Love to share with you a few of the things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving: 

• My family: As far as Kingdom Rice is concerned, my family has so intricately and profoundly shaped the values, context, and focus of my work through times of joy but especially through times of grief.  Also thankful for our 50-lb dog we adopted last year. I would never have imagined how much Ruby would impact our family’s emotional and physical rhythms!

 

• My enrollment in a spiritual director’s program: As our board considered how to bring better practices to our cohorts, we wanted to learn from other cohorts whose values and vision are similar to ours. In that regard, Nuos Formation’s two-year spiritual director training resonates greatly with our values and vision. After inviting their director, Julie Barrios, to speak at our board meeting, our board recognized the strategic potential of learning from Nuos. The board voted to finance me to join their two-year program; in fact, two of us on the board are participating. Visit nuosformation.com to learn why this program is such a wise investment for KR. Though I don’t envision being a spiritual director, what I’ve learned in just the first two months is already having a profound impact in our andragogy.  

 

• The Spirit’s work among the participants in the Kingdom Rice cohorts: 
  • A myriad of leaders, pastors, engineers, and doctors participate in our cohorts and learning to bring God’s peace to a diversity of places including cosplay. I featured a cosplay ministry called Jesus Otaku a couple years ago. (Did you know that the anime community is bullied at 3x the national ave and is 6-8 times more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than the general population?)  We’ve since taken our partnership to much deeper levels through our cohort. 
  • “This cohort has been so rewarding. I didn't expect the cohort to be so healing. I feel like we have only brushed the tip of the iceberg, and I could see why people would return to do more sessions… I can see how this could have a greater effect if we tried to replicate this within Jesus Otaku.” - Gwen - Jesus Otaku leader
  • Gwen, pictured above, came into the cohort with another Otaku leader. In fact, most of the participants have come into the cohort with a fellow leader (just as two of us from Kingdom Rice have joined the Nuos training in the last bullet). They and the other participants are developing concrete vision for the places where they live and work. Meanwhile, repeat participants are experiencing transformation with each succeeding cohort, and learning to embody the shame-reversal Gospel, a Gospel for the soul, and learning to lead others on this journey. I’m blessed to witness this work.