SF Regional Gathering 2024
The escalating signs of climate collapse can provoke a range of responses in us. Denial. Numbness. Dread. Anxiety. Anger. But what if we could begin to reckon with the collapse of the world we have known in the company of God’s people? What if we could find gospel partnership and learn steps of hopeful repentance, love, and action?
The first ever Ekklesia SF Regional Gathering will engage with the reality of climate collapse through the lens of grief and congregational practices grounded in hope.
This regional gathering will engage content from the 2024 Ekklesia Gathering in Monrovia, CA on the theme of Bearing Witness to Grief: Climate Collapse, Resistance, and Grounded Hope. Ched Myers and Elaine Enns’ prophetic plenary paper “Climate Grief and Remorse: Quandaries and Queries” will provide the launch point for reflection and circle conversations. Stories and experiments in hopeful action from the sponsoring congregations will help lead us toward "deprivatizing anxiety" and "collectivizing repentance and imagination" (Ched Myers). True to the aims of the Ekklesia Project, this regional gathering will be a space to discover friendship that sustains faithful discipleship and the life of local congregations.
Co-sponsored by
The Ekklesia Project, Grace Fellowship Community Church, Redeemer Community Church, and Church of the Sojourners
Saturday, November 2, 2024
GRACE FELLOWSHIP COMMUNITY CHURCH
3265 16th Street ▪ San Francisco, CA 94103
9:00 AM to 3:00 PM
General Schedule
Pre-gathering Reading and reflecting on Ched Myers and Elaine Enns’ paper
Morning Welcome, Opening Worship, Panel Discussion, Circle Conversations
Lunch
Afternoon Art, Initiating Congregational Dialogues, Congregational Experiments in Hope
Parking and Transportation
Because our gathering centers on climate grief, we are encouraging everyone to walk, take transit, bike, or carpool to our gathering.
Transit: Grace Fellowship Community Church is three blocks from the 16th Street/Mission BART Station and three blocks from the Church Street Muni Station.
Street Parking: Street parking in the neighborhood is available for all day parking, but best to come a bit early to find a parking spot.
Paid Parking: The 16th Street & Hoff Garage is also available at $4 per hour for those who need it.
Plenary Paper Authors
A fifth generation Californian, Ched Myers is an activist theologian who has worked in social change and radical discipleship movements for more than 45 years. With a degree in New Testament Studies, he is a popular educator who animates scripture and issues of faith-based peace and justice. He has authored over 100 articles and more than a half-dozen books, including Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus; Our God is Undocumented: Biblical Faith and Immigrant Justice (with Matthew Colwell); and Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice. Most of Ched’s articles can be found at www.bcm-net.org. He is currently completing a book on the Gospel of Luke and plutocracy.
Elaine Enns has worked in the field of restorative justice since 1989, first focusing on victim-offender dialogue in the Criminal Justice System, and more recently looking at how restorative solidarity applies to historical violations, including issues of intergenerational trauma, healing, and decolonization. Elaine trains and teaches throughout North America, and her latest book, co-authored with her partner Ched Myers, is Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization (Wipf & Stock, 2021). An ecumenical Mennonite, Elaine was born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and lives in southern California where she co-directs Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries on traditional Chumash land.
