More information on the content of this program will be made available soon.
Innovating Beloved Communities
This public webinar is part of a series of trainings accompanying EDS's ongoing Innovating Beloved Communities Cohort - an ongoing, year-long learning experience for innovators creating God’s new thing for the sake of love, led by the Rev. Canon Dr. Stephanie Spellers '04. This cohort is convening, equipping, and catalyzing a circle faithful innovators advancing God’s dream of just, compassionate, multicultural, beloved community. The public is invited to witness and participate in this learning experience alongside our cohort leaders.
Trainers
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The Rev. Dr. Ian Mobsby
Ian Mobsby has over 10 years experience of working as a lay pioneer/missioner, and over 20 years as an ordained missioner/pioneer practitioner particularly with missional forms of new monastic communities and the renewal of parishes as mixed ecology contexts of the experimental alongside the traditional. Ian has lectured and spoken around various parts of the Anglican Communion in the USA, Canada, UK & Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He has written a number of books on aspects of contemporary mission and spirituality and recently completed a research PhD part exploration of the 'Spiritual But Not Religious' part theological response exploring a particular contemplative model of mission. A book is due to be published on the subject in the autumn 2024.
Ian was awarded the St Dunstan's medal by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2019 for services to the church in developing new forms of religious/spiritual communities and in 2022 was made the Canon for Mission Theology in the Diocese of Niagara in Canada. In 2023 Ian moved to Canada to take up the senior position as the Diocesan Community Missioner working directly to the Bishop of Niagara to develop mission and missional communities. Ian continues his work as a chapter member of the international new monastic Society of the Holy Trinity and as a Trustee of the St Anselm Community in Lambeth Palace and as a member of the Church of England's College of Bishop’s Advisory Council for the relations of Diocesan Bishops and Religious Communities. To see a full CV, click here.
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The Rev. Canon Dr. Stephanie Spellers ’04
The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers is one of The Episcopal Church’s leading thinkers around 21st-century ministry and mission. The author of several books, she was canon to former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and serves as Priest-in-Charge of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco.
Spellers previously served as chaplain to the Episcopal House of Bishops, directed evangelism and reconciliation at General Theological Seminary, and led church vitality efforts in the Diocese of Long Island. Her professional ministry began in 2005 at St. Paul's Cathedral-Boston, where she founded The Crossing, a ground-breaking church that weaves Episcopal tradition together with voices from the margins. Before that, she was an award-winning religion journalist.
Spellers earned master’s degrees from both Harvard Divinity School and Episcopal Divinity School. She received an honorary doctorate from the General Theological Seminary. A native of Kentucky, she is passionate about helping people to fall in love with God and get free.