Nourish. Rest. Connect.
Who We Are
Shalom Collective is a ministry that nourishes faith leaders across denominations and differences by providing year-long quarterly rhythms of nourishment, rest and connection.
If you are a faith leader in need of rest and connection, join us for a quarterly gathering of coming together to forge meaningful and healing connection.
The Table
"Food is nothing less than Sacrament." Leslie Leyland Fields, The Spirit of Food
"In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal or coming from a meal." Robert Karris, Eating Your Way Through Luke's Gospel
“Eating is an invitation to enter into communion and be reconciled with each other. To eat with God at the table is to eat with the aim of healing and celebrating the membership of creation.”
Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating
"Food is the starting point, the common ground, the thing we hold and handle, the currency we offer to one another."
Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine
Why Shalom Collective?
Pastors and faith leaders are burning out at an unsustainable rate right now, church attendance nationally is in a downward trend, and congregations are increasingly homogenous. We need to gather leaders to HEAL together and to be FOR one another. Sustaining the work required in this historic moment will require soul-restoring work.
Caring for our leaders who are exhausted and lonely is essential and it needs to be done now. Additionally, if we want our pastors and leaders to grasp new and creative ways of reaching outside the walls of the church, they need to taste and see how it might look and feel.
This ministry is one that allows pastors and leaders across denominations to sit at a table together to share a delicious meal, communal practices, and guided small group conversation. Being one in Christ requires more than being offered a seat at the table, it requires meaningful connection: connection to self, others, and God.
The table is one of the central images in our faith evidenced in our regular rhythm of participating in the Lord’s Supper and the centrality of meals in Christ’s ministry. The healing that can and does happen at the table is deep, rich and so very hope-filled.