Alt*Div Believes
"Community ministry" can look like many things...
The thread that seems to run through everything you do is a quest for human connection and belonging. You have worked hard to create ways for this to happen, and you are yearning to find ways to support your own learning and growth on this journey. Perhaps you have thought about actually going to divinity school, formal ministry, or counseling, but you are not sure these are the right paths for you.
Spiritual pluralism is a core value...
Many don't identify with just one spiritual home. Whether raised in multiple faiths, distanced from their own tradition, or drawn to the cracks between affiliations; alt*divvers view such non-traditional identities as a strength, not an add-on.
Pursuit of justice = spiritual leadership...
We live in a world built on intersecting systems of oppression. In order to build cultures of courage, care, and wholeness, we must see the direct relationship between spiritual formation and the pursuit of justice.
Practical learning is in the books and on the ground...
There are artists, entrepreneurs, and movement builders who are already doing work in the world. They are seeking to integrate that work fully into their learning journey, instead of adding isolated "coursework" on top.
How We Welcome
This group represents, welcomes, and is intentionally woven together through what each of us carries and contributes from many different backgrounds and experiences. We do this with the hope of building something more beautiful and strong together than we would ever be able to create in silos of separation.
In order to do this, we do not just include many perspectives across race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, and, religion, but we intentionally weave together and build our community by:
Centering the voices, needs, and experiences of those who do not benefit from the privileges of Whiteness or cultural supremacy in other forms (such as Christian Supremacy). We are deeply committed to both dismantling and healing the wounds of these cultures of supremacy, in all of their manifestations, because we understand that all of our liberation is inextricably bound up with each others’. We acknowledge that we come from a world built on intersecting and overlapping systems of privileges and oppression, so we hold ourselves and each other to the highest standards of resisting replicating cultures and patterns of violence that exist in our wider culture (and therefore in ourselves) within our community.
Putting pluralism of religious and cultural traditions (including “none”) at our very heart. Many of us come from or have explored multiple faith traditions or sources of meaning making. At the same time we challenge ourselves to be sincere in our explorations, and conscious of appropriation and colonial tendencies while grasping for meaning from traditions outside our family and culture of origin.
Are not a gender-binary-conforming group. We are LGBTQ+, and LGBTQ+ welcoming.
Whatever our background, each person is invited to shape the way this group works, according to the gifts and wisdom they carry. We strive to always be learning and growing in our practice and understanding of how to create loving and healing spaces because we understand that our liberation is collective.