Background

The formation project came from YEARS OF LISTENING TO, AND WANTING TO SERVE, THE EMERGING LANDSCAPE OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY INNOVATION.

Some of you may have come to this project through How We Gather, a 24-page report by Casper ter Kuile and Angie Thurston. In 2019, with our colleague Sue Phillips, we co-founded Sacred Design Lab, which is supported through a partnership between Harvard Divinity School and the Fetzer Institute.

What began in 2015 as a student-led exploration of how Millennials are finding and building communities of meaning and belonging, gained traction because it named how these innovative communities are doing traditionally religious work in new ways. It showed a breakdown of old conceptual and institutional silos, including what is “religious” and what “secular,” and began to highlight the deeply religious longings of people otherwise categorized as “unaffiliated” or “spiritual but not religious.” And in a time when many in religious institutions are focused on what is dying, we committed to shining a light on the emerging life at the intersections of community, spirituality and justice work.

Joining with Jen Bailey, we began gathering leaders annually, hosting groups of innovative community leaders from organizations as diverse as CrossFit, Afro Flow Yoga, dinner churches, public meditation groups, makerspaces and many others. Across this variety of efforts, there was a kinship in the commitment to personal and social transformation, deep community, creativity, accountability, and purpose finding.

Learning how best to support the innovative leaders of these communities became a central focus of our work. We kept hearing that they were feeling set apart, lonely, and overwhelmed. They were being treated like pastors - with community members coming to them about marriage, death, children, and everything in between - and they were hungry for peers, elders, training, and some way to deepen their own wells so they could go deep with the people in their care. This led to the Formation Gathering in September 2017.

From this powerful gathering of about 80 leaders over four days, we learned a great deal about formation - including the importance of creating a strong, long-lasting container of deep community and allowing the process to emerge over time. A month later, we began putting plans in place for the Formation Project. The pilot was incubated at the On Being Project with a design team that included Eddie Gonzalez and Katie Gordon.

The pilot launched in October 2018 following one full year of development. And it only happened because of countless conversations, interviews, collaborative design sessions, and ancient and living examples. In particular, we are grateful for the generous counsel of Sr. Carol Zinn, Sr. Mary Dacey, Sr. Anne Curtis, Sr. Sue Mosteller, Liza Rankow, Darrell Jones III, Killian Noe, Christian Peele, Lawrence Barriner, II, Erica Williams Simon, Zach Anderson, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Sarah Koss, Michelle Scheidt, Dudley Rose, Bethany Iverson, Parker Palmer, Charlene Diorka, Michelle Lesher, Ashley Clements, the team at Alt*Div, and the folks at Church of the Saviour including Joseph Deck, Kim Montroll, Marjory Bankson, and Mike Little.

2023-Present: Stewardship

Now we have carried the program into an in-person cohort and are looking to embed the Formation Project within higher education. This program is supported financially by the Crestwood Foundation. Our current advisors include lawrence barriner ii and Angie Thurston.

Katie Gordon
Sarah McCarthy Grimm
Marlene Kowalski-Braun
Tammy Monroe

2019-2022: Stewardship

A group of facilitators and participants from the pilot year came together to carry the Formation Project forward. This program was supported financially by the Crestwood Foundation. The core advisor was Angie Thurston with many other pilot alums offering support along the way.

Djalòki Dessables
Katie Gordon
lawrence barriner ii
Nasya Miller
Raisa Tolchinsky

2018-2019: Pilot Design Team

The 2018-2019 pilot was incubated at the On Being Project and completed at Sacred Design Lab. We thank Michelle Scheidt at the Fetzer Institute and Dudley Rose at Harvard Divinity School for their ongoing support. We are also especially grateful to Darrell Jones III and Christian Peele for their profound work in helping to bring this to life.

Angie Thurston
Sue Phillips
Casper ter Kuile
Eddie Gonzalez
Katie Gordon