2022 Ministry Highlights
2022 was a big year for Juniper Formation and its ministries. Thanks to the generosity of individuals, as well as several grant funders, we've been able to strengthen and grow our mission of prophetically reimagining Church from the margins.
We have so much to share, but we haven’t had the capacity to share it with you. Right now, we are wrapping up the search process to hire a Storyteller who will help us connect with you more often and in more creative ways starting in 2023. More about this exciting news below!
In the meantime, here are some highlights about what we’ve been up to in 2022, with more stories coming in the New Year!
How we’re working together as a church
We are reimagining church by developing policies and infrastructure that challenge supremacist institutional norms.
For example, we established a universal hourly pay rate for all staff, regardless of role, responsibilities, experience, or credentialing, as part of our new "Just Compensation Policy: Equality in Pay and Equity in benefits.”
In addition, we voted for our first Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) with a commitment to annual COLA increases, to provide equity for all of our staff.
We built a digital church, at juniperformation.church. It’s a space where we can build relationships, find community, organize to co-create new ministries, build and share courses, and more.
We redeveloped our website (juniperformation.org), which allows for more collaboration in keeping it up to date. This helps everyone who connects with Juniper Formation know they are getting the latest information and possibilities for connection.
New ministers
Rev. Kari Collins (she/her) is an ordained UCC minister, and has joined Juniper Formation as our Minister of Transformative Generosity. Kari’s ministry with Juniper Formation focuses on co-creating new ways for churches to use their collective wealth for the betterment of our communities and the kin-dom of God. She can help churches become transforming members of their communities, taking them out of their buildings and into the lives of the people around them. Learn more about Juniper Formation’s Congregational Accompaniment ministry here.
We welcomed our first UCC Member-in-Discernment (person preparing for ordination), Candace Woods (she/her). Candace is called to ordained ministry through her work around gender and sexuality inclusion in faith spaces and outside of faith spaces, including sexual health and body wholeness.
Theo Isoz (they/them) has joined our ministry team with the launch of the Warm Fuzzies Ministry (see below for more information on this ministry).
Coming soon! We are in the interview stage for a new part-time Storyteller after reviewing 50 applications. This new staff member will help Juniper Formation develop and promote our diverse, multi-voice stories and ministries as part of our effort to build relationships, particularly on the margins of the Church and for our digital church. We hope our new Storyteller helps make Juniper Formation more accessible for all people. Our goal is for Juniper Formation to be a supportive, liberative, affirming, and formative community regardless of what experiences someone brings with them.
New ministries we’re cultivating and growing
We publicly launched ReFrame in November. We believe it is one of very few progressive and liberative scripture-based apps in a digital market dominated by conservative evangelical theology. ReFrame is built around the idea that better rituals make better disciples who co-create a better world. We use scripture-based reflections written by a diverse team of writers, which include ideas for faith practice, and journaling prompts, Monday-Friday, all year. New in the app is a community discussion board where you can reflect, commit to a faith practice, and build community. In 2023, we’ll add the ability to create small groups for in-app discussion for a small donation. ReFrame is available in the Google Play and Apple App Stores for FREE! You can make a donation to support ReFrame and our writers, here.
We’ve partnered with other ecumenical churches and interfaith individuals to co-create a Black reparations housing justice ministry called Welcome Home Reparations. When launched, Welcome Home will provide significant reparations for Black women, thems (nonbinary), and femmes (transgender) and their families for home purchase and renovation. Our goal is to build safe, sacred space and generational wealth in Metro Denver. We invite you and your congregation to join us, or learn from our model to start your own reparations ministry in your local community. Learn about and make reparations, here!
We are creating online and app-based courses to share! Some of the first courses you’ll see in 2023 are: the Spiritual Well, an 8-week course that explores the “what” and “how” of preventative mental health care in communities of faith; and the Science & Wonder of God’s Creation, a sensory discovery course for children ages 3-6 years old using science experiments, scripture, nature walks, games, and crafts to cultivate curiosity and creativity in learning about and relating to God and all of creation.
We launched the Warm Fuzzies Ministry, which builds community by creating spiritual and physical comforting care through meditation and crafting to gift to others. This ministry team is currently knitting gifts for those affected by the ClubQ shooting in Colorado Springs, and has provided a half dozen prayer shawls to our congregation and wider community in the past year.
Led by our previous Leadership Team Chair Jeanette Rojas (she/her), we started sharing and shaping our stories with one another so that we can share them with the wider world. Our hope is that in sharing our diverse stories, we’ll spark a connection that will lead to relationship, to healing, and to the radical love and justice of Christ. Stories coming soon!
Justice Education & Advocacy
In collaboration with clergy colleague Rev. Mallory Everhart, pastor at Vista Grande Community UCC in Colorado Springs, we helped organize a LGBTQIA+ clergy/chaplain presence at the Club Q shooting memorial site for the week and a half after the shooting. This was both community care and an intentional public presence in response to the non-affirming and harmful Billy Graham Crisis Response Team presence.
We advocated for and gave testimony on behalf of our congregation for the Reproductive Health Equity Act at the Colorado Capitol. The congregation voted two years ago to advocate for reproductive health for all people, including abortion access.
We provided liturgical, scriptural/theological, research-based, and antiracism resources for the wider Church in support of abortion access and reproductive rights education and advocacy.
We participated in a 5-session series on “Dismantling White Silence in the Church,” led by Rev. Nancy Niero (she/her), as part of her Doctor of Ministry degree program research.
We led a 5-session series titled Legislative Engagement for the Liberative Church to explore our collective response to the Gospel’s prophetic call to liberate the oppressed. We explored the topics of the Church’s role in politics and legislative advocacy, voter turnout, immigration, reproductive health and abortion rights, and LGBTQIA+ rights and protection.
We have been busy this year, and we look forward to another year of co-creating, challenging, advocating, and learning together.
We’re grateful for your support in all the forms it takes. We cannot do it without you!
To keep going, we need your help. If you found yourself saying ‘Amen!’ to one of our stories, ministries, or advocacy work, we invite you to invest in Juniper Formation’s work to reimagine the church.
A donation of:
$40 funds a mile of yarn for a handmade Warm Fuzzy Ministry prayer shawl that we can gift to show transforming love to people affected by gun violence, suffering grief, and in need of care.
$150 can fund a day of progressive faithful witness at the Colorado State Capitol to protect the rights and lives of people on the margins of society.
$250 supports a ReFrame author to provide a week of progressive scripture-based reflections, faith practices, and journal prompts.
$1,200 funds the technology for our digital church platform at juniperformation.church for a year. Digital church provides an inclusive, affirming, and healing progressive faith community, especially for people who otherwise don’t have access to progressive church.
Whatever you can give, rest assured that you are helping create new Spirit-led, justice-centered, compassion-forward ministries and resources from the margins (the diverse group of people often kept out of leadership and paid ministry in the church).
To make a donation, click the button and complete the online form to enter credit card information or set up a direct transfer from your bank account. You can also mail a check to: Juniper Formation, PO Box 19541, Denver, CO 80219.
We are also grateful for grant support from the national United Church of Christ CASA New and Rebirthing Church Grant and the Neighbors In Need grant, the Rocky Mountain Conference UCC Tributary Fund for New Churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA) 1,001 New Worshiping Communities grant with matching grants from the Denver Presbytery.
We'd love to connect with you to learn how we could collaborate with one another in 2023. What is energizing you in ministry, where are you stuck, and how might we connect more deeply with each other to co-create ministries at the margins?
On behalf of the Juniper Formation faith community of ministers—lay and ordained, and with gratitude for your ongoing support and care,
The Juniper Formation Leadership Team
Jeanette Rojas (2022 Chair, jeanette.e.rojas@gmail.com)
Katelin Champion (katelin@juniperformation.org)
Rev. Kari Collins (kari@juniperformation.org)
Theo Isoz (isoztheodore@gmail.com)
Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher (jenny@juniperformation.org)
Rev. Dr. Jason Whitehead (jason@juniperformation.org)
Keisha Wiggan (keisha@juniperformation.org)
