HUB Fall Convening 2025 Closing Ritual led by April and Vivian : layers of nets and relationships!
Ministry in the City HUB Update, November-December 2025

Dear HUB friends,

We hope you had a good time with friends and family this past week. It was a busy time for all, so here is your November-December update.

Early last month, we gathered some 60-70 of our network in New York City for our annual three-day Fall Convening. It was a time of orientation for newer folks, re-orientation for returnees, and reflection and thanksgiving as we looked back at the past five years of becoming together. We shared resources, told stories while weaving our next iteration of nets/spokes (check out highlights below), and celebrated how God is working in our midst.

This week, we received applications for the next round of Affinity Working Group and HUB Local Gatherings grants in the upcoming year. This opportunity was for convening participants to take next steps in their work together and in respective cities.

We’ve extended the deadline to participate in the HUB IMPACT Survey 2025. More than half of you have already responded, but we’d love to have more input! Please click below to participate by our December 8, 2025 deadline.

And we’ve released the second episode of Light Breaking Out season two focused on learning more about the people behind the Creative Community Care residency and traveling exhibit.

We’ll send one last update before the end of the year so this isn’t the last you’ll hear from us. Keeping you all in prayer during this Advent season.

Peace, Maria and Mark (with the HUB team)
HUB IMPACT Survey 2025
Highlights
Fall Convening 2025
NET-MAKING
On November 5-7, 2025, over 60 network participants joined us in New York City for a time of learning, encouraging, orientation, resource-sharing, and story-telling. We hosted our first pre-convening “Cultivating Learning Communities” workshop, attended by about half the participants. And we made nets, all kinds of physical and metaphorical connections in this time of rich relationship-building. As the HUB learning network grows, we see the fall convening as a time of orientation and re-framing, of formation and deepening who we are in relationship to each other, to God, and to our ministry contexts. Check out highlights here.
Creation Care Retreat
GRANT STEWARDING
The core team of Pastora Alumnae has been planning a retreat under the theme, Creation Care, from August 24-26 at the St. Paul’s Commons in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Dr. Sandra Rechiter, biblical scholar at Westmont College, gave a biblical perspective of environmental stewardship the first night, and Pastora Alumna Dr. Jessica Lu gave a presentation on microplastics and its impacts on all living creatures. We ended with action items for us and the church to heed to Creation Care and Welfare of all God’s creation, in the urban context and beyond. For takeaways, we all agreed to transform our daily lives and urge churches to take loving actions to save God’s creation. Learn more.
We Have Plenty
RESOURCE SHARING
We Have Plenty: A Womanist Theology of Communal Abundance for the Black Church by HUB Grantee, Dr. Lorena M. Parrish traces the history of theologies of prosperity to help scholars and practitioners understand the long-standing appearance of prosperity gospels in the Western church. Parrish offers a womanist theology that hearkens to the liberative work of Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Collective and illumines contemporary initiatives that cultivate pathways toward Black communal abundance. Learn more on our resource page.
Light Breaking Out
STORY-TELLING
In this season of Light Breaking Out, we are speaking with the artists from the Creative Community Care residency on their experience and continued engagement in art, faith, and community. In the latest episode, we had our first pair of artists, Naomi Kuo and Naomi Lawrence, share their story and experiences and how the residency has shaped their creative practice. Listen to our conversation with them on our podcast, Light Breaking Out.

Ministry in the City HUB
City Seminary of New York
302 West 119th St, 3rd Flr
New York, NY 10026, USA

This national initiative is generously supported by Lilly Endowment, Inc.
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