Interpreting Trends in Innovation
Our weekly Community Calls provide peer support, discussion forums and guest workshops for retreat center leaders and allied organizations. Keep checking back for more of these videos here in our blog.
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Topic: Interpreting Trends in Spiritual and Community-Building Innovations
Facilitator: Sue Phillips, Sacred Design Lab
This Community Call teased apart five trends in spiritual and community-building innovations, trends that are accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we considered what this interpretation of the data might imply for retreat centers now, revealing some interesting questions. Here are a few:
Virtual meetings are becoming more commonplace across generations, providing both a hyper-local and trans-local experience. As we’re sharing our homes and personal spaces with each other while meeting virtually, are there new opportunities for intimacy and deeper connection? How could this be life-affirming in a new way?
How does religious disaffiliation and non-affiliation in younger generations play into the landscape of meaning-making, and where could retreat centers play a role in providing support, leadership skills, intergenerational community, even a sense of ritual to these growing populations?
How might retreat centers translate their skills of holding space and crafting experiences into supporting the spiritual wellbeing of employees within local companies, organizations, schools, universities?
By helping us see our recent major lifestyle disruptions as opportunities, Sue invites retreat centers to explore options for making new connections and brings a joyous optimism and curiosity to the complexity of our new world.
Notes and audio recording from this conversation are also available at the link below.
Sue Phillips is relentlessly delighted by liberating ancient wisdom to help solve gnarly problems. An ordained minister and former denominational executive in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, Sue is passionate about inspiring spiritual flourishing, equipping people for meaning-making, and witnessing the transformation that happens when we get all up in life’s biggest questions. She is part business strategist, part design geek, and part monastic. A graduate of Colgate University and the Episcopal Divinity School, Sue has taught at Harvard Divinity School, where she is a Ministry Innovation Fellow.