Leading the initiative are YDS Associate Dean for Ministerial and Social Leadership Bill Goettler and Director of Professional Formation Alison Cunningham ’84 M.Div., with consulting support from Director of Black Church Studies Joanne Jennings. The student facilitators are in their final year of study and have already completed a parish-based internship.Ĭoncurrently with their working group participation, each student facilitator takes part in an advanced practicum class at YDS, where they explore topics such as discernment as a communal project and the development of New Haven’s neighborhoods, including the churches’ histories within the context of those neighborhoods. The working group in each church consists of five congregation members along with the pastor and a YDS student facilitator. The four-year initiative, now in its second year, focuses on 40 Connecticut churches and provides a learning experience for students and local congregations alike.

“I believe strongly in the gifts of the laity, so to be able to facilitate a group in which laypeople were given the power to be the leaders and instigators of new and revived ministries in their congregation was transformative,” Wise says of her experience with the Cheshire congregation. and was one of nine groups that kicked off the inaugural year for the Divinity School’s initiative, “Reimagining Church: New Models for the 21st Century in 2021.”įunded by a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the project focuses on helping churches find dynamic new approaches to congregational life and community engagement. The group was facilitated by Leah Wise ’22 M.Div. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cheshire, Conn., they might just hold the key to envisioning the future of the church. What do goats, graveyards, and pumpkins have in common?įor a working group at St.

Connecting Dots by Sharon Jennings