What to expect

As chaplains, preachers, pastors, lay leaders, and spiritual seekers, we already have rich resources for this moment. They just aren’t always easy to reach.

To that end, The BTS Center invites you into a learning community built on Waterspirit’s Climate Pastoral Care course developed by Jessica Morthorpe and Blair Nelsen. Twice a month, your facilitators will guide you through the course and additional curated resources, exploring dimensions of the climate crisis and how spiritual care can meet them.

You’ll leave with practical tools for your own vocation, and something more: the reminder that you already have what it takes. The skills and wisdom you bring as a practitioner are exactly what this moment needs.

Time commitment

Learning Community Facilitators

Nicholas Collura currently directs the Radius program for ethical reflection on technology and culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also serves as a campus chaplain. Prior to his time at MIT, he trained as a board-certified healthcare chaplain and worked in both caregiving and supervisory roles in palliative care and hospice for several years in Philadelphia. There, he also co-founded and co-coordinated EcoPhilly, a faith-based organizing initiative dedicated to creation care in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Nicholas is a trained and practicing spiritual director who is certified as a teacher in the Narrative Enneagram Tradition. He earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from Fordham University and is an adjunct lecturer in Villanova University’s Master’s program in pastoral care, where he teaches The Spirituality of Care and Human Growth and Faith Development. Additionally, he offers retreats and workshops on eco-spirituality, the political context of spiritual care, Ignatian spirituality, and other topics. His early education was in film studies and comparative literature, and he retains an avid interest in the arts and a respect for the wisdom of the creative imagination.

Rev. Ash Temin is a program consultant at The BTS Center, as well as a spiritual director and writer. Until recently, Ash served as the Staff Writer + Program Manager at The BTS Center. Ash is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA), the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin (MPhil) and Harvard Divinity School (MDiv). Her time at both the ISE and HDS sparked a passion for ecological theology and prompted her to begin delving more deeply into the experience of ecological grief.

Before her time at The BTS Center, Ash held roles as an acting associate pastor and as a hospital and hospice chaplain, as well as various administrative roles at Harvard University. She also has worked as an adjunct professor and a freelance editor. After time spent living in Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Ireland, and Massachusetts, Ash is grateful to call Maine home. She lives with her husband and two cats and enjoys cooking with friends, laying in her garden hammock, hiking in the woods, playing in the ocean, and attempting to learn the Irish language with a cat on her lap.

Our Partner Organization

Waterspirit is a spiritual ecology nonprofit that informs, inspires, and empowers people of all beliefs to deepen their consciousness of the sacredness of water and the interdependence of all Earth’s systems. In Waterspirit, a reverence for water includes a commitment to preserve and protect this source and sustainer of life. Programs, learning, reflection, and ritual lead to action on behalf of water.