If you aren’t following Life Together or Episcopal Service Corps on social media, you may have missed the big news of the month– 2021-2022 applications are open! It feels like we’ve barely begun the 2020-2021 program year, and yet we’re already looking ahead to the arrival of new fellows in August 2021. Even as we live fully into this year, we’re already beginning to dream about where God is calling Life Together next, and who feels called to join us in that space. The Recruitment Working Group is making its plans, one of the fellows and I attended a virtual recruitment fair a few weeks back, and we’ve already received some great applications.
Describing what a year or two with Life Together is like can be challenging. The elevator speech about site work, intentional community, and leadership development is clear enough, but doesn’t necessarily explain why people who have experienced this community stay connected to it. It doesn’t explain why people continue to give back to it so readily, or spread the word about it so enthusiastically. The passion and energy I experience from our fellows, alumni, and friends every day about this work is palpable, but not easily encapsulated.
Learning about Movement Ecology from Angel Figueroa of Episcopal City Mission a couple of weeks ago during our monthly training, I had a key insight about where some of that energy might come from. Movement Ecology is a way of looking at different theories of change and how they interact. On the surface, Life Together’s work focuses on personal transformation for young adults– cultivating prayerful and prophetic leaders. Yet much of the Life Together experience actually focuses on alternative institution building. We bring people together in an intensive experience to explore new ways of being community, new ways of being church. We ground ourselves in shared values, and return to those values when we fall short of them. We welcome and celebrate the prophetic leadership of those who have experienced marginalization from the centers of cultural power. Young adults who come here find much to challenge them, to be sure. But they also find that they are beloved, that there is a place for the gifts they seek to share with the world. Creating an alternative institution, as one fellow pointed out during our discussion, requires prophetic imagination. An experience like that changes people– and ultimately helps them change dominant systems that fail to embody God’s dream. And such an experience can’t be fully captured by a 30 second recruitment pitch.
In fact, the best invitation to join a community that will change your life comes from people who have already experienced it. That’s why we need your help in this recruitment season! Please share your story with someone who might be looking for a place in these chaotic times to reimagine what the church, the world, and they themselves could be. Any of our fellows would be happy to share more about the experiences, and help other young adults discover why so many of us have found Life Together to be a place for transformation.
And as I think about the fellows who are to come, in this season of gratitude I also think about all the fellows, volunteers, and supporters who have been on this journey with us for the past 20 years. Thank you for the privilege of walking with you as we prophetically build this community together.