reimagining
our relationship to one another
for the healing of community and the flourishing of the people of God.
The way of Jesus is hard and can be isolating.
We long for reconciliation, yet our communities struggle to tolerate the discomfort involved. We long for healing, yet get stuck when healing feels more painful than being hurt did to begin with.
Genesis 2 describes God’s inherent design for humanity to include both connection to the Divine and connection to one another. Far too often, the breakdown in our communities, churches, and leadership teams is far less about complications of theology or spirituality, and far more frequently about our struggle to establish, remain in, and strengthen connection to one another. And just about every relational breakdown orients in some way around pain and suffering.
What if this is not something to avoid, but to lean into? That is our premise at Church Well Co.
The flourishing we long for is found on the other side of - or even in the midst of - suffering. What if challenges, pain, and suffering do not have to lead to increased isolation, fragmentation, and disconnected relationships? What if the Church could be the Body of Jesus capable of entering into and holding a suffering world? We believe that is possible, but it will require us to re-examine our relationship to one another, and even more specifically to how we engage pain and suffering in the relationship and community.
We need new imagination, different practices, and contexts for practicing in which to work these out together.
This is the work of Church Well Co.
We create contexts for unlocking imagination, developing skills, and engaging one another. Put altogether, our framework looks like this:
Church Well Co seeks the healing of the Church and the formation of rich community through the cultivation of brave people and cultures who can carry heavy things together, face challenges while holding onto connection, and participate in the building up of the Body of Christ.
We invite you to be brave with us. Together.
Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is show up as we are and invite others to meet us there.
Storytelling, hospitality, and the formation of friendship
sit at the core of what we are after.
Why?
Because we find far too often when times are good friends are many, yet when times are hard friends become few.
How does this happen?
Because the trust that is needed to hold heavy things does not develop in relationships and contexts of growth, delight, and celebration.
It is only formed by practicing holding heavy things.
We call these Brave Relationships.
Church Well Co exists to help the Church reimagine its relationship to one another for the flourishing of the people of God. We attend to human connection and community formation through active engagement of pain and suffering in ways that cultivate healing, life, and transformation. To accomplish this we create space in which brave relationships can be cultivated, develop contexts in which we can explore becoming safe(r) together, and train in practices that can be used to develop relationships that are capable of holding heavy things in the most difficult moments of life.
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Mission
Church Well Co exists to help the Church reimagine its relationship one another for the flourishing of the people of God. We attend to human connection and community formation through active engagement of pain and suffering in ways that cultivate healing, life, and transformation.
Values
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God created the world to exist in relationship to God and to one another (Genesis 2). Church Well Co holds conviction that relational connection is both a marker of and invitation to participation in the work of God in this world. Church Well Co engages in, for, and toward relational connection of the people of God.
Church Well Co is unapologetically relationship-forward.
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Space is the experience of having room to show up as we are. Our whole selves. To be seen, known, and welcomed. To be attended to and supported.
Pastors and church leaders often reate space for others and operate in contexts in which they hold responsibility. Paired with the proneness of our world to fill, take, and move through space quickly, much that deserves to be seen, honored, and healed turns into wounds that fester, disconnection that remains, and weariness that does not dissipate. Pastors and leaders burn out, weighed down carrying their own burdens and the burdens of their people.
Pastors and church leaders need space to be created for them. We all need room for connection, healing, and transformation to emerge through relationship.
Church Well Co intentionally creates and holds space for pastors and church leaders.
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The Sacred Heavy is the stories, experiences, thoughts, or parts of ourselves that we hide from the view of God, others, and/or ourselves - because they are too painful, dangerous, tender, or fragile. The parts of ourselves that we carry one because we fear they will lead to further disconnection (from God, self, or others) if acknowledged.
The Sacred Heavy tells of who we are, where we have come from, how we have become us. It describe the wrestlings within us, our formation, our failures. It holds great weight and deserve to be honored.
Church Well Co believes that each story belongs to the person who has experienced it. Those outside the experience are privileged witnesses who are invited to hold the story with the story teller and attend to what God is doing. We are invited to learn to honor the Sacred Heavy in one another by protecting, holding, and caring for it.
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Bravery is the choice to take the risk to acknowledge, welcome, and enter the Sacred Heavy and invite others to enter ours.
We all long for safe relationships. Relational connection is most accessibly experienced in safe relationship. But relational safety is not the starting point for most of us. The process of becoming safe(r) people, communities, and Churches is a process of practicing bravery together. It is through wise and intentional brave engagements that we become safe(r) for and with one another. Church Well Co creates space and opportunity for pastors and church leaders to learn and practice bravery together for healing, connection, and growth.
Church Well Co recognizes that the practice of bravery is foundational to the development of safe(r) relationships.
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Safety does not simply exist or not exist. Safety is co-created over time. When my bravery is met by your bravery, and the bravery of both is acknowledged, trust grows and we become safe(r) together.
Emotional and relational safety has to do with the experience of trustworthiness within the community context in which there is openness, predictability, and a fair and balanced system. Safety cannot be declared. It must be developed. Together. We do not begin with trust. We form trust. Wrestling with whether or not we can trust each other, how much we can trust each other, and how to talk about it are foundational to the formation of safety.
Church Well Co engages with the intent to create spaces and train others to create spaces in which we become safe(r) together.
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