Our Story
Our Name: Juniper Formation
Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life...[Elijah] went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary juniper tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, God, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the juniper tree and fell asleep. Suddenly and angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." He got up, and ate and drank; then he went on in the strength of that food..." (1 Kings 19:3-8)
Our name comes from the juniper tree in this story of Elijah, a symbol for relationship, discernment, renewal, healing, and prophetic action.
The story of Elijah reminds us that no matter what we've done, how failed the Church may feel and be, nor how much we want to give up, each of us is Called by God to prophetic ministry.
The Juniper tree is a reminder that God provides what we need—the strength and courage to follow where the Spirit leads.
As Elijah was a teacher of prophets, Juniper Formation supports the formation of modern-day prophets and cocreates prophetic ministries under the canopy of the Juniper tree.
The Stories of Our Co-Founders
What if the Church wasn't dying, but being reborn?
In 2018, Juniper Formation was developed as an ecumenical ministry to prophetically reimagine—through relationship, discernment, renewal, healing, and prophetic action. After our first couple of years, we realized that we were operating as, and desired to be, a faith community. We entered the process of becoming a local church of the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination, and in May 2021, Juniper Formation officially became a UCC church.
Across denominations, most regional ordaining authorities want to support entrepreneurial and justice ministries, and many provide grant funding. However, there have been few denominational or seminary opportunities that holistically support the formation of entrepreneurial and justice ministry leaders or provide the space for this risky work.
In response, Juniper Formation incubates entrepreneurial and justice ministry leaders through:
Offering one-to-one coaching, congregational accompaniment, and professional formation communities to support relational discernment and prophetic ministry;
Cocreating new ministries;
Developing partnerships that encourage covenantal relationships of support between prophetic ordinands, clergy, ministries, congregations, denominations, and communities.
Juniper Formation pushes against the predominant scarcity-based Church culture, which is grounded in a fear that declining mainline churches and seminaries might actually signal the “death of the Church,” rather than life through resurrection and reformation. This fear and resulting survival instinct of self-protection limit our Spirit-led imagination. In response, we draw inward instead of outward, focusing on our temporal experience of the Church, and find ourselves murmuring, “But we have always done it this way.”
When we are afraid, we all risk succumbing to our smaller selves: working to protect ourselves, instead of opening up to and embracing the world and Word; resorting to trusted ways, instead of trusting God and taking risks on something new and prophetic. Let us not tell ourselves “We can’t,” but rather “We can, with the help of God.”
As people of faith, we are called to “fear not,” and to listen to the Spirit of God working in the world in and through us. At Juniper Formation, we are guided by the Spirit to “do a new thing.”
In Partnership,
Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Ph.D.
Minister of Prophetic Formation