Innovation-Focused Urban Ministry Immersions / Women, Urban Ministry, and Sustainability
2022-23: For nearly 10 years, Wesley’s Community Engagement Institute has had a “fellows” program that has allowed students to create and implement unique community-based projects with regular teaching, mentoring, and collegial support over the course of six semesters. To ensure more students across all of their master’s degree programs are exposed to innovative, progressive, and expansive theological thinking and praxis, they have designed Human-Centered, Innovation-Focused Urban Ministry Immersions as part of a new specialization in community engagement.
2023-24: This implementation grant supports the work done in the planning grant above.
2024-25: The purpose of the “Women, Urban Ministry, and Sustainability” Affinity Working Group is to offer women engaged in urban ministry a platform for support and introspection. It focuses on the challenges they face in ministry leadership roles and the need to facilitate strategies to overcome barriers hindering their own sustainability and the flourishing of those under their care. Vital to enabling churches in urban settings to deliver impactful, transformative, and enduring ministry is the commitment to equipping women ministry leaders with the resources and support necessary for their continuous growth across different phases of ministry.
2025-26: Because harmful expectations are deeply embedded in church culture, passed down through generations and reinforced through various means, from subtle suggestions to outright demands, understanding and addressing these longstanding expectations is crucial and requires continued probing in order to foster healthy spiritual environments for women in leadership in the church and the religious academy. Our goal is to continue to address critical questions regarding the challenges women in ministry in urban contexts face, and in particular, how to best navigate the challenges of gender bias, caring for our immediate families, and meeting the needs of God’s people in the midst of national and global crises without our succumbing to the “Wonder Woman identity syndrome” or acquiescing to the linearity of the language of priority which often leads to our neglecting caring for ourselves.
Given our current national and global changes that are impacting our communities, we feel compelled to continue the critical work we began of providing space for support and reflection on what it takes for women in ministry leadership in the church and academy to dismantle the barriers we encounter and foster sustainability and flourishing for ourselves, especially as we encounter the heightened complex challenges that our urban churches and faith institutions are facing today. We have continued to meet as a group to serve as each other’s sounding boards, share resources, and encourage one another. We recognize that having women thrive in leadership positions in the church and religious academy emboldens other women (and girls) to respond to their callings from God to serve in urban ministry.
Lorena is an associate professor in Urban Ministry and Director of the Community Engagement Institute and Center for Public Theology at Wesley. She is passionate about building beloved community and transforming leaders to move beyond old stereotypes and approach urban ministry with a sense of joy, justice, love, and hope.
The Strengthening Pastoral Formation for Ministry in the City initiative involves seminaries, theological institutions, and churches and intends to help communities and institutions explore and assess their own urban context and church life; gain clarity about their mission and programmatic offerings; and strengthen and support the design and implementation of plans to address key challenges and opportunities for pastoral formation and flourishing congregations in urban settings.
The Strengthening Pastoral Formation for Ministry in the City initiative involves seminaries, theological institutions, and churches and intends to help communities and institutions explore and assess their own urban context and church life; gain clarity about their mission and programmatic offerings; and strengthen and support the design and implementation of plans to address key challenges and opportunities for pastoral formation and flourishing congregations in urban settings.
The Affinity Working Group initiative aims to provide time and space for HUB learning network members to engage in focused ways with others interested in a similar topic and questions around ministry in the city. We anticipate working group members to explore, deepen, and assess their own vocation, urban context, and church life; gain clarity about vital questions and issues in a particular focus area (eg. youth, arts, etc), and learn from group members’ lived experiences and other sources of knowledge and wisdom.
The Affinity Working Group initiative aims to provide time and space for HUB learning network members to engage in focused ways with others interested in a similar topic and questions around ministry in the city. We anticipate working group members to explore, deepen, and assess their own vocation, urban context, and church life; gain clarity about vital questions and issues in a particular focus area (eg. youth, arts, etc), and learn from group members’ lived experiences and other sources of knowledge and wisdom.
I pray that God would grant us the wisdom, strength, resources (human + material) to work toward advocating for, and ensuring a better quality of life for all residents.