Inspirations Blog
A multimedia collection of stories, learnings, reflections, and resources from the people and ministries of Juniper Formation.
Imago Dei
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Theo Isoz (they/them).
Resurrected Christ: God’s Nonviolent Uprising
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Minister of Prophetic Formation at Juniper Formation, given at Park Hill Congregational UCC in Denver, CO.
As the sun painted the sky with rainbow watercolors, but before certainty returned, before the world made sense again, there were women walking toward the tomb.
They were not expecting resurrection.
Good Friday
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Dax Franklin-Hicks (he/him).
Save us now! A Palm Sunday Protest
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Minister of Prophetic Formation at Juniper Formation, given at Park Hill Congregational UCC in Denver, CO.
Whenever empire stages a parade, it wants to be seen.
It wants polished armor, synchronized steps, banners held high, weapons gleaming in the sun. It wants the kind of order that makes people believe resistance is futile.
Because if people can imagine something different, empire begins to crack.
Protect the Vulnerable
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Candace Woods (she/her).
Who do you love?
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Amanda Creek (she/her).
Acknowledge. Repair. Restore.
This week’s scriptures focus on what to do about harm, and I can’t think of a better frame for the week after the genocidal US-Israeli regime bombardment of Iran included a girls school killing 148 children and teachers. Followed by abuser-in-chief Trump gas-lighting the Iranian people saying I’ve given you what you want, “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.” How do you say this to parents whose children are dead?
More than Enough
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Terra Greer.
Returning to Each Other
For Lenten Season, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team and community have been sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple appand Substack. This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Candace Woods.
Colorado Clergy Alliance Invitation
In the spirit of all of our traditions, that call us to strengthen relationships, act out of love and in solidarity with community, and be a voice for justice and peace, you are invited to join us to meet this moment to cocreate the Colorado Clergy Alliance.
Together, we will stand up for immigrant rights and lives, including clergy who are immigrants, and respond to what is already happening here in Colorado and prepare for the likelihood of an increased presence of ICE in our communities.
Urgent: Call Your Senators Now to Vote NO on ICE Funding
Our faith calls us to challenge systemic oppression, and Juniper Formation urges you to take action in support of our immigrant neighbors.
The Senate is preparing to vote on a bill this week that would provide ICE with an additional $6.2 billion+ and 50,000 more detention beds. Contact your Senators now to demand they vote NO on increased funding for ICE.
A Call to Moral Clarity
At the end of last week, I noticed that the Colorado Springs City Council (my hometown) and Mayor’s Office were going to be making their annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day declaration. This declaration is typically a performative bit of rhetoric that uses the name and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to say a lot of things, but not do much of anything. I had also been reminded that week that our city’s Mayor had stated in April 2025 that he hoped there would be more federal raids in Colorado Springs, after a large ICE and DEA raid that month.
The Culmination of Advent
We’re in the “in-between,” as I like to call it.
The time between Christmas and New Year’s. This short week; a liminal space that doesn’t give us enough time to reflect on the year that’s passed. Time to process the good, and the bad.
We have gone through labor pains in this forward journey.
And that might be why we don’t process and reflect on what’s happened. Or, most likely, it’s because our culture dictates that we keep moving rapidly forward.
Reflections on a Joyful Holiday for the Grieving
I am writing from the bedside of my dying spouse. By the time these have been published, they will have passed, and much of my life will have greatly shifted. The theme for this week of Advent is joy.
The past Theo who signed up, thinking they had things to say about joy, was so sweet and hopeful. Please know that by reading through this week with me, it is as much (maybe more?) of a spiritual practice for me to be writing daily about joy as it is for you to be reflecting. We are in this together. This week, I am writing reflections on a joyful holiday for the grieving.
Love as Radical Inclusion
The story of Ruth has been this slow, tender unfolding of two women, Ruth and Naomi, surviving loss together and building a new kind of family outside the usual expectations. By chapter 4, Ruth has navigated the legal and cultural maze required to secure a future for them both. And when the community sees what she’s done, they bless her – out loud, in public. They call on the Creator to make her like Rachel and Leah: matriarchs who basically held Israel together with sheer will and generational grit.
Building Collective Peace
don’t remember the last time I drove more than 10 minutes without turning my GPS on. I know where I’m going and how to get there, but there’s something comforting about seeing the traffic conditions and the exact ETA.
It would be so nice if the rest of life was like that. But alas, we are called to move forward into our callings, taking steps towards our inheritances as children of God, without knowing where exactly it is we’re going or what the conditions are that we’ll encounter along our way.
Hope is the Nearness of God
In the beginning of God’s creating, ruach Elohim, the feminine Spirit of God hovered over the waters, brooding. Maybe Spirit wasn’t embittered, but like a brooding hen with meditative readiness. A fierce devotion to birth and raise new life.
During pregnancy, the amniotic sac—the waters, surrounds the fetus. Dark, warmth, protecting the fetus from harm, regulating its body temperature. The waters are where new life grows until it is ready to live outside of the waters.
Double the Impact of Your Gift to Juniper Formation Before Year’s End
A generous donor will match all new gifts or increases in gifts (both recurring and one-time gifts) made to Juniper Formation before year end! This matching gift allows generous new and increased donations to go twice as far for Juniper Formation’s mission to prophetically reimagine the Church.
URGENT ALERT: DHS Immigration Raids on Places of Worship Starting Thanksgiving
2025 Ministry Highlights
As we approach the end of 2025, we find ourselves reflecting on what it means to live boldly in our faith during times of uncertainty, and we are feeling deeply grateful for you.
Fascism, white supremacy, and christian nationalism threaten the values we hold sacred. Peaceful immigrant families face separation, deportation, and being disappeared. Our LGBTQ+ siblings and families live in fear and under threat. Those seeking reproductive healthcare are criminalized. Entire cities are being ambushed by masked, militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement and National Guard troops. And we know that Denver will be one of the cities targeted next, to which Juniper Formation’s Mutual Aid Sanctuary ministry will respond.