Pacific Southwest Chapter 2024 Spring Retreat
Monday, March 18, 2024 - Thursday, March 21, 2024

Franciscan Renewal Center, 5802 E. Lincoln Dr., Scottsdale, AZ 85253

Elizabeth Stevens will be offering some of the programming, Ian Riddell is coordinating the worship, and Arvid Straube will be presenting his Odyssey. We should also have plenty of time to rest, to interact informally, and to explore the neighborhood. As has been our recent practice, this will be a pay-what-you-can retreat. Also, people traveling from outside of Arizona will get a $150 travel stipend.

If you would like to atttend, please register before March 1 at the following link: https://forms.gle/UxoUjyQcPJnmwLoi8

Program Description: 

Dancing in the Storm: Trauma Informed Ministry

It's been a rough few years. Heck, it's been a tough couple of decades! Heading into an election year, we might agree with the character in the New Yorker cartoon who states, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

In our time together, we will consider questions such as:

• What are the practices that support personal resilience?

• How do we effectively work with trauma in our varied ministry settings? and

• How can we better support one another in these times when so much pain and trauma permeate the culture?

The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Stevens was ordained in the early months of the 21st century. She currently serves as the minister of the UU Church of the Palouse in Moscow, Idaho. Her doctoral work focused on working with trauma in congregational systems. (Her dissertation title was “Ministry in the Rolling Apocalypse: Managing Trauma in Unitarian Universalist Congregations.”)