The Fellowship
What is the Beatitudes Fellowship?
The Beatitudes Fellowship equips a select group of new entrepreneurial faith leaders with the resources and relationships that empower them to create new models for church and the pursuit of social justice. This Fellowship is focused on building progressive Christian congregations.
During the yearlong Fellowship, each Fellow develops their own great idea, working in their congregation, and gathers four times each year for customized leadership training workshops.
The Beatitudes Fellowship provides each Fellow:
- A $10,000 award
- A yearlong series of quarterly Fellows’ gatherings in Berkeley, CA
- Customized resources and advisors: how to choose and work with coaches, mentors and other leaders in a widening network of resources
- Evaluation and strategic planning: how to figure out what each Fellow needs for their project, from the tangible (people, money, time) to the intangible (faith, hope, courage)
- Preaching, story-telling and media workshops: how to tell the story of your innovative ministry project
- Community-building workshops: how to engage your congregation in change
- Sustaining spiritual practices: how to lead from within, incorporating the practices and principles of deep listening, creating hospitable spaces, holding the tensions of paradox, developing a spirit of inquiry
- Peer community with other entrepreneurial leaders: time to relax and connect
Who is eligible for a Beatitudes Fellowship?
Emerging faith leaders who are:
- Under the age of 40
- Within seven years after divinity school graduation
- Based in a community of faith
- Actively working to engage faith with social justice work using a unique approach
Candidates for the Beatitudes Fellowship have:
- a proven track record of leadership
- a commitment to full inclusion of all people
- a commitment to faith and to social justice
- a willingness to take risks
- a desire to collaborate with others
- a specific project that matches up their deep gladness with the world’s great need
How are Beatitudes Fellows selected?
Fellows are nominated by key professional colleagues, and selected nominees then complete an application process that includes an online application and description of their project due, as well as a personal interview. Nominations for Fellows Class 2013-2014 are now closed but it is possible to nominate Fellows for Class 2014-2015 at any time. The Fellows Class of 2013-2014 will be announced by June 1, 2013.
What is required of a Beatitudes Fellow?
Commitment to active engagement and attendance at all Fellows Gatherings throughout the yearlong Fellowship. Travel expenses to Berkeley will be covered.
We are working to develop leaders like:
Becca Stevens
Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest, author, social entrepreneur and founder of Magdalene, a residential program for women who have survived lives of violence, prostitution and addiction. Thistle Farms is the social enterprise that supports the work. Becca serves as chaplain of the vibrant St. Augustine’s Chapel at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, where she also leads the Center for Contemplative Justice. She is a 2011 White House Champion of Change. We are honored to count her as an Honorary Advisor to The Beatitudes Society.
On the growth of St. Augustine’s, she says:
“When I came here and started it was a very small community. We focused on our mission at Magdalene and Thistle Farms. What I’ve learned along the way is that if you have a faith rooted in the ethic of love, grounded in the Beatitudes, and lived out in acts of justice, it ends up being a great tool for building a faith community; that’s different from a faith community that on the sidelines does acts of justice.”
