In this Episode we have a heart to heart conversation with Renjy Abraham, the Dean of Spiritual Life and Cultural Integration at Multnomah University. Serving in the Diversity and Inclusive Development Department, Renjy is passionate about walking with BIPOC leaders as they discover their true selves. As an Indian American, born and raised in the Pacific NW, Renjy brings a unique skill set and view of collaboration with his 17-year career in multicultural leadership in Oregon. He talks with us about how he encourages young emerging leaders to be agents of change right where they are in Portland, and expanding that out to the world. We learn about the connection between spiritual formation and cultural identity and the dangers in keeping these two areas of development separate from one another. He also offers encouragement to our community who are committed to spirituality, justice, and wisdom in their leadership.

Resource Mentioned: Mixed Feelings, Poems and Stories 

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On this episode, we sit down with Andrew Kim, the Teaching and Small Groups Pastor at Kensington Church in the metro Detroit area. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Andrew has traveled widely, throughout Asia, Europe, Central America and Africa. One of his greatest passions is to see Asian Americans live more fully into their God given identity. He shares an epiphany he had at the beginning of the pandemic and how that has fueled his leadership journey. We learn how Asian American identity is minimized, and why it's not an obstacle to overcome, but rather a gift to be embraced. Andrew also offers up some critical wisdom for young + established leaders about continuing moving forward in this time. 

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

Can we do this again? Can we begin again? Can we keep moving forward after all of this? These are the questions Episode 5 answers with a wholehearted YES!  We sat down with Kevin Sweeney, the co-founder and curator of Imagine, an urban church in Honolulu that is welcoming of all people, sees imagination as the key to the future, and chooses substance over hype. He's the host of podcast called “The Church Needs Therapy” and is the author of the book, “The Making of a Mystic” which will be out in 2022.  As a mystic, church planter, podcaster, and author, Kevin is committed to creating environments for creativity, cultural innovation, social healing, and personal transformation. He talks with us about his quest to find what's real, what matters, and what we're all doing here and shares how an amazing transformative moment at 18 years old set him on this trajectory.  We hear about his challenges leading a spiritual community and the creative ways he goes about meeting them. He also talks about how the seemingly opposite modes of hustle and contemplative care inform each other and work together in his life. He offers us potent medicine on how we need to allow whatever our communities looked like before the pandemic to die, so we can collectively be born again and midwife in this new moment together and encourages us to open our hearts again, to believe in the future, after so much loss. 

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this episode we have a conversation about building lasting connections across cultures and the vital connection between our faith and our cultural identity. Dr. Michelle Ami Reyes is an Indian American author, speaker, church planter, and activist who is deeply engaged with anti-racist work. As the co-founder of a non profit called Made for Pax, she inspires and equips the next generation of like-minded communities of color, to pursue peace, justice, and wholeness in the world.

She shares some of the challenges and victories getting her non-profit going and insights for emerging leaders wanting to take on such a movement. She takes on the big issues of cultural difference, stereotyping, appropriation, and racism, and talks about what it takes to build cross-cultural relationships that lead to healing. We also learn what inspired her to write her new book, Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead to Lasting Connections Across Cultures, and what she hopes readers will take away from it.

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this episode, we drop in with Grace Martino-Suprice, a young leader with a heart for community development and desires to help the Church create bridges of love with the world around it. Since an early age, Grace has served with various congregational and parachurch ministries including UrbanPromise in Wilmington, DE and Because Justice Matters in San Francisco, CA.  She is currently the Outreach and Growth Specialist at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship,  where she seeks to cultivate engagement and partnerships with individuals, organizations and churches. Supporting Familia, CBF’s Latino Network and the Pan-African Koinonia Network, she ensures the growth, participation, and true belonging of people of color within the Fellowship.  She's also on the Together for Hope team that works alongside organizations in the 301 poorest counties in the U.S. through an asset based community development model. Grace is a Puerto Rico native and currently resides in New London, Connecticut.

We learn some of the shaping moments on her own leadership journey and why she still chooses to serve in her local church and the community she came from. She talks about the impostor syndrome phenomenon that affects emerging and established leaders alike and how we can change the narrative inside our own heads to move past that, for ourselves and the communities we serve. Grace also shares her hopes and dreams for the future and offers some practical advice for leaders navigating these times.

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this episode, we sit down with Arlene Mendoza, a dynamic leader in our community with 14 years experience in the tech space, who recently pivoted to Software Product Strategy/Management in the Social Enterprise space and sits on the Board of Moran Consulting and Pacific School of Religion. She was invited to be a guest speaker in our certificate program, talking about creative communication, because of her success around transformational leadership and her passions at the intersection of spirituality, technology and innovation.

She talks with us about what communication looks like when bringing together a variety of perspectives. We also hear about spirituality in the tech space, leadership wisdom from ancestors, and the Oaxacan concept of 'tequio' in relation to the collective. She sheds light on integrating her commitments to justice, spirituality, and creativity and offers wisdom and inspiration for emerging leaders who may be feeling stuck in this moment.

"With tequio, I didn't realize it was a philosophy of my grandparents. I just thought it was a way of life. Every culture, every ancestral wisdom, has those nuggets of what some of our ancestors did that contributed, in some way, to improve the collective."

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

Who is Jalen Seawright? Aside from being the fabulous new face and voice of Season 3 of Change Happens Now Podcast, Jalen is a young dreamer who wants to amass a lot of change in this world! He's passionate about justice, watching people come together, and bridging gaps between communities that are different from each other. He's an entrepreneur who started WeCollectively, a nonprofit working on that works on creating content, helping people grow in their empathy and understanding of each other. He's a mentor and a figure in the lives of the kids and youth in his community. He's also a father and husband!  In this Season 3 opening episode, our very own Jonathon Murillo sits down with our new host to talk about some of his origin story moments, those moments that really shaped who he is and got him to where he is now. He takes us through his journey of pain and possibility, starting at 14, an inflection point of his life, with the awkwardness, emergence, confusion, complexity, and fire that started in his heart back then, to begin to leverage his musical and artistic abilities to get into circles in places where he could amass change and make beauty out of spaces of difference. He also talks about his vision of justice, offers encouragement to our community of emergent leaders, and shares his hopes for Season 3! 

"You don't have to have it all figured out! There's this expectation young leaders put on themselves, because we do feel a weight of the calling and we want to be able to thoroughly think through exactly what we want to accomplish. But I think that if we realize, and we understand that we're all on a journey...I think we have to live in the moment. It's not about what you have going on five years from now, while it's great to dream and build, it's really listening for the voice of the spirit to tell you and lead you to the next step. Don't worry about the expectations of having to have it all figured out. Do it!"  Follow Jalen and his work on Instagram @seawright__ 

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this Season 2 wrap episode, we continue the conversation on transformative leadership with @lamikiacastillo a powerful and inspiring Afro-Latina leader, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. As a professor, consultant, and organizer over the last 20 years...a commitment to social justice, racial equity, and social change permeate every aspect of her personal and professional life.  We talk with her about how the twists and turns of her own personal journey set her up to make a unique difference in her work and reflect on how seemingly symbolic victories in the work of justice can both help and harm the cause.  As a wisdom-based leader, La Mika also sheds light on a competency in this leadership framework; how and when collaboration becomes courageous. She also shares keys to being sustained in such challenging and meaningful work for the long haul. 

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this episode, Byron Chung, our Executive Director, sits down with two phenomenal leaders in our community.  Areej Masoud is a Christian-Aramean Palestinian, born and currently living in Bethlehem. She is justice oriented, takes action towards change through the faith-based communities she belongs to, and is passionate in raising awareness and promoting Palestinians’ struggles through local and public speaking events. Based on her experience in communication, development and advocacy, she is working on an online based startup in branding, communications and social media marketing in hopes she can help other startups rise, despite the economic restrictions the occupation forces upon Palestinians.  Reverend Michael Yoshii received the Pacific School of religion Distinguished Alumni Award in 2002, recognizing his pastoral leadership and social justice activism, including work on local racial justice issues, LGBTQ equity, and affordable housing activism. In post retirement Ministry, he serves on the International Committee for human rights in the Philippines Global Council, and is a co chair of the Friends of Wadi Foquin, a partnership started in 2009 through Michael's previous congregation and other United Methodist Churches with the Palestinian village of Wadi Foquin located southwest of Bethlehem on the green line. Wadi Foquin is a small and actually somewhat obscure village -- but is emblematic of much of the West Bank Palestinian agricultural/farm reality. It's a microcosm of the larger Palestinian reality. Michael first met Areej in Bethlehem on one of his trips to the region, and a their connection has been fortified through solidarity.  Areej and a cohort of emerging interfaith and cross sector leaders recently completed our Wisdom-Based Leadership Certificate program. In this conversation they share about that experience and provide a firsthand telling of what it looks like to create social transformation in the midst of the Palestinian reality. 

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.

On this episode we drop in with Ashley Sikorski, founder, CEO, and head coach at Sway leadership. Sway serves leaders and their teams in developing emotional health and intelligence to create a culture of humanity in their organizations and through their work. In this conversation, we talk about the power of listening, the power of tending to our inner person as leaders, and why it's important to bring our teams in on that work. We hear about the importance of doing the hard work of self-awareness in our own formation and about the trap of trend that even those most committed to emotional intelligence can still fall into. This episode provides timely encouragement with how to move forward as a leader committed to cultivating this kind of culture in your organization. 

https://www.swayleadership.com/

To get more content like this and learn more about ignite and PSR go to psr.edu.