What a journey it has been as we head toward the close of our Sophia Course on Brian McLaren's new book, Faith After Doubt. These conversations have been beautiful reflections on the movement through the four stages of faith that Brian has laid out, and THIS SUNDAY, Brian will be with us live for some conversation and Q&R! Sunday's conversation will be our final conversation on the book, and we are so excited to hold space with y'all this weekend to connect with Brian around these important ideas and dialogues. The conversation will begin at 7:30 PM and end at 9 PM.

You won't want to miss tonight's conversation, as we are joined by author, scholar, and activist theologian Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. Robyn is a brilliant teacher, public theologian, and cultural analyst who has a finger on the pulse of our time, and will lead the Way Collective community in a time of contemplation, reflection, and conversation. Their wisdom is rooted in many of the same values our community holds, and we are grateful to be able to spend some time with them in dialogue this week. Robyn has an amazing way of grounding themselves in contemplative wisdom, while remaining committed to the work of healing justice in our world, and we can't wait for you to meet them and jump in to a meaningful night of conversation and contemplation together.

Resources for Grounding in a Crisis @ 12 PM. I'm so excited that my friend Teresa Mateus will be joining the Way for a lunch break conversation about the shifts she is seeing in this time of crisis for many. You won't want to miss this conversation as she leads us through the following topics:

• Overall elements of sustained and collective crisis

• Issues of disparity in race/ethnicity in the experience of the moment and lineages of trauma and inequity

• Issues of primary and secondary grief - and how grief is stunted in crisis and trauma and specifically this crisis with medical factors that stunt pre-emptive grief and general grief

• The impact on frontline workers and the specific ways in which this is overwhelming for folks who are in closest proximity to danger, trauma, sadness, etc

• The post-pandemic or post-peak issues we have to be careful of - the emotional toll of sustained crisis over time (things we can learn from war and social movements)

• Practical ways to ground in the moment and manage what we can, also let go for now of what we can't

WAY COLLECTIVE X HEARTWAY Cultivating Inner Stillness with Danny Prada @ 12PM Come join us for a lunch break as we connect with a like-minded community from Florida called Heartway. (Southern California X Southern Florida??) My friend Danny Prada who is their core teacher and some of their community are going to join us for a conversation about the practice of cultivating inner stillness, which is so needed in a time like ours. You won't want to miss this conversation, as Danny is super practical and really great at distilling the contemplative journey down to a relatable and accessible path using Christian language. We hope you'll come join the conversation HERE.

We're spending our lunch break dialoguing with my dear friend Bo Sanders, whose new book, Decolonizing Evangelicalism, is a wonderful resource for those of us coming from a more Evangelical background, but also for anyone on a migratory faith journey, or anyone who may be wondering about how to understand what is happening in American Evangelicalism during this cultural moment. Come listen and learn from Bo, and ask questions about how we can be a people who carries Christianity forward without the colonizing tendencies of the past. You won't want to miss this! Come hang out during your lunch break & join the conversation. You can click HERE to join in!

One of the relationships that is feeling the effects of this current moment is the conversation around science and religion. Whereas many feel that the word God should sparingly be uttered in a laboratory, and that science is generally distrusted by most churches, there are in fact a group of scientists, philosophers, and theologians who are seeing more connections than reasons for division. Perhaps God and science are meeting in new and surprising ways that could only be possible given how far we've come.

My friend Trey Pearson, lead singer of Christian rock group Everyday Sunday-turnedsolo artist is coming to SB on February 22nd, and is hosting an evening concert and conversation around the church and the LGBTQ community. Many of our beloved LGBTQ friends and family members have been hurt by the church's treatment toward them, and I'd love to invite you to come hear Trey share his journey to self-acceptance and play songs from his debut solo album, "Love Is Love".

In her most recent book, Grateful, Diana helps us to see that although most of us know that gratitude is good — and good for us — there is a gap between our desire to be grateful and our ability to behave gratefully. The implications of the gap are bigger than we realize, affecting both our personal and public lives. In Grateful, Diana weaves together social science research, spiritual wisdom, and contemporary issues as she calls for a richer understanding and practice of gratitude. What emerges are surprising insights about the power of thankful living to change how we treat one another, and how we might transform our world.

Join the Way Collective for a public forum on the Future of the Christian Story: Conspiring for Common Good in Santa Barbara & Beyond w/Brian McLaren & David N. Moore. In this gathering, we will explore the six stories that dominate our world and how Jesus offers us a different story and way to be together in community. Brian will present on this topic, and David will respond and dialogue, helping us catch how this "Seventh Story" can be lived out right here in the city of Santa Barbara. There will also be a discussion for everyone to participate in and some Q&R with Brian and David to follow. If you are carrying questions about the future of the Christian story and life, and are genuinely interested in how we can work together for the common good in Santa Barbara, then this event is for you! Feel free to join in, invite your friends, as this is a free event that is open to the public.

Time: Saturday, April 14th @ 7PM
Place: First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 1915 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Join us for a special Way Collective only workshop with Brian discovering how we can continue on our journey of being a community that lives the Jesus way of life together. This will be an intimate time with him to explore what it looks like to be a community of faith focused on living well for the common good. Topics for discussion will include Brian's Way of Life curriculum that corresponds with his book The Great Spiritual Migration, spiritual peacemaking, and life together. Childcare, coffee, and refreshments will be provided. If you are or have wanted to be a part of our community, you definitely won't want to miss this!

In his new book, The Great Spiritual Migration, Brian argues that— notwithstanding the dire headlines about the demise of faith and drop in church attendance—Christian faith is not dying. Rather, it is embarking on a once-in-an-era spiritual shift. And that, for millions, the journey has already begun. Drawing from his work as global peacemaker, pastor, and public theologian, McLaren challenges readers to stop worrying, waiting, and indulging in nostalgia, and instead, to embrace the powerful new understandings that are reshaping the church. In The Great Spiritual Migration, he explores three profound shifts that define the change:

Healing Suppers have the potential to be many things - a resistance to the constant pull of work, organizing, protesting and the stress of living with marginalization - by providing time to sit down, actually chew food, look into the face of others and share a time of rest and refueling. They can be an opportunity to build resilience by tanking up on nourishing conversation, healthy and delicious food, and making or solidifying relationships. And each of us knows that strong, dependable relationships, self-healing, and care for one another provide a critical layer of support during times of more extreme struggle. As we continue to move through a time of renewed public intolerance, a rapidly changing political landscape with real consequence and a need for stronger alternative networks, we need those relationships and the spaces that cultivate them more than ever. 

In 1969, the devastating images of a massive oil spill from an oil platform off Santa Barbara’s coast galvanized California into action and caught the attention of the rest of the nation, including Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, who visited Santa Barbara shortly after the spill. The resulting swell of outrage and concern gave rise to the first Earth Day in 1970, as well as to the creation of the Community Environmental Council – one of the most established environmental organizations in the region, and the host of Santa Barbara’s annual Earth Day Festival. The Way Collective is an annual exhibitor at the festival in order to support planetary compassion and environmental awareness among local communities of faith, as well as to join with our civic partners in promoting care for the Earth and sustainable living.