Welcome to Beloved Conversations Virtual!
WITHIN Updates:
Registration for the Fall 2021 Term of Beloved Conversations Virtual: Within has been extended! It is now open through September 14, 2021. The Fall Within Programming will begin on September 21 and run through mid-December, 2021.
WITHIN+ EXPLORATION STATIONS Updates:
Registration for Beloved Conversations Virtual: Within+ Exploration Stations will begin October 1, 2021, and continue on through the year. The Exploration Stations are accessible for 3 months after registration, for exploring at your own pace.
About Beloved Conversations Virtual
Beloved Conversations—the signature offering of The Fahs Collaborative at Meadville Lombard Theological School—is a program for Unitarian Universalists seeking to embody racial justice as a spiritual practice. In Beloved Conversations, we are here to heal the impact of racism on our lives, in order to get free together.
We are proud that our traditional, in-person version of Beloved Conversations has been offered in more than 250 congregations across the continent over the past decade and are grateful that so many communities have made our program a part of their faith formation and social justice work. We have always hoped to expand our program out further and to create an online version, for increased accessibility, and to include folks for whom our in-person program was not a good fit. In that spirit...
The Fahs Collaborative is thrilled to bring you the newest version of our curriculum: Beloved Conversations Virtual!
Designed and intended for Unitarian Universalists, with many updated and improved new features, this curriculum offers:
- A digital format that increases accessibility for many users
- An opportunity to engage in lots of different styles of learning and processing
- A developmental approach, that works to meet learners where they are and move forward together from there
- An explicit commitment to centering the spiritual needs of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC+), including explicit resources developed to meet the intellectual, historical, and spiritual needs of Unitarian Universalists of Color living in a world (and a religious community) that privileges white cultural norms
- A framework that acknowledges and honors the spiritual nature of this work and an understanding that it is essential to our personal and religious development
Beloved Conversations Virtual is a program in four parts:
- WITHIN (launched Fall 2020, for individuals; open to all): Our program’s first phase, focused on the individual, personal work we each need to do, and run in two sections: one for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and one for white people
- AMONG (launching Fall 2021, for congregations whose members have participated in Within): Our program’s second phase, focused on the institutional, systemic change needed in our congregations
- BEYOND (launching Fall 2022, for congregations who have participated in Among): Our program’s third phase, focused on the work outside our congregations, with our local communities
- WITHIN+: Exploration Stations (launching Fall 2021, for individuals who have completed at least one term of Within): Additional learning and play spaces, for Within alums who are ready to go deeper
More than 2,000 people participated in the Within Phase in our first year of Beloved Conversations Virtual! The Gathering Our Selves programs brought together more than 250 BIPOC UUs to build community and focus on their spiritual needs! In Un/Learning for Liberation, more than 1800 white UUs learned spiritual skills for eradicating white supremacy in themselves and their culture! Collectively, we were from 8 Canadian provinces, 41 US states + DC, and 4 countries! And who KNOWS how many time zones, cause time zones are wacky.
We are looking forward to a new year of programming, learning, and community building towards collective liberation!
