How do we hold on to our deepest convictions without losing relationships with the people we love?

In this new book, Barron illuminates the challenges and hope for these relationships, showing that the best research points toward humility, self-awareness, an openness to learning, and remembering that others can learn too.

She understands that those people who hurt us with their bigotry and ignorance . . . they’re often the people we love: They’re our friends, our parents, our grandparents, and even our religious leaders. Barron shows that the way forward is to create a gracious and risky space for people to learn and evolve. We need to form the sorts of relationships where we can tell difficult truths, set boundaries, forgive, and share stories of our own failings. And this starts with examining ourselves.

Way Collective friends — join us for a thought-provoking Faith & Democracy event, where we will shed light on the pressing issue of Christian nationalism and its threat to our democracy. This Thursday, March 7, 2024, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at First Congregational Church SB.

Way Collective is so excited to welcome back acclaimed author, speaker, and activist Brian McLaren for a special intimate event in Santa Barbara.

His most recent book asks a timely question: Do I Stay Christian?

In this guide for the doubters, the disappointed, and the disillusioned, Brian addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people―including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders―are asking in private.

Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren's attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.

From Damon:

My book, The God Who Riots, releases Tuesday August 23rd! Come celebrate the release with me at Third Window Brewing in Santa Barbara. I will give a short talk about the book, Q+A, and sign books. Everyone is welcome!

We have limited seating in the barrel room of the brewery so get your ticket ASAP! First 40 tickets get a free drink ticket too!

GET TIX HERE!

What a journey it has been as we head toward the close of our Sophia Course on Brian McLaren's new book, Faith After Doubt. These conversations have been beautiful reflections on the movement through the four stages of faith that Brian has laid out, and THIS SUNDAY, Brian will be with us live for some conversation and Q&R! Sunday's conversation will be our final conversation on the book, and we are so excited to hold space with y'all this weekend to connect with Brian around these important ideas and dialogues. The conversation will begin at 7:30 PM and end at 9 PM.

You won't want to miss tonight's conversation, as we are joined by author, scholar, and activist theologian Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. Robyn is a brilliant teacher, public theologian, and cultural analyst who has a finger on the pulse of our time, and will lead the Way Collective community in a time of contemplation, reflection, and conversation. Their wisdom is rooted in many of the same values our community holds, and we are grateful to be able to spend some time with them in dialogue this week. Robyn has an amazing way of grounding themselves in contemplative wisdom, while remaining committed to the work of healing justice in our world, and we can't wait for you to meet them and jump in to a meaningful night of conversation and contemplation together.

Resources for Grounding in a Crisis @ 12 PM. I'm so excited that my friend Teresa Mateus will be joining the Way for a lunch break conversation about the shifts she is seeing in this time of crisis for many. You won't want to miss this conversation as she leads us through the following topics:

• Overall elements of sustained and collective crisis

• Issues of disparity in race/ethnicity in the experience of the moment and lineages of trauma and inequity

• Issues of primary and secondary grief - and how grief is stunted in crisis and trauma and specifically this crisis with medical factors that stunt pre-emptive grief and general grief

• The impact on frontline workers and the specific ways in which this is overwhelming for folks who are in closest proximity to danger, trauma, sadness, etc

• The post-pandemic or post-peak issues we have to be careful of - the emotional toll of sustained crisis over time (things we can learn from war and social movements)

• Practical ways to ground in the moment and manage what we can, also let go for now of what we can't

WAY COLLECTIVE X HEARTWAY Cultivating Inner Stillness with Danny Prada @ 12PM Come join us for a lunch break as we connect with a like-minded community from Florida called Heartway. (Southern California X Southern Florida??) My friend Danny Prada who is their core teacher and some of their community are going to join us for a conversation about the practice of cultivating inner stillness, which is so needed in a time like ours. You won't want to miss this conversation, as Danny is super practical and really great at distilling the contemplative journey down to a relatable and accessible path using Christian language. We hope you'll come join the conversation HERE.

We're spending our lunch break dialoguing with my dear friend Bo Sanders, whose new book, Decolonizing Evangelicalism, is a wonderful resource for those of us coming from a more Evangelical background, but also for anyone on a migratory faith journey, or anyone who may be wondering about how to understand what is happening in American Evangelicalism during this cultural moment. Come listen and learn from Bo, and ask questions about how we can be a people who carries Christianity forward without the colonizing tendencies of the past. You won't want to miss this! Come hang out during your lunch break & join the conversation. You can click HERE to join in!

One of the relationships that is feeling the effects of this current moment is the conversation around science and religion. Whereas many feel that the word God should sparingly be uttered in a laboratory, and that science is generally distrusted by most churches, there are in fact a group of scientists, philosophers, and theologians who are seeing more connections than reasons for division. Perhaps God and science are meeting in new and surprising ways that could only be possible given how far we've come.

My friend Trey Pearson, lead singer of Christian rock group Everyday Sunday-turnedsolo artist is coming to SB on February 22nd, and is hosting an evening concert and conversation around the church and the LGBTQ community. Many of our beloved LGBTQ friends and family members have been hurt by the church's treatment toward them, and I'd love to invite you to come hear Trey share his journey to self-acceptance and play songs from his debut solo album, "Love Is Love".

In her most recent book, Grateful, Diana helps us to see that although most of us know that gratitude is good — and good for us — there is a gap between our desire to be grateful and our ability to behave gratefully. The implications of the gap are bigger than we realize, affecting both our personal and public lives. In Grateful, Diana weaves together social science research, spiritual wisdom, and contemporary issues as she calls for a richer understanding and practice of gratitude. What emerges are surprising insights about the power of thankful living to change how we treat one another, and how we might transform our world.

Join the Way Collective for a public forum on the Future of the Christian Story: Conspiring for Common Good in Santa Barbara & Beyond w/Brian McLaren & David N. Moore. In this gathering, we will explore the six stories that dominate our world and how Jesus offers us a different story and way to be together in community. Brian will present on this topic, and David will respond and dialogue, helping us catch how this "Seventh Story" can be lived out right here in the city of Santa Barbara. There will also be a discussion for everyone to participate in and some Q&R with Brian and David to follow. If you are carrying questions about the future of the Christian story and life, and are genuinely interested in how we can work together for the common good in Santa Barbara, then this event is for you! Feel free to join in, invite your friends, as this is a free event that is open to the public.

Time: Saturday, April 14th @ 7PM
Place: First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 1915 Chapala St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Join us for a special Way Collective only workshop with Brian discovering how we can continue on our journey of being a community that lives the Jesus way of life together. This will be an intimate time with him to explore what it looks like to be a community of faith focused on living well for the common good. Topics for discussion will include Brian's Way of Life curriculum that corresponds with his book The Great Spiritual Migration, spiritual peacemaking, and life together. Childcare, coffee, and refreshments will be provided. If you are or have wanted to be a part of our community, you definitely won't want to miss this!

In his new book, The Great Spiritual Migration, Brian argues that— notwithstanding the dire headlines about the demise of faith and drop in church attendance—Christian faith is not dying. Rather, it is embarking on a once-in-an-era spiritual shift. And that, for millions, the journey has already begun. Drawing from his work as global peacemaker, pastor, and public theologian, McLaren challenges readers to stop worrying, waiting, and indulging in nostalgia, and instead, to embrace the powerful new understandings that are reshaping the church. In The Great Spiritual Migration, he explores three profound shifts that define the change:

Healing Suppers have the potential to be many things - a resistance to the constant pull of work, organizing, protesting and the stress of living with marginalization - by providing time to sit down, actually chew food, look into the face of others and share a time of rest and refueling. They can be an opportunity to build resilience by tanking up on nourishing conversation, healthy and delicious food, and making or solidifying relationships. And each of us knows that strong, dependable relationships, self-healing, and care for one another provide a critical layer of support during times of more extreme struggle. As we continue to move through a time of renewed public intolerance, a rapidly changing political landscape with real consequence and a need for stronger alternative networks, we need those relationships and the spaces that cultivate them more than ever. 

The Way Collective is beyond stoked to welcome acclaimed author, teacher, speaker, and podcaster Rob Bell for a special one-night-only intimate event at the Narrative Loft (right off the Funk Zone) in Santa Barbara. Rob will be working his midrashic magic with us for an evening of teaching and dialogue around his reflections on spirituality, culture, and Christianity in an ever-evolving world. Rob has always been a leading voice in the conversation around the future of faith, and we hope that you'll join us for what is sure to be a beauty-full experience!

Parables are a type of discourse that knock us off course and onto radically new ones. They tactically confront us with probing truths we might otherwise miss and reveal what lies beneath the surface. At turns funny, poignant, and shocking, they cut into us with surgical precision, reaching deep into the hidden recesses of our souls, operating on those parts of our being that more direct speech can't touch. Over the years, Peter has written dozens of parables and collected hundreds more, deploying them in both his books and public presentations. In this intimate event, he'll be offering some of his favorites along with some reflections and conversation.

Tripp is just finishing up teaching a 4 week course on “Questions for the Believing Skeptic,” where he taught that the new postmodern situation is that we all hold both our beliefs and our skepticisms together. Whereas in the past, atheists and believers from separate camps would debate in the public sphere, today we often see hints of both schools of thought within the same person! Plus, as religion (especially Christianity) is changing all over the place, we need more conversations like this that help us stay tuned-in and promote more compassion!