It’s time to launch into Sacred Organizing together!
Welcome to the 2021-2022 Leaven Community Land & Housing Sacred Organizing Cycle! We – your Design Teams and companions – are so thrilled to invite you to gather for our annual kick-off and orientation on Thursday, September 23rd from 6:30-8:30pm. See further details below. For the first time, we’ll be gathering as Multnomah East and West, Clackamas, and Washington counties all together in one zoom gathering for this Cohort kickoff!
Engaging our neighbors at St. Philip
We are preparing to welcome an intern who will help lead us in listening to, and organizing with, our community. They will work with the core team of Cynthia Faust, Janet Robinson, Mtr. Alcena Boozer, Pat Mongtomery and Christine Lentz. The purpose of this team is to take the skills learned as participants in the upcoming Sacred Organizing Cycle and help us apply them as a congregation. We want to listen to our neighbors and share our vision for Welcoming our Elders home.
If you want to join the core team, please contact Rev Maria!
All of you are invited to participate in the monthly Cohort meetings, which begin on October 28th, from 6:30-8:30 on Zoom. Gatherings will continue on the 4th Wednesdays of the month, though we may shift in Nov and Dec due to holidays. The core team will meet monthly to plan neighborhood engagement. The congregation will be invited into everything!
Save the Date: Kick-off and Orientation – September 23rd, 2021 6:30-8:30 pm.
- We’re planning a Zoom online gathering for Core Teams.
- Español/English interpretation will be provided.
- To join by Zoom, please click this link. Our meeting ID will be [863 3404 0058] and the Passcode is [910512]. To call in by phone, use (408) 638-0968.
RSVP to Rev Maria (at this email) by Monday, September 19th.
Who We Are and What We Are Doing
Incubated and staffed by the Leaven Community,
- We are a Coalition of faith communities across Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties, stepping out of isolation to partner with our neighbors as we engage our spiritual traditions and build collective power of people and money, using the arts and practices of sacred organizing.
- We are building this Coalition together through a Cohort-based process, gathering as congregational and organizational Core Teams in monthly two hour sessions over nine months from September to June. We learn from one another, strategize, act, and hold one another accountable.
- We are vital and active communities of faith engaged in our neighborhoods; we are Sikh, Jewish, and Christian, including United Methodist, Presbyterian Church (USA), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, and independent evangelical congregations.
- We are organizers and developers creating diverse affordable housing and ways for all people in Oregon to experience sanctuary and home in our communities.
Together, recognizing we are on the living ancestral land that is home for our indigenous siblings, we are:
- Unveiling the connection between systems and structures valuing land as power, that are perpetuating racial violence and the disappearing of our embodied interconnection with earth, air and water.
- Working collaboratively with our siblings in the intersectional ecology of land, immigration and global warming.
- Rooting in the work of anti-racism, centering the lives and vision of people marginalized by gentrification and systemic racism.
- Activating the power of our relationships for creating more housing equity in our communities, cities, counties, and state.
Build Collective Capacity through Financial Support
- We ask each of our congregational Core Teams to build power and capacity beyond ourselves through financial support of the Coalition. While any amount is welcomed, congregations find that giving between $500-5000 for the year’s Cohort gatherings, sacred organizing teachings, and ongoing accompaniment by staff and companions feels equitable.
Donate via PayPal by clicking this link or by making checks payable to Leaven Community (Please write ‘Land & Housing Coalition’ on the memo line.
Address: Leaven Community, 5431 NE 20th Ave, Portland, OR 97211 .
Donations made to Leaven Community are deductible as charitable gifts (EIN 46-4368893).