The Beyond Series

Join a small group. Host your own small group. Buy the content for your personal or small group use.

Available for purchase: Colors of Hope Beyond Red & Blue

Current virtual series: Beyond the Surface, content available for purchase following the live series

Maybe you call it an abundant life. Maybe you call it justice or liberation. How can we go beyond the surface to embody our values and build a more just world, even if (only? especially?) in our own sphere? Can we and/or how do we know deep joy amidst injustice?

Many of us desire connection with individuals and groups who are challenging injustice and striving for deep joy. Move from the sidelines or shorelines to shallow waters to deeper waters. Wade in, dive in, just join in this six week series of conversations about “going deeper.”

Week 1 | Getting Deep: Beyond “Issues,” Looking at Our Values and/or Faith Journeys 

Week 2 | Going Deeper: Our Traveling Companions and Building/Being in Community

Week 3 | Going Deeper: Taking Good Care of Each Other and Ourselves

Week 4 | Going Deeper: Inaction and Taking Action

Week 5 | Deeper Still: Action and (Holy) Ordinary Moments

Week 6 | Deep Joy

While each week can stand alone, we hope you’ll participate as often as possible to build upon the themes and build deep connections with others. In addition to conversation and reflection, each week will highlight a group or organization that is deeply involved in justice work; using a model or approach that goes beyond the surface to meet a need. What is your “beyond”? Read this related sermon from the Rev. Melissa Guthrie and wander with her and with Salvage Garden Beyond the Surface.

Embodied Social Justice?

Social movements start with our own bodies. Our disabled bodies, queer bodies, black and brown bodies, and, and, and…

The ways we engage with others are so much about the body. 

“Without inner change there can be no outer change. Without outer change no change matters.”

Rev. angel Kyodo williams (she/they), Founder, Transformative Change

Colors of Hope Beyond Red & Blue is a virtual series of conversations for people of faith who want to challenge polarization and bridge difference. What faith? No faith? That’s part of the conversation! Red, blue, unaffiliated? That’s part of the conversation!

Reflective practice. Community development. Conflict transformation.

The Pride Flag, a symbol of the LGBTQ+ social movement, weaves colors together and draws people together. The meanings of the red, blue, and purple stripes in the first Pride Flag – life, harmony, and Spirit – provide guiding themes for the series.

Is this political?

How can our bodies not be political? Our bodies are sites/sights for individual and collective justice work.

Is this a training? Is this a book study? 

Colors of Hope Beyond Red & Blue is a group project. With the inherent gifts and challenges of group work, participants will co-create the experiences and outcomes. This Beyond Series centers our bodies and incorporates selections of the Colors of Hope devotional journal and texts from writers and activists such as Audre Lorde, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Resmaa Menakem. Multiple texts – and your stories – will shape the conversations and equip us to have difficult conversations. There is hope beyond our differences.

Colors of Hope Beyond Red + Blue

Monday evenings beginning October 7
4-5:30 p.m. PT | 5-6:30 p.m. MT | 6-7:30 p.m. CT | 7-8:30 p.m. ET

Tuesday mornings beginning October 8
7-8:30 a.m. PT | 8-9:30 a.m. MT | 9-10:30 a.m. CT | 10-11:30 a.m. ET

Week 1, Oct. 7/8: Embodied Social Justice: Our Bodies and Communities
Week 2, Oct. 14/15: The Red Stripe: Our Lives and this Season of Life
Week 3, Oct. 21/22: The Blue Stripe: Harmony and Serenity in a Polarized State
Week 4, Oct. 28/29: The Purple Stripe: Spirit and Spiritual Practices for Justice Work
Week 5, Nov. 4/5: The Rainbow: Pride Flags and Rainbows Above Us
Week 6, Nov. 11/12: The Beyond

Registration starts at $20 for the full series
and is limited to the first 12 participants for each group.
Each week will introduce an embodiment or reflective practice.
Sessions can stand alone, and
each week and our relationships grow out of the group’s work together.

Register now.

A collaborative project between faith communities, Colors of Hope Beyond Red & Blue is sponsored by South Broadway Christian Church (SBCC) in Denver, Colorado. If you are able to contribute more than $20, please do so to support this program and Salvage Garden. If you are committed to participating in the group but unable to pay $20, please be in touch. Cost should not be a barrier to being part of the conversation.

“SBCC is excited to host this series as we all continue to think about building community across lines of difference to create a more loving and just world.”

Phil Munsterman (he/him), Executive Director, South Broadway Christian Church

About the Facilitator, Rev. Melissa Guthrie (she/her)

Melissa is a storyteller and storycatcher; an author and editor; minister and mother. She lives in North Carolina, was raised in Iowa, and feels very at home in Colorado. She enjoys cheesecake and cycling, in that order. Melissa loves being outdoors and reading and writing poetry (outdoors). Pink and yellow are her favorite colors. She often has purple highlights in her hair, and sparkling nail polish on a couple fingernails.

Some other stuff: Melissa is the Founding Director and Pastor of Salvage Garden. She created “The Banquet: A Sensory Worship Experience,” a manifestation of worshiping beyond words. Melissa has a certificate in Embodied Social Justice and is trained in faith-based nonprofit leadership through Wake Forest University Divinity and Law Schools. She is passionate about creating affirming spaces for every body and building coalitions. She is curious about the many intersections of our identities. Melissa has served as the Executive Director + Minister with AllianceQ – the Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance and in congregations, hospitals, and high school and divinity school classrooms. Melissa is an ordained minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) with Lutheran heritage and a commitment to ecumenism. Melissa’s translation of ecumenism: let’s connect, cooperate, and collaborate.

About South Broadway Christian Church

South Broadway Christian Church has served the metro Denver area for over 125 years. Throughout its history, South Broadway has been committed to serving and loving its neighbors both locally and internationally. South Broadway is a church that welcomes anyone and everyone wherever they are on their faith journey, just as Jesus did. 

About Salvage Garden

Salvage Garden strives to reclaim the value of all individuals. Sensory worship has been the organization’s primary branch of service. The organization provides training and education. Experiential workshops, playshops, and restshops focus on expansion (often referred to as inclusion), diversity, difference, advocacy, belonging, hospitality, embodied theology, and disability theology. Through person-centered programming and support, as well as training and education for community groups and organizations, our branches of service are cultivating individual and collective transformation.

Among other publications, Salvage Garden was featured in The Christian Century. This article tells Salvage Garden’s story.

About the devotional journal Colors of Hope

Colors of Hope draws upon the iconic Pride flag and raises a call to embody our beliefs. Using Gilbert Baker’s original flag and its eight colors and themes—sexuality, life, healing, sunlight, nature, art and magic, harmony and serenity, and spirit—readers are invited to reflect, engage, and apply discoveries. The devotions present a range of views, all full of hope, paired with thematic journal prompts and calls to action. The book includes an invocation, introduction, weekly reading, daily reflections, benediction, and list of resources. Colors of Hope is an expansive resource for personal growth and collective change. “Hoping in color” brings the joy, beauty, and power of the rainbow to life.

The book was published by Chalice Press and features contributions from Tyler Heston (he/him), August Laperche (they/them), Sandhya Jha (she/they), Nadia Tavera (she/they), Andrew Deeb (he/him), William DeShay C. Jackson (they/them), Melissa Guthrie (she/her), Renair Amin (she/they), Brendan Y. Boone (he/him), Allen V. Harris (he/him), and Marian Edmonds-Allen (she/they).

Register for the Colors of Hope Beyond Red & Blue series. 

Share the invitation with others.