Key Takeaways

• The Metaphor of Refugia: Nurturing life-giving spaces in the earth, our cultural systems, and our spiritual communities, even amidst severe disturbance and the climate crisis.

• The Church’s “Dark Night of the Soul”: Understanding the current decline and confusion in conventional churches as a Spirit-breathed “dark night” that detaches us from corporate ego and empire, making way for a deeper experience of God.

• Holy Experimentation: How Spring Forest functions as a practice-based, dispersed network moving in and out of the farm space, rooted in a simple rule of life: prayer, work, table, neighbor, and rest.

• Healing Theology and Land: Recognizing how theology has been damaged by colonization, patriarchy, and empire, and pursuing an embodied redemption by getting our hands in the soil.

• Mycelial Networks of Faith: Using the underground fungus of the forest as a model for how diverse, context-specific ministries can fruit in different neighborhoods while remaining spiritually connected.

• Neighboring Well: A practical starting point for change—forming authentic friendships, sharing meals, and showing up for the people who live on your street, not as a church program, but as living church.

Resources & Links:

• The BTS Center Blog: What is Mature Hope?
• More from Refugia Podcast: Refugia Podcast
• Bio: Debra Rienstra – The BTS Center
• Book Discussion Guide: Refugia Faith Discussion Guide
• Climate Changed Appearance: Season Two, Episode 5
• Newsletter: The Refugia Substack
• Website: DebraRienstra.com
• Community: Spring Forest
• Book: God Unbound: Wisdom from Galatians for the Anxious Church

Meet Our Hosts

Autumn Brown (she/her) is an artist, facilitator, mother, and theologian. The front woman of the eponymously named soul-pop band, AUTUMN, she is a queer, mixed-race Black woman, a gifted facilitator and orator, and a freedom worker who grounds her approach to building movements for liberation in her belief in the innate capacity for healing that emanates from the human heart.

Rev. Nicole Diroff (she/her) is ordained in the United Church of Christ. She holds expertise in facilitation, data management, and strategic planning. Nicole is a certified Maine Master Naturalist, serves as Chair of the Spiritual Formation Committee at Williston-Immanuel United Church and is Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee for the Scarborough Public School District.

Meet Our Producer

After spending 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to “de-gay” himself through conversion therapy, Peterson Toscano came out a quirky queer Quaker concerned with human rights. He also produces other podcasts including Citizens Climate Radio, Bubble & Squeak, and the Bible Bash Podcast. Peterson has been featured in People Magazine, The Times of London, the Trya Banks Show, and NPR Morning Edition. He lives in Pretoria, South Africa with his husband, Glen Retief.