Because different can be divine.<\/p>\n
This group of innovative faith leaders is getting a boost from a Luther Seminary initiative that encourages those who are doing kingdom-building in new and unique ways. The Seeds Project Fellowship<\/a> provides financial and other support to ministry leaders around the country who are changing how faith is labeled, perceived, and practiced.<\/p>\n The Seeds Project <\/strong>offers a 12-month, fully funded fellowship program for leaders who are passionate about cultivating communities using creative methods. Seeds also provides digital content for spiritual seekers and a learning hub for those passionate about sharing the gospel with their neighbors in effective ways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe seeds of innovative ministry are scattered throughout Christ\u2019s church and frequently are just out of sight or on the edges,\u201d said Michael Chan \u201909 M.A.<\/strong>, associate professor of Old Testament and a member of the Seeds Fellowship Guiding Team. \u201cWe hope that the Seeds Project will inspire other church leaders to support those around them who are doing creative ministry for the sake of the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n Throat clearing and loud silence often precede the event that, at first glance, has the feel of an open mic night at a comedy club. It\u2019s not a tight five-minute stand-up set that these speakers are working toward, however. It\u2019s something infinitely harder: truth.<\/p>\n These evenings, what Alexus Rhone calls adult storytelling events, are about breaking down barriers and putting vulnerability on display. The stories can be funny, heartbreaking, revealing, powerful, and even painful. The event is designed to use stories as the conduit to community, because it\u2019s in that relationship-building that the gospel is revealed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are blessed by all the ways that life happens, by how life creates celebration, or by how life throws us a curveball,\u201d Rhone said. \u201cWhen we invite storytelling and sharing, we share experiences of success or failure, and as a person listening, you might say, \u2018I had that experience as well.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cMaking room, especially through stories, for that vulnerability, that shared experience \u2026 it\u2019s powerful to cultivate the ability to see yourself in someone else and work toward a common good.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhone\u2019s \u201cTruth, Meet Story\u201d work is one of two dozen projects funded with a $150,000 grant from Trinity Church Wall Street through Luther Seminary\u2019s 12-month Seeds Project Fellowship program, part of the school\u2019s Faith+Lead initiative. The fellowship program specifically seeks out and supports innovators of diverse backgrounds and approaches. Though all 24 fellows\u2014two groups of 12 leaders\u2014are Christians, more than 40% of the group identifies as unaffiliated with any particular denomination. Focusing on doing good rather than requiring ideological uniformity, said leaders including Rhone, means more people are open to a larger conversation about community. And when the focus on community comes, it often is built in the context of a communion of faith.<\/p>\n \u201cI embrace mystery,\u201d said Rhone, who holds a master\u2019s degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. \u201cI don\u2019t know how people are going to respond to these events. But I do know that there are a lot of questions. There\u2019s a lot happening on this earth, and we all have a part to play in that.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhone\u2019s storytelling events can be for specific organizations, or open gatherings that draw people who may not even know they are looking for something more in their lives. The storytellers are at times preparing to reveal secrets about themselves\u2014some serious, some silly, all private\u2014and the exercise requires courage not only on the part of the speaker, but also of the listener. It\u2019s asking of everyone present to see themselves in that other person.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen vulnerability shows up, God shows up,\u201d Rhone said.<\/p>\n By building empathy, that allows everyone present to \u201cshed those barriers that are keeping us from the common good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe church has been labeled as a place we need to cover ourselves,\u201d Rhone said. \u201cMy role is to create a space where people can open up and uncover their truths. God will meet people where they are; all I\u2019ve done is create an intentional space to share and to show the impact of vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n The power of sharing, of safely opening oneself up to a stranger, is also at the heart of Cat Moore\u2019s ministerial work. As the director of belonging at the University of Southern California, Moore has spent more than two decades studying and addressing loneliness.<\/p>\n Her work began simply: She was a mom who wanted a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough motherhood I started discovering not only how lonely I had been, but how much potential we all have to create community all around us,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n So she started by speaking to people waiting in line for their morning jolt of caffeine. Casual conversations\u2014that might run the gamut from asking about a book a person was carrying to complementing a purse another was holding\u2014became a surprising difference-maker for total strangers, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cJust by being generous with time and energy, by showing up for people, I watched hundreds if not thousands of people\u2019s lives improve in the three minutes it was taking for their coffee to brew.\u201d<\/p>\n While most people assume that others do not want to be disturbed, Moore found the opposite to be true.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are lonely. People do want someone to ask how they\u2019re doing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt does require someone who is willing to overcome the fear of rejection, who has a willingness to cross that loneliness divide.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts say there\u2019s a direct correlation between loneliness and the quality of one\u2019s mental and physical health. But despite the science, few institutions are putting resources into combating loneliness. So Moore works with organizations that are open to doing the heavy lifting of building and changing culture.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes extraordinarily creative leaders to reorganize around these ideas,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s this very uncomfortable reality that maybe the way institutions have been organizing themselves isn\u2019t around the right measures.\u201d<\/p>\n That can get especially tricky, she said, when the work involves a community of faith.<\/p>\n \u201cIt requires sometimes taking a step back and helping people break down some of the compartmentalizing of what people call ministry. People have been trained to identify certain activities and behaviors as ministry and others not. I help people zoom out to see that their entire life is ministry. That there isn\u2019t a single moment when they are not in God\u2019s presence, when they are not loved and being invited to love.\u201d<\/p>\n Answering a call to love and to build led Cath Kaminski to her mission as a pastor and church planter in Lincoln, Nebraska. But this wasn\u2019t just any church; this faith community was specifically called to the marginalized and the ignored\u2014those who have faced prejudice, injustice, and intolerance.<\/p>\n \u201cA church plant is expected when trying to build new disciples, but we were engaging the gospel through the lens of justice in everything we do,\u201d Kaminski said. \u201cFor the most part the \u2018system\u2019 is looking for numbers and dollars, and\u00a0 they expect you to play by the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n The denominational funding that initially moved Kaminski from the East Coast to the Midwest fell away when the kind of church she was looking to build didn\u2019t match the plans for the church identity those funders expected.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been terrifying \u2026 and exhilarating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Community members, parents of LGBTQIA+ children, and other allies came together to imagine something different. The faith community also espoused an ethic of racial reconciliation and speaking out against words and deeds that violate human dignity. The conversations can be difficult, but are essential if one is to truly be formed into a likeness of Christ, she said.<\/p>\n [Top post photo: Cath Kaminski, one of the Seeds Project fellows, spoke at an October 2021 gathering of Beacon Church.]<\/em><\/p>\n Kaminski arrived in Nebraska in September 2019 and spent until February the following year planting the seeds of what would become Beacon Church. Then a month later, in March 2020, the world changed with the COVID-19 pandemic. Kaminski and a group of about 30 others believed in and wanted an open and affirming faith community. But just as they were preparing for a formal launch, after months of small group meetings at people\u2019s homes and in other parts of the community, the delta variant surge of COVID-19 wreaked havoc in Nebraska.<\/p>\n \u201cStarting a church in a pandemic is not simple; every church has been affected,\u201d Kaminski said. \u201cBut with all that God has done in the last two years, we choose to see this as a celebration. Without Seeds [Project Fellowship], we couldn\u2019t have continued that discipleship.\u201d<\/p>\n The small Beacon group transitioned into a college ministry with another local church, she said, along with a few other partnerships that developed between Beacon\u2019s community members and other local faith and social justice groups.<\/p>\n Changing from a full-fledged church body to a college ministry was not the plan or the hope, but the growth of new connections came because of the work that had been done.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people were willing to go to an unknown church to create space for all people to be welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n The Seeds Project Fellowship came about after Luther Seminary leaders spent intentional time watching and listening to what was happening in faith communities around the country.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.luthersem.edu\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/11\/Luther_Story_Seeds_Rhone.jpg\")
Alexus Rhone: The courage to share<\/h2>\n
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Cat Moore: Cross that loneliness divide<\/h2>\n
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Cath Kaminski: Love as a lifeline<\/h2>\n
Sowing the seeds<\/h2>\n