
Leading With Love - The Virtual Community
Welcome to Leading with Love
The 12-month virtual curriculum of Auburn Theological Seminary's Emerging Leaders Program.
Over the next year you will participate in monthly virtual sessions designed to strengthen your capacity to embody what it means to lead with love in your context. This curriculum deepens and expands on what you learned during the in-person intensive phase of the Program. Our goal is to provide an experience that allows you to combine the resources of your particular faith/spiritual traditions with proven practices and tools can facilitate your ability to build community, bridge divides and pursue justice in your context and with your community.
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The Sessions
During this 12-month curriculum you will be engaging as a leader rooted in your context. That means not only will we be sharing the facilitation of the monthly virtual sessions, but also—vitally—you will be trying out these new practices and leading them in your own contexts and communities. As a cohort, you will then have the opportunity to discuss, reflect on, and learn from your own and each other's experiences in context.
The sessions will take place on the third Tuesday of each month from 6:00 - 8:00 pm (EST). The specific dates and content for the sessions are as follows:
BUILDING COMMUNITY
- May 20, 2025: Session One - Building Community – Mirror/Lens/Window Practice
- June 17, 2025: Session Two - Building Community—Scriptural Reasoning Practice
- July 15, 2025: Session Three - Building Community- Sharing Stories of Experience with Practices in Context
BRIDING DIVIDES
- August 19, 2025: Session Four - Bridging Divides – Talking Circles Practice
- September 16, 2025: Session Five - Bridging Divides – Futuring Case Study
- October 21, 2025: Session Six - Bridging Divides – Futuring Together to Bridge Divides
PURSUING JUSTICE
- November, 18, 2025: Session Seven - Pursuing Justice – The Powers Practice
- December, 16, 2025: Session Eight - Pursuing Justice – Transforming Sacred Texts I Practice
- January, 20, 2026: Session Nine - Pursuing Justice – Transforming Sacred Texts II Practice
- February 17, 2026: Session Ten: Pursuing Justice—Sharing Stories of Experiences in Context
HEALING THE WORLD
- March 17, 2026: Session Eleven - Healing the World – Theopoetics Practice
- April 21, 2026: Session Twelve - Healing the World – Embodied Image Making Celebration
The attached calendar and sign-up sheet is designed to help you plan how you intend to participate in both the virtual sessions and apply the practices in your context.
While a member of the Auburn Leadership Team will guide key elements of each session – with monthly recaps, framing and check-in, helping folks to dig deeper into the topic for each section, and setting participants up for the following session at the end of the two hours – the bulk of the leadership will be the responsibility of the cohort participants.
A grounding and closing practice are included in each of the areas. These are leadership opportunities where members of the cohort get to practice anchoring the group during the opening and closing of each session.
Unless otherwise indicated all practice sessions will take place in small breakout rooms. This means there should be a dedicated leader for each breakout. The leader acts as the overall facilitator for the given activity and is not a participant. All practice leaders will be provided with detailed instructions on how to lead the practice in advance of the session.
Did you miss a session? Do you want to revisit a conversation or insight from a member of your cohort? What about that great grounding or closing practice? Could their words inspire and equip you on your leadership journey?
Come here to access video clips from past sessions. This content is meant to support your process as a healing centered leader by sharing the powerful sources of wisdom and knowledge emerging from folks reflective engagement with the practices and skills explore in each session and throughout the entire curriculum.
Come here for additional resources related to each session.
SESSION ONE - Building Community - Lens to Mirror Practice
Video clips
- Building Community in my context - Community check in and reflections
- Grounding led by Tyler Cole - Breathing Practice and a reading offered from the Unitarian Universalist tradition
- Closing led by Amany Darkaoui offered from the Islamic Tradition
Additional Resources
- Peter Block, Community: The Structure
of Belonging (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc) 2018. - adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy, (AK Press) 2017.
- Kaitlin B. Curtice. Native Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God. (Beacon Press), 2020.
- bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism (Holt Paperbacks), 1996.
SESSION TWO: Scriptural Reasoning
Video Clips:
Community Check in & Reflection
Additional Resources
- Peter Ochs, Religion Without Violence: The Practice and Philosophy of Scriptural Reasoning, Cascade Books, 2019
- The Rose Castle Foundation https://www.rosecastlefoundation.org/scriptural-reasoning
Here you will find worksheet, guides and instructions for the various practices we will engage throughout the program year. These tools are designed to help you lead practices in your context.
Building Community Practices
- Beloved Meditation
- 2X2 Conversations
- Lens to Mirror Practice
- Opening Practices Worksheet
- Scriptural Reasoning Practice
Overall Evaluation
- Context, Impact, Action Worksheet
- Use this sheet to offer feedback to members of your cohort
- Shared Stories of Practice in Context Worksheet
- Use this sheet to record your experience with the practices and tools in your context
Each virtual session will follow a similar structure, intentionally designed to facilitate learning and build community within the cohort.
Each month will include the follow elements:
- Framing, recap - Auburn team led overview of the monthly session and recap of where we have been on our learning journey
- Community check-in - This is our "what's up," moment
- Grounding ritual - Cohort led opportunity for folks to center our community of practice with resources informed by our religious/spiritual traditions
- Digging Deeper - Auburn team led opportunity to add depth to the theme and practice of the month, through focused conversation, resource sharing and reflection
- The Practices - cohort led opportunities for folks to lead practices and methodologies on building community, bridging divides and pursuing justice introduced during the intensive in preparation for sharing them in your context
- Report Back - Highlights and insights from small groups for the good of the whole
- Wrap- Up - Auburn team led "housekeeping," in preparation for upcoming session
- Closing ritual - cohort facilitated session closing that, like the grounding at the beginning sends us forth with a word from our traditions
This curriculum will help you...



Lessons

Welcome and Introduction

Session One: Building Community - From Lens to Mirror and Window Practice

Session Two: Building Community—Scriptural Reasoning Practice

Session Three: Building Community - Sharing Stories of Experience of Practices in Context

Session Four: Bridging Divides - Circle Practice

Session Five: Bridging Divides - Futuring Case Studies

Session Six: Bridging Divides - Futuring Case Studies Part II

Session Seven: Pursuing Justice - The Powers Practice

Session Eight: Pursuing Justice Transforming Sacred Texts I

Session Nine: Pursuing Justice - Transforming Sacred Texts II

Session Ten: Pursuing Justice - Practicing In Context - Story Sharing and Telling

Session Eleven: Heal the World - Theopoetic Practice
