Building Communities of Belonging

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This virtual weekly meeting on Tuesdays at 12:00 - 1:15 p.m. using Zoom is open to anyone who wants education, support and development as a leader of multicultural change. We learn and practice tools taught by VISIONS, Inc. for building healthy, culturally inclusive communities of belonging. The VISIONS tools that we use allow for (at times) difficult and intensive work within a model that makes participants feel safe enough to stay invested and engaged. People are welcome to come and listen, bring challenges to work on, practice teaching one of the tools and celebrate success in their own work. Click subscribe to receive Community Conversation notifications and access information via our newsletter.

This pilgrimage invites you to come to St. Augustine, Florida with a different frame than a typical tourist. Perhaps you want to improve as a leader, strengthen your communication skills, attend to grief, or discern vocation? Pilgrimage invites you to hold those frames in mind as you move through your city with all its many stories of resilience, struggle, courage, trauma and transformation. It is an invitation to encounter, reflect and transform.

Encounter stories of both racial trauma and transformation present in the community.

Reflect on these stories using a framework that deepens appreciation for your own story and that of others.

In the process of encounter and reflection, become reconciled to yourself and others in transforming ways. Depending on your needs, this experience can be tailored from 4 hours on up to 4 days.

Customized for your needs or the needs of your group, training events are adaptable in length, process and content. They are led by experienced facilitators to support and develop leaders of multicultural change.

Trainings are designed to support your learning goals through an experience of diverse and collaborative teams that address and change the way exclusion happens at personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural levels.

Trainings can help participants . . .

• Lead effectively in the 21st century.
• Build trust, belonging and authentic engagement where cultural differences are present.
• Communicate more effectively across difference.
• Identify previously unconscious biases and misinformation in themselves, in others, and in organizations.
• Develop collaborative solutions that both heal legacies of conflict and chart new ways forward together.

This training provides practical tools and strategies for church members and leaders to recognize, understand, appreciate and utilize cultural differences as a strength for God’s mission in the world.

The Florida Conference UMC Bishop and Cabinet require this training for congregations in preparation for receiving a new pastoral appointment when there are significant cultural differences between the pastor and the congregation.

The assumption is that cultural differences - particularly race differences - come with unique opportunities for practicing Christian discipleship. Those differences when ignored, discounted or treated as if they don’t matter can lead to harm (intentionally or unintentionally) for the appointed clergy, the congregation and their God given mission in the community.

During this 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. training we will learn and practice 7 tools for Cross-Cultural Hospitality. These tools are part of a larger framework created by VISIONS, Inc. for creating communities of belonging where cultural differences are recognized, understood, appreciated and utilized as a strength for the mission God has given to the church.