“In a world where some of us don’t have the luxury of being safe, some of us have to be brave. And what it means to be brave is opening ourselves up to the possibility of transformation.” Rev. Jen Bailey


E93 – Rev. Jen Bailey ON RADICAL HOPE, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP & TRANSFORMATION

BRAVE LIVES IN TIMES OF RECKONING


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About this interview:

What could transform if we embraced brave spaces?

‘In a world where some of us don’t have the luxury of being safe, some of us have to be brave. And what it means to be brave is opening ourselves up to the possibility of transformation.’ In this episode, Amisha talks with Rev. Jen Bailey, ordained minister, public theologian, and a leader in the multi-faith movement for justice. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network, a Womanist-led organisation equipping community organizers, faith leaders, and activists with resources for connection, spiritual sustainability, and accompaniment.  Jen’s work imagines a future that is grounded in spiritual practice and healing. She believes that we can revolutionise spaces that hold systemic conditioning. Practising connection, accompaniment and healing, she makes church relevant for her community as brave space for collective transformation. Amisha and Jen explore experiences of gas-lighting, people pleasing and liberation as conversations about racism are opening up in new forms and spaces. They share their personal transitions into spiritual leadership and the courage to live into joy and faith deepening connection to the divine and to ancestral resilience during the current Black Lives Matter movement. Together they contemplate brave spaces that can invite us into safe communities for exploring grief, hope, belonging and vulnerability to illuminate future possibilities, where everyone can see themselves as process, loved and beloved beyond this current season.

“There are two ways you can confront a moment of reckoning and uncovering an apocalyptic moment if you will. We can approach it with a spirit of fear and scarcity, or we can see it as an opportunity to more deeply see, not just see, but imagine, so see, that, which is physically right in front of us and present, and then attempt to see even beyond what can be.”  ~Rev. Jen Bailey


 

Named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, Rev. Jen Bailey is an ordained minister, public theologian, and a leader in the multi-faith movement for justice. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network, a Womanist-led organization equipping community organizers, faith leaders, and activists with resources for connection, spiritual sustainability, and accompaniment. Jen is Co-Founder of the People’s Supper, a project that aims to repair the breach in our interpersonal relationships across political, ideological, and identity difference over shared meals. Since 2017, the People’s Supper has hosted over 1,500 dinners in 135 communities. Jen is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church—the first historically black Protestant denomination in the world. She enjoys good food, dancing like nobody’s watching, and road trip adventures with her husband, Ira.  

 

To find out more about Jen’s work, visit @revjenbailey

To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk


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