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.
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.
