Meeting the growing need in communities of faith for well-formed leaders with practical skills for engaging a changing world...
WHAT IS BTW?
Beyond These Walls (BTW) is grant project funded by Trinity Wall Street to support a women and non-binary led project in theological education. In collaboration with the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan and The Hive, an online spiritual wellness learning community, we are developing as-yet-unimagined forms of theological education to resource emerging leaders in diverse contexts. We aim to teach and learn with communities of faith who have often found theological education to be irrelevant or inaccessible.
BTW addresses the need for innovation in leadership formation to nurture emerging faith communities and honor the gifts already present in populations who have been traditionally marginalized. We center the pedagogy of women of color, who have been organizing along similar lines. We utilize strengths-based models of assessment that identify leadership competencies, and we develop leadership education and formation models beyond the walls of traditional seminaries and parish ministry.
With a focus on community and belonging, we offer rigorous theological education for emerging leaders in and beyond churches and seminaries.
SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
We undertake our work with the conviction that historically marginalized communities have enormous and untapped wisdom that will be transformational to the church and the world. When both lay and ordained leaders are resourced and empowered to live out the transforming love of Christ in effective, adaptive, and faith-filled ways, we will be helping to shape a future in which the Church is freed to do more of its prophetic, justice-focused, and meaning-making work in the world.
