"Shift Your Lens: Healing Your Stories"

Information about the full training will be posted here soon. Please check back.

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What healing might God be inviting you into in this season of life?

Join us as we move toward Creating Beloved Community: Healing Together, with Jesus as our primary model, and welcome back Danielle Groth and Pastor Vicky Lovell to present Shift Your Lens: Healing Your Stories™. This program invites participants to practice the new NPR - Name the pain, Process the emotions, and Re-author the narrative. Through the use of a familiar Bible story, Danielle and Vicky will guide us through this healing program to demonstrate how useful it is when journeying with people toward healing.

Pastor Vicky Lovell, MDiv, MEd, is a mindful, ordained minister, an award winning author, and reiki practitioner. She is also an educator, Moth storytelling grand slam winner, and the co-founder of Angel Whispers Ministries 501c3. Whether she is speaking in front of thousands or facilitating a retreat, she is passionate about helping people reach wholeness in mind, body, and spirit. For Vicky, Loving Big means she advocates for those experiencing homelessness, she is a missionary in Uganda, Africa, and an affirming pastor for weddings, funerals, and other spiritual care needs.

Danielle Groth, a certified Holy Fire III reiki master teacher, clinical EFT practitioner, Vibrational Sound Therapy practitioner, and meditation teacher. She is the small business owner of I Am Well, LLC, and the co-founder of Angel Whispers Ministries 501c3. Danielle uses her energy medicine training to help people find healing and awaken their mind, body, and spirit connection through discovering the importance of self-love and self-care. As a breast cancer survivor and a mom of a special needs child, she is a passionate facilitator of retreats and events, both live and online.

We believe this transition from Being Church and Courageous Leadership to Creating Beloved Community: Healing Together is in attunement with our call as Christians from:

Scripture and our expanding understanding and expression of love for ALL of our neighbors
MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail and Vision of the Beloved Community
What Is the Beloved Community and Why Is It Important?
The Idea of the Beloved Community: The creative friendship of Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh
ELCA Teaching, and especially our "connection to all of life"
ELCA Living Our Baptismal Covenant
ELCA Truth and Healing Movement (as facilitated by Indigenous Ministries and Tribal Relations)
ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations
Dr. Shawn Ginwright's The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves
And so many other diverse voices and sacred ways we engage with each other and with the world.

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To answer some commonly asked questions about these regular gatherings:

"Why are you still meeting?" "Don't become too familiar with loneliness. Community is a risk, but liberation depends on the collective. Who can you trust to hold you?" -- Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies

"How can I prepare?" Beloved Community members pay attention and listen actively. We invite you to bring a spirit of curiosity and openness to these gatherings and to all aspects of your life. What are you noticing? Where is Spirit moving? How are you being invited to participate in the work God is already doing, especially outside the walls of the building where the church often gathers?

"What if I'm not a group person?" Beloved Community members take calculated risks. We invite you to take a small step outside your comfort zone and allow yourself to be seen and witnessed. We can almost guarantee that you will be pleasantly surprised by the loving, caring, and nurturing nature of community in this time together.