Welcome to Glean, the world's first incubator for spiritual entrepreneurs. We're a multifaith network of innovators who are building new models of faith that serve.
1. February in Review
February brought the Glean Team to several events that left us feeling inspired and hopeful.
We were humbled to attend the Adese Fellowship's groundbreaking opening retreat in Boston.
We caught up with Glean alumni at the Rabbis Without Borders retreat at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Baltimore. Rabbi Elan Babchuck moderated two panels of RWB Fellows with expertise in:
Bishop Yvette Flunder: "We want our monuments to preach the message of our movements. And don't look for agreement -- because agreement is not appropriate in an atmosphere of change."
We joined the Adese fellows and faculty for their opening retreat at the Old South Church in Boston, MA. Our goal was to learn with and from an emerging network of spiritual thinkers and doers who practice faith in action and spirituality that serves -- and we left with so much more.
We were moved by responses to this gathering from Adese Fellows, which characterize the heart of spiritual entrepreneurship:
“I’m not ‘bi-vocational.’ I have one vocation, I just happen to live it out in various settings. I think when we can say that, it helps us disrupt the church’s understanding of what’s ministry and what’s church.” - Rev. Dr. Marilyn Pagán-Banks
“Taking this retreat in has allowed me to breathe – it’s breathing in the spirit of God and exhaling the possibilities of the Divine." - Rev. Meagan McLeod
"The things that were said here, instead of concepts and perspectives, were things that I believed. I am fourth-generation congregational. The decline of the UCC [United Church of Christ] has been heavy on my heart. I realized that institutions and empires come and go over time. But the spirit is eternal." -Rev. Nozomi Ikuta
We were blown away by the Adese Fellows and the breadth of movements they are making, from fighting hunger while cultivating community in Chicago, to building a nonprofit bakery in Atlanta that hires and celebrates refugees, to initiating nationwide Community Innovation Hubs in Canada that support spiritual entrepreneurs.
3. Learnings from our inaugural SPARK Fellowship gathering
We convened 36 community leaders in New York who are committed to innovation and intrapreneurship within the synagogue communities they care deeply about. Our goal was to shift the reality of synagogue decline from a lens of scarce competition to one of abundant opportunity.
Some highlights:
Rabbi and spiritual innovator Sara Luria (who built inclusive community mikveh network ImmerseNYC and Jewish home-based experiment Beloved) and Rabbi Matt Gewirtz (who serves Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and pioneers initiatives on human flourishing) inspired us with what is possible when we make that shift.
Dan Libenson described how we can tackle the complexity of innovating inside the institution by charting paths of non-linear innovation.
Rabbi Elan Babchuck illuminated the road ahead by sharing his wisdom on the Jobs to Be Done methodology -- as synagogue teams begin interview campaigns to discover the deeply-felt needs their customers have.
This dynamic group will reconvene in late April, continuing to build a foundational culture of innovation within their synagogues. Teams will later gathering during our one-of-a-kind two-day design sprint in June. Stay tuned!
4. Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp on her transformative Cincinnati-based community, JustLove
Founded by Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp with a team of four pastors and fourteen partner organizations, JustLove acts in a blue ocean of faith-based systemic activism, providing a unique place of inclusive belonging that centers not on what you think you SHOULD believe but rather how you are ACTING on your unique gifts as an individual.
How does the concept of role change when we allow spiritual leadership to take its full shape?
Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp experiences the full range: from spending the night in Washington, D.C. after being arrested demonstrating to show support for DACA, to mopping the floor at Temple Sholom in Cincinnati, OH, where she serves the next morning. Miriam developed her thriving multifaith project called JustLove with us in the Glean Incubator last year. We caught up with her at the Rabbis Without Borders retreat in mid-February to talk about where her story intersects with ours. Watch below:
"During our worship events, there are no prayer books. Often the “liturgy” is adapted or original and taught in the moment so that no single person knows more than another, all entering the non-traditional space with different stories but landing on the same page. Events are led by diverse clergy representing Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist faiths as well non-religious music and poetry. The experience is designed to encourage connections with people who have different backgrounds but share a similar call in the world."
Groundbreaking podcast Judaism Unbound celebrates its 100th episode by interviewing Yitz Greenberg, Clal co-founder. Find out how we're positioned at the dawn of the "Third Era" of Judaism, and more broadly, faith.
"From Monuments to Movements"
Bishop Yvette Flunder (Adese Faculty) blew us away with her insightful and deeply stirring preaching on the unique space spiritual innovators occupy. Watch her speak to this at the Riverside Church.
"JUDAISM NO LONGER BORING!"
We can't get enough of the videos produced by Temple Sholom of Cincinnati (where Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp serves) and their hilarious take on the tension of innovating within institutions.
