Churches, Denominations and Religions: Embracing the Spirit: EDGEy Conversations, The Eco-Commoning Project Conference, and more!

Thursday, April 2, 2020

Embracing the Spirit: EDGEy Conversations, The Eco-Commoning Project Conference, and more!

Dear Friends,
We are living through challenging, unprecedented times, there's no doubt about it. We hope that you're all taking care of yourselves, and others, as you are able. For information about The United Church of Canada’s response and policies regarding COVID-19, please visit the United Church's dedicated webpage for official updates.

EDGE-Y Projects

Join us every Monday at 1:00 pm Eastern time for our EDGEy Conservation Series, and listen live to stories of innovation happening across the country. Can't join live? View the recorded conversations on our YouTube channel.

Here are two new videos for you to explore...

Transformational Leadership Institute (TLI)

The Transformational Leadership Institute is an initiative out of St. Andrew’s United Church in Halifax, that is working toward responding to the dynamic needs of their community. After deep discernment of their relationship in the neighbourhood and with the neighbourhood, they recognized that leadership development honouring diverse inter-faith perspectives was vital to building greater social cohesion.

Last fall, the first cohort of emerging leaders from diverse backgrounds participated in the initiative. A safe, open, and comfortable environment was created where participants where able to be vulnerable. All of the leaders finished the cohort having cultivated deeper relationships and connectivity with each other to do social good together. They are now looking at creating a global TLI.

Watch the full video featuring one of the leaders, a social entrepreneur, who shares how this has impacted them and their spiritual growth.

Link Mental Health

Radwan is a social entrepreneur and co-founder of Link Mental Health, an initiative that matches people with mental health services that best suit their needs and takes into account other factors such as cultural background and faith traditions.

He identified through lived experience that;

He had to wait for months for the help that he needed
He had to go through hoops to figure out what resources he could use to access these supports
He wasn’t finding a satisfactorily good fit in support that matched his faith tradition

Radwan attended a Social Innovation Challenge and found it to be a great way to understand how to build financially sustainable social impact. Link Mental Health launched two years ago and has continued to grow.

Hear more from Radwan in the full video.

[Photo: Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash]

Thinking Differently in the New Normal

The Eco-Commoning Project

Be a part of our first virtual conference! With physical distancing, The Eco-Commoning Project (virtual) conference is moving forward.

The Eco-Commoning Project is a partnership project between Community Innovation Hub and Eco-Commons. The Project aims to shift the social, political, economic and spiritual mindset from an individualistic-capitalist system of thought to a more relational one; an eco-commons way-of-life. The Eco-Commoning Project lifts up the values of local, cooperative, equitable and sustainable in order to envision communities of faith as radical Changemakers and Innovators in these areas.

Join us online to think creatively about commoning, social innovation and social enterprise in communities of faith. Take part in an interactive key-note presentation from Rev. Dr. Ted Reeve and The Very Rev. Bill Phipps on how the social/economic theory of commoning applies to spirituality and communities of faith. Engage with local stories and take-part in conversation-style action planning and reflection through the World Cafe model.

Register here.

[Image: The Eco-Comming Project]

Over 200 Online Worshipping Communities

See where and what is happening here with over 250 faith communities listed.

People are talking about how communities of faith are responding. St. Matthew’s United Church in Toronto was featured in the news for the work they are doing on keeping community connected; read more here.

[Photo: Annie Spratt on Unslash]

How Are You Being Creative?

Have a story of how your community of faith has responded to COVID-19? Share it with us!

[Photo: Neel on Unsplash]

Embracing the Spirit is a learning network and innovation fund. It offers funding and support for innovation ideas hatched out of faith communities and communities in ministry. Some of the stories and best practices that are happening throughout The United Church of Canada are shared in this newsletter.

If you have an idea that you want to launch, reach out and tell us about it! Proposal deadlines are quarterly, and due on the 15th of the month: January, April, July and October. Find out more.