Dear Colleagues,

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Ministry Days in Baltimore and online from wherever you are. For both onsite and virtual attendees, we will have a variety of resources, supports and opportunities to offer collegial care.  

Care Team members provide presence and containers for people who need a place to be witnessed and heard and held when feelings and troubles arise; they provide support around a range of personal and professional concerns. We’ve learned that sometimes people seek the spiritual care of someone on the Care Team sparked by something in our programming, but just as often people may have an experience at an event that activates something painful and challenging that they are experiencing in another context. Care Team members are available for care in the moment and for help in planning what additional support our colleagues may need to put in place in the future.    

Covenant Team members hold space for people who are experiencing a break in covenant.  There are aspects of this work that are similar to the work of the Care Team, but Covenant Team members may go further in helping people identify what they need when covenant is broken and may even make initial efforts to call someone back into covenant when that seems needed and appropriate. Covenant Team members can look to the Guidelines for examples of how we might interact with colleagues and support repair for those who have been harmed.

Caucus Spaces will be available for people on and off site who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color, Trans and Non/Binary and Disabled. This year we are also adding an intersectional caucus space and a fat caucus by member request. If you would like to help with the virtual caucus spaces please reach out to Lifelong Learning Manager, Julica Hermann de la Fuente.