Transition seems more like a way of being rather than a season which we weather. Almost two years ago we could have never imagined the fruits of a preaching grant from the Lilly Endowment. Today, we can see the harvest from the leadership of the Rev. LeAnn Hodges.
We are excited to announce a National Gathering taking place in Grand Rapids, Michigan! From November 11-14, 2025, leaders from all across the Church will learn alongside those asking similar questions, naming the very real/ pressing challenges, and hoping to uncover strategies to bring about wholeness as we do the work ahead. Our time together will create the space to cultivate individual and communal transformation.
After over a decade of fiscal sponsorship with Village Presbyterian Church, NEXT Church has officially become an independent 501(c)(3)! This significant step allows us to better serve the Church as led by our Board of Directors and inspired by the NEXT Church network.
Friend,
Have you ever gotten yourself caught in a loop? You know the one where the very thing you need feels exhausting just thinking about it? Please tell me I’m not alone.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten caught in this loop over the past five years.
Breaking that cycle has proved me wrong time and time again. Peeling myself off the couch to see the friends with whom I so desperately needed to laugh. It was digging out those fancy clothes to become immersed with the healing power of music at the concert hall. Or gathering together with colleagues at a conference to be reminded why we devote ourselves to this thing of transformation.
This fall, you are invited to carve out some space for yourself. Maybe joining one of these groups is the very thing you need the most as we move through a critical and consequential season.
It truly is better when we go together.
A book about justice is only powerful if it is a catalyst for actual change. Jennifer Harvey’s new book “Antiracism as Daily Practice” sets the table for meaningful conversation among white folks seeking to live in a way that grows racial justice. Led by the author and NEXT Church Coaches, join other white folks from across the country to discuss the content of Dr. Harvey’s new book and engage its actionable reverberations over 6 cohort sessions.
What does it look like to build the spaces and the world we truly need – together? Participants will explore the liberatory journeys of people of color in the past and present through readings, videos, and other engaging materials. Following this grounding work, the group will consider how to navigate power dynamics and their own participation in systems and structures of harm to create revolutionary outcomes: moves toward genuine community, healthy self-and-other accountability, and embodied care and awareness that can buoy us collectively in challenging times.
In conversation with the Enneagram, we can celebrate the strengths God has given us, identify our personality challenges, and put deeper self-understanding into action. The aim of the cohort will be to identify natural gifts and reflexive tendencies, develop instinctive capacities, identify underused strengths, learn how to approach conflict with awareness, and begin to apply the concepts in participants’ leadership contexts.
On the Journey Together,
Jen James
Director of Programs and Operations
November 6, 2024 is right around the corner.
We hear about the upcoming election in newsfeeds, curricula to purchase, discussions to be had, advocating for change, and getting out to vote. This is important work. But November 6th will come. No matter the results of the election, problems in our nation and world will still linger, brokenness will still exist, and the work of repair will be ever present.
As people of faith, we are required to engage: to live our faith out loud in the midst of overwhelming odds. Each morning when the sun rises, we must give yet another “Yes!” to the antiracist work necessary to dismantle the systems and structures around us. This requires us to undo the broken systems existing even within ourselves. Knowledge of self, deeply formed and understood identities, allow us to work against the pressure to conform and “go on to get on.”
This fall NEXT Church is offering two unique coaching cohort opportunities for white folx and people of color. Dr. Jennifer Harvey, author and theologian, provides the material for white folx to unpack the daily practices to embody antiracist values. Rev. Anna Kendig Flores, Neema Cyrus-Franklin, and I seek to build a collective space for people of color to explore their identities as the focal point rather than in reaction to the systems which marginalize us.
Embodiment is both an individual and collective practice. Join us this fall!
Larissa Kwong Abazia
Executive Director
There is something really powerful that happens when leaders from across the Church gather together in community around a common purpose. Leaders dig deeper. Relationships are strengthened. Sustainable transformation begins to take shape. Healthy practices take root.
We are offering four rich offerings beginning this fall. The topics include: building collective flourishing for people of color, embodied antiracist practices designed for white people, personal health through the enneagram, and an opportunity to apply for our Preaching for Change initiative. Our coaches will accompany you through these groups to take what you are learning and support you through actionable next steps, while encouraging you all along the way.
Will you join us as we journey together?
A book about justice is only powerful if it is a catalyst for actual change. Jennifer Harvey’s new book “Antiracism as Daily Practice” sets the table for meaningful conversation among white folks seeking to live in a way that grows racial justice. Led by the author and NEXT Church Coaches, join other white folks from across the country to discuss the content of Dr. Harvey’s new book and engage its actionable reverberations over 6 cohort sessions.
What does it look like to build the spaces and the world we truly need – together? Participants will explore the liberatory journeys of people of color in the past and present through readings, videos, and other engaging materials. Following this grounding work, the group will consider how to navigate power dynamics and their own participation in systems and structures of harm to create revolutionary outcomes: moves toward genuine community, healthy self-and-other accountability, and embodied care and awareness that can buoy us collectively in challenging times.
In conversation with the Enneagram, we can celebrate the strengths God has given us, identify our personality challenges, and put deeper self-understanding into action. The aim of the cohort will be to identify natural gifts and reflexive tendencies, develop instinctive capacities, identify underused strengths, learn how to approach conflict with awareness, and begin to apply the concepts in participants’ leadership contexts.
Worship is a catalyst for congregational change, rooting people in the proclamation of God’s Holy Word and the movement of the Holy Spirit in order to embody their faith in the world. The Preaching for Change initiative creates the opportunity for transformation by developing learning environments for discernment, growth, and experimentation. You are invited to form a cohort to join this Initiative. Applications are now open for the fall cohort, with a July 31 deadline.
If you’ve engaged with NEXT Church in the last six months, you have probably heard someone say, “It’s better when we go together.” This embodies everything we believe at NEXT Church. Better doesn’t always feel good or comfortable, help us get somewhere together faster, or mean that we will get everything that we want. And going together means we get out of our own way and move toward God’s way.
I don’t mean this as a cliche. When our leadership looked to the future of NEXT Church, we bet on the importance of a network of leaders connecting, embodying and practicing their work, and impacting the Church as a collective movement. We want to disrupt transactional engagement (What will I get out of this? How will this help us?) to acknowledge that the moment something becomes a “best practice” it is commodified and universalized.
NEXT Church is committed to building collective spaces where we can make room for unique, lived experiences. We seek to flatten the organizational structure, both ours and those which we navigate, to arrive at a faith which calls us to embody who we are and what we believe so that change is possible. Programs and gatherings are merely spaces where we show up with and for one another, practicing what we believe and providing accountability for the work ahead.
I am brought back to this year’s national gathering by a repetitive chorus from worship, “We get there together or we never get there at all.” We all need one another in order to create this space and the path ahead. Otherwise, we won’t get anywhere at all.
Here are a few ways you can join other leaders in the NEXT Church network:
Celebrate our newest Vision Team members, leaders from across the church who will foster relationships, uphold the organization’s embodiment of its mission and vision, and engage with those on the ground to address the needs and support necessary today.
LEARN MORE ABOUT NEXT CHURCH LEADERSHIP
In partnership with A Sanctified Art and More Light Presbyterians, join us on May 21 at 12:30 pm EST for a Roundtable Conversation on Pride/Imago Dei Sunday. Consider how you have already and will continue to celebrate the liberation of all people.
Together with Crossroads Antiracism Training and Facilitation, we are excited to release a new resource, “Antiracism as a Way of Being.” Check your emails at the end of the month for more information and the opportunity to join an information discussion about our approach and hopes for this work.
Our NEXT Steps Coaching Team is planning several opportunities to engage in cohort learning beginning this fall. More information and registration will be sent in early June. The Preaching for Change initiative will also open up a second round of applications at this time.
With Hope and Joy —
Larissa Kwong Abazia
Executive Director
We are grateful to those who attended our Town Hall Meeting on Monday, January 29, 2024. NEXT Church leadership shared some updates and then engaged in a generative activity and discussion. Check out what you missed!
Here are some highlights:
As the shadows lengthen on another year, it is natural to turn inward in reflection. So we ask ourselves: What have we done? Where have we been? Where would we like to go in the new year? Navigating life and leadership through the pandemic has led to some fallow times, but in this season, we have leaned into our roots of deep listening to the Spirit and to our network. What is NEXT Church called to in these times? Since May of this year, the Vision Team has acted as the NEXT Church organizational board, developing financial resources to sustain the work, and serving as the primary relationship builders across our network.
As a commitment to the season of listening, we re-connected to the network through 9 learning circles, 4 coaching cohorts, a town hall, 40+ relational meetings, numerous round table discussions of over 150 people, and 116 voices in a National Gathering survey.
We are convinced, now more than ever, that we need a connectional network like NEXT Church that meets the church – members, ruling elders, youth leaders, educators, pastors, seminarians, and church professionals – where it is and pushes us to imagine the possibilities and abundance God calls us to.
From our discernment and deep listening, we have clarified the mission of NEXT Church, which is to:
Together we are entering into a new season in the life of NEXT Church. A season focused on the needs of the Church today rooted in meaningful connections, deep growth, and impactful actions. In this season, we are committed to reflection and action, discerning how to cultivate more stability, viability and sustainability going forward.
As part of our discernment, we have come to bear witness to the gifts already present. For the past season, Larissa Kwong Abazia has served NEXT Church as the Designated Strategic Director. The Vision Team recognizes the need for stable leadership, clear role identification, and a commitment to the sustainable development of NEXT Church. That is why the Vision Team announces, with joy, Larissa will become the Executive Director of NEXT Church starting January 1, 2024. Larissa has led us during a time of deep transition by listening to the network and guiding our way forward. We believe that her presence has been an immense gift to our movement and that she is the one to lead and accompany NEXT Church as we move forward.
We are thrilled about what this next season will bring! Join us for skill-building in our Winter Workshop Burst. Check out the opportunities for cohorts for the Preaching for Change initiative. We hope to see you at the 2024 NEXT Church National Gathering in Falls Church, VA, April 8-11, too!
If you are reading this, you are a part of the NEXT Church network. We are grateful for you and we need your support in order to continue sparking these connections and cultivating change in the church and world. If you have benefitted from NEXT Church’s presence in the world, we ask you to give back to this formative movement.
Whether or not you can give financially, please hold the NEXT church network, our staff and coaches, and our Vision Team in prayer. We value your prayer, your generosity, and your participation in and connection to this incredible network.
While the shadows grow long, we cling to hope. Hope in knowing that God – Emmanuel – is with us. Hope that we will follow as the Spirit continues to push, nudge, and shove us with her guidance. Hope in the knowledge that the darkness gives space to germination for the new growth that will come after the winter. Join us in the anticipation of what is to come at NEXT Church! We’re excited to grow with you toward possibility and potential.
With Joy,
Angela Tyler-Williams
Allison Arsenault
Andrew Plocher
On Behalf of the NEXT Church Vision Team
At NEXT Church, we are curious about the ways to embody the work ahead so that we live as the beloved communities we are called to be. It is not about striving for perfection, right answers, solutions, or immediate fixes; we believe it’s about uncovering vulnerable ways to live together and make our faith incarnate everywhere we go.
We come alongside leaders in the Church – church members, ruling elders, youth leaders, educators, pastors, seminarians, and church professionals – to learn and grow in order to bring a taste of the kin-dom of God here on earth together. This year we held 9 learning circles, 4 coaching cohorts, spoke with 40+ individuals as a part of a season of listening, and gathered 137 people in various roundtable discussions.
Though founded by a group of pastors from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over 14 years ago, NEXT Church has never been an entity of the denomination. We do not receive annual, denominational funding, rather, we rely on the generosity of our network (individuals, churches, ministries, and organizations) for primary financial support.
While this structure allows us to be nimble so we can accompany others in innovative ways, it means every dollar we receive is necessary to keep NEXT Church going.
You are critical to making this network sustainable. As this year comes to a close, we need you to be a part of the movement at NEXT Church.
There are still approaches to explore, areas to stretch and grow, and ways to impact the world around us. We are excited to see where we will go together.
With Thanksgiving for your Support,
Larrisa Kwong Abazia
Designated Strategic Director