreal-deciduous forest, congregational teams will engage in deep conversation with theologians, scientists, and indigenous scholars about what a spiritually-grounded, justice-seeking response to climate change could look like for their churches. This retreat will serve as the foundation for congregations’ subsequent “small experiments with vocational intent” in the context of a supportive community of practice.
Schoodic Institute
Named one of the top venues for nature lovers in the country, the Schoodic Institute is located in Acadia National Park and is Acadia’s primary partner in science and education. Located on the rugged Maine coastland, surrounded by thousands of acres of evergreen forests, the park hosts conferences, retreats, and workshops for groups from around the world.
Participants traveling from further away may choose to stay independently at the Schoodic Institute before or after the retreat.
Read about Schoodic Institute’s support and commitment to Wabanaki communities on their website.
Claiming Your Call Leadership
Meet the Retreat Leaders
Your retreat leaders are renowned for their eco-spiritual leadership, and they’ll offer insightful presentations during your days at Schoodic. Following the retreat, teams will have the chance to engage with them again for discernment in the design of your small experiments.
John Bear Mitchell
Natalie Michelle
Chris Nadeau
Meet the Guides
Guides support congregations in your retreat discernment group throughout the learning community process through active listening, encouragement and gentle accountability, and generative questions as congregations discern their vocational intent and design their small experiments.
Rev. Dr. Wanda Stahl
Rev. Diane Anderson
Rev. Dr. Daniel Carlson
Rev. Alison Boden
Meet the Leadership Team
The Leadership Team is honored to co-design this retreat and year-long community of learning for your congregations.
Rev. Dr. Allen Ewing-Merrill
Rev. Nicole Diroff
Ben Yosua-Davis
Rev. Dr. Wanda Stahl
Derrick Weston
Liz Fulmer
Avery Davis Lamb
Rev. Doug Kaufman
Marissa Salgado
Program Partnership
