The landscape of faith is shifting, and we’ve all felt the growing gap between traditional church structures and the spiritual hunger of younger generations. We are reaching out because we have identified a significant grant opportunity designed to bridge that exact divide.
This grant focuses on creating and testing innovative Christian practices specifically tailored for Generation Z, Millennials, and those who identify as "Spiritual but Not Religious" (SBNR). It is a chance to move beyond "business as usual" and pilot meaningful ways of being the Church in a post-institutional world.
Click through to read more about this exciting opportunity.
Read MoreThe United Church of Christ Musicians Association is pleased to announce its upcoming biennial national conference to be held July 8 – 11, 2026 at the First Community Church in Columbus, Ohio.
Conference 2026: United in Spirit, Diverse in Sound will offer workshops, worship services, concerts, optional activities and networking to church musicians and worship leaders. The First Community Church of Columbus, Ohio, which is affiliated with both the Disciples of Christ (DOC) and the United Church of Christ (UCC), will host the conference. Attendees will have access to a wide range of activities designed to refine musical skills and provide valuable resources and ideas for expressing God's Spirit creatively, especially during challenging times.
This in-person event is open to all. For complete information and registration, please visit Conference 2026.
For information about the United Church of Christ Musicians Association, visit their website or click here for an introductory welcome letter.
Read MoreFeb 26, 2026 01:30 PM
This is the first in a four-part series discussion on those ministers who serve in and with community-based organizations, rather than through congregational outreach. Join our conversation as we discuss the immediate role of clergy and other authorized spiritual support individuals in times of emergency crisis and disasters. Four spiritual support specialists from across the country will discuss their roles as first-responder chaplains and disaster response individuals on the important role of clergy in those moments when all hope seems lost and in long-term community-based situations when immediate concerns are being handled, but hope seems hard to find.
Read MoreInsurance Board - Webinar - EPL Risk Management 360: Smart Hiring, Compliance, and Litigation Readiness
Thursday, March 19, 11:00 am AZ / 12:00 pm NM/El Paso
via Zoom
Register to attend this webinar by visiting this link. The Zoom has a limited number of live participants, and the recording will be posted on the IB webinar page.
Read MoreLent brings us back to what matters. When we receive ashes and hear, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” we remember something essential. Titles do not define us. Positions do not elevate us. We all stand equally before God as servants of Christ.
This truth shapes how we live and govern together in the United Church of Christ, and especially here in the Southwest Conference.
We practice covenant, not hierarchy.
Jesus showed us this way. When the disciples questioned their importance and status, Jesus did not set up a chain of command. He taught them to serve, wash their feet, and walked beside them. He formed a community rooted in humility, trust, and shared responsibility. He showed leadership grows from service, not control.
We continue that same practice today.
Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s article.
Read MoreMarch 2nd · 12 pm
Register Here for Zoom Link
The Safe Communities Coalition will host Praveen Sinha, Security Director of Equality Labs. This interactive workshop will offer tangible steps to help you and your colleagues tighten your online security, including best practices for preventing doxxing and addressing other digital threats.
Read MoreBlack women are often praised for strength, resilience, and endurance, but rarely given space to name the cost. This workshop examines how racism functions as a system of power rather than individual bias, and how Black women, including Black trans and queer women, experience its impacts in work, leadership, relationships, and movement.
Together, we will explore how the demand for exceptionalism emerges as a survival strategy within racialized systems, and how it leads to burnout, disconnection from the body, and conditional belonging. Participants will be invited to reflect on the ways faith communities may unintentionally reinforce these expectations through theology, leadership culture, and justice work.
Grounded in spiritual practice and collective care, the workshop closes by reclaiming rest as resistance understood as small, intentional acts of pause and presence that refuse disposability, restore agency, and re-center sacred worth, even as violence, occupation, and struggle persist.
Register here.
Read MoreSociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the phrase “third place” to describe spaces beyond the two main poles of our lives: home and work. At home, we live our private roles. At work, we carry out our public responsibilities. Third places are the church, cafés, libraries, and parks where community forms, and we remember we are more than our obligations.
When those spaces disappear, life tightens into a loop between productivity and privacy. We move from task to task and rarely pause to ask who we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent create a sacred third space. At home, relationships and routines shape you. At work, expectations and performance define you. But when you step forward to receive ashes, those labels fall away. Titles fade. Status fades. Success and failure lose their grip. Christ meets you there, not as a résumé or a role, but as a soul. You hear the words: " You are dust. And you belong to Christ.
Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s entire article.
Read MoreThe Prophetic Witness Campaign is a statewide, faith-rooted effort organized by Arizona Faith Network & Corazón AZ to protect human dignity, strengthen community safety, and bear public witness to the sacred worth of every person. At the same time, unjust and immoral immigration policies continue to separate families, criminalize asylum, and place already-vulnerable communities in constant fear and harm.
We invite clergy and faith leaders across Arizona to join this shared work of unity, nonviolence, and moral courage. Sign up using the link below and you will receive updates about Faithful Witness Gatherings, monthly trainings, public vigils, action opportunities, and ways to participate locally and statewide.
PROPHETIC WITNESS CAMPAIGN SIGN UP
Coming Soon: In-Person Trainings
If you're interested in attending an in-person training event for the Prophetic Witness Campaign in either Tucson (Feb. 17 at 6:00 pm) or Phoenix (Feb 19 at 6:00 pm), please click here to RSVP and to receive more details.
Read MoreLast year, I began reaching out to clergy across the Southwest Conference with a request to submit their current call agreements and Three-Way or Four-Way Covenants. This was more than a routine administrative task or a simple check-in on record keeping. It was an invitation to revisit the very heart of our shared identity. In the United Church of Christ, we are a covenantal people. If we claim to live in such a relationship, we should be able to point to where that covenant is written and retained. Healthy governance requires this balance of relational clarity and accurate documentation, ensuring that our shared promises are both lived and recorded.
This identity shapes how we understand authorization, which is the formal recognition that an individual is called and prepared to serve. In our tradition, ministers are never authorized independently of the wider church. Their standing exists within a web of covenantal relationships. That recognition is expressed through a Three-Way Covenant linking the minister, the local church, and the Conference, or through a Four-Way Covenant that includes an employing institution or ecumenical partner. Through these documents, the wider church affirms that a specific ministry is not a solo endeavor, but one accountable to and supported by the whole Body.
Because we do not operate through hierarchical control, our accountability flows directly from these mutual commitments. It is helpful to distinguish between a call agreement, which addresses the practical terms of employment and compensation, and a covenant, which names the ecclesial bond.
Read MoreNew course listings for April.
Read MoreJoin them in Columbus, Ohio this summer for workshops, worship, concerts, networking and camaraderie.
July 8 – 11, 2026
First Community Church, North Campus, 3777 Dublin Road, Columbus, Ohio
They especially welcome the Association of Disciples Musicians!
Open to all. Need to know more?
Conference Director Andrew Blosser will be on Zoom to answer your questions.
Saturday, March 28 at 9 am AZ / 10 am NM & El Paso
Register to receive the link.
Read MoreEvery February, we celebrate Black History Month. For the church, this is far more than marking a date on the calendar—it is an essential rhythm of our faith. We must remember that Black history is not a footnote to Christian history; it is the heart of it.
The Black church has carried the gospel through the fires of slavery, segregation, and systemic injustice. In hidden "hush harbors" and crowded sanctuaries, believers clung to Jesus when the world refused to acknowledge their humanity. Their faith was not a theory; it was a lifeline. Spirituals were sermons set to music, and prayer meetings were acts of resistance. Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and countless local pastors didn't just seek policy change—they spoke from a radical trust in Jesus’ command to love neighbors, seek justice, and walk humbly with God.
The entire Body of Christ has been shaped by this witness.
For pastors, this month is an opportunity for "truth-telling" from the pulpit.
Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s full article.
Read MoreBlack History Month is a time to reflect—not just on the past, but on how we carry that legacy forward. For generations, Black communities have leaned on faith as a source of strength, hope, and courage. Faith carried our ancestors through storms of injustice, guiding them to stand boldly even when the world said they couldn’t.
That same faith calls us today to live with integrity, kindness, and courage. It reminds us that excellence is more than personal achievement; it’s an act of resilience and resistance. It’s about showing up fully, authentically, and faithfully in every space we occupy.
Click through to read Shandrika’s full article.
Read MoreFaith communities are actively responding to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela as the U.S. seeks to control Venezuela's oil. In working to expand and strengthen these efforts, what do faith communities need to know about the situation faced? How can they act to prevent U.S. imperialism in Venezuela and other countries?
In addressing these questions, our webinar panelists will be Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies, Lisa Sullivan from the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and Tim Heishman from the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Even if you cannot make the live event on Wednesday, February 11th at 11 am MST, still register, and we will send you a recording. Register today!
Read MoreWednesday, February 11, 8:30 am - 2:00 pm
Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza
1700 W Washington St, Phoenix, AZ 85007
Join with the Sierra Club, Chispa Arizona, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, AZ Youth Climate Coalition, Arizona Faith Network, and many other groups for the annual lobby day at the Arizona Capitol. Meet with your legislators, hear from great speakers, and connect with others who are doing advocacy work both inside and outside the Arizona Legislature. RSVP so we have enough materials, can put you in a team for legislative meetings, and can plan for food. This year's theme is "People Power for the Planet!"
RSVP here.
Read MoreEco-Theology: Centering Creation in Love begins April 8, 2026
As with all subcategories of theology, ecotheology has many facets. In this course, we will engage with theological points of view across several expressions of American Christian thought: creation care within community, creation care as incarnational love, creation care as earthkeeping, and creation care as an expression of hope. A daily environmental observational journal of wonder for the duration of the course. This can be in any format, including digital, handwritten, sketched, video, audio, photographs, etc., and media may be mixed. Assignments based on the journal are included in Week 1, Week 4, and Week 6 of the course. Each week will have a different focus on the same environment.
Click through to see this and other course offerings.
Read MoreIn the United Church of Christ, we do not organize ourselves around control. We organize ourselves around a covenant. That word can sound formal or abstract, but covenant is deeply practical. It shapes how we relate to one another as local churches, authorized ministers, Committees on Ministry, and the Conference. Covenant is not a contract. It is not a hierarchy. It is a promise to walk together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Throughout Scripture, the covenant is the way God chooses to be in relationship with God’s people. In Genesis, God binds God’s self to Abraham. In Exodus, God forms a covenant community at Sinai. In Jeremiah, God promises a new covenant written on the heart. Covenant is God’s way of saying, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” It is relational, mutual, and enduring.
Our life together in the Southwest Conference reflects that same spirit.
Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s article.
Read MoreSaturday, January 24, 2026 at 10 am MST
To celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025, The United Church of Canada commissioned a group of 30 ministers, musicians and worship leaders to create a new hymnal. It was seven years in the making and the results are remarkable. Its globally-sourced collection of hymns “lifts up the intercultural and anti-racist commitment of the church with material that prioritizes Black, Indigenous, People of Color, French-speaking, Two-Spirit and LGBTQTTIA+ voices, and concerns of people with disabilities.” (TLUS preface) It reminds us of “faithful song as an antidote to fear,” and calls us to remember Jesus’ love for everyone.
Join three members of the development team as they discuss Then Let Us SING! and their experience in its creation.
Read MoreA few weeks, I emailed our clergy to remind them that the 2025 Annual Information Review will take place soon. In that message, I also noted the need for the Conference to have each minister’s three-way or four-way covenant on file. Preparing that reminder led me to pause and reflect on a simple but important question: What do we mean when we talk about covenant?
In the United Church of Christ, the word covenant sits at the heart of who we are. We use it often, sometimes so often that it can sound like familiar church language. Covenant is worth slowing down for, because it names the way we choose to live together as God’s people.
Click through to read Dr. Derrick’s full article.
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