2024
Connecting to Our Creative Selves
July 14-21, 2024
In our post-quarantine and divided world, we feel the need for ritual and embodied practice more urgently than ever before for both our communities and ourselves.
This year at Faith Development Week, we want to offer creative expression such as art, music, and drama as a way to nurture curiosity and joy. We hope to help you connect to beloved spiritual practices that have comforted and empowered generations before us.
Acknowledging we live in a neurodiverse world, all programming will have a focus on how neurodiversity impacts our curriculum and program planning that can be used in a variety of faith engagement contexts.
Join us for a week-long exploration of movement, ritual, and music!
Workshops
with Jen (J.L.) Shattuck
In the Tending Years at Church, we'll explore how the rituals described in Jen Shattuck's book The Tending Years show up in congregational life and can help religious professionals and others creatively and enthusiastically welcome families with young children. This workshop will run in the morning.
with Rev. Aisha Ansano and Rev. Emily Conger
This morning workshop weaves ritual elements and tools for implementing embodied, multi-generational, meal-based worship. Participants will go through a discernment process and support them in designing embodied ministry to meet the needs of their communities and contexts. Together, we will explore questions such as, What is dinner church? What are some best practices? How can you meet the needs in your community creatively?
with Aoife Barrington-Haber
Drama is a multi-modal, multisensory activity that can be adapted to include different ages, and abilities, and can be focused either on creating an end presentation or purely on the experience of the process.
In the afternoon for ages 6 and up, the workshops will include drama exercises that encourage getting to know each other and appreciating each other’s differences. The workshop participants will have the opportunity to create a performance to be shared in a worship service.
Help Us Create More Memories
Each year, we create more memories on Star Island with activities like s'mores and singing on the rocks, social hour, concerts, and more! These activities aren't covered by your registration or conference fee.
Help us create more memories with these beloved traditions by donating. We're offering multiple donation levels and gratefully accept anything you are able to give. Every bit helps.
When we each give what we can, we contribute to the legacy of this conference. These memories will live in our hearts forever. Let us honor them by helping others shoalers, maybe new shoalers, create memories of their own.
Click through the carousel to the right to see the different levels of giving. Thank you for any help you are able to give.