Sunday, February 06, 2022

Life Update and Webinar: Decolonizing Church Partnerships

Friends,

Me sledding down and Alpine pass
As you have surely noticed, I haven't had the bandwidth or drive the past few years to post on this blog anything beyond the occasional sermon/reflection that I thought might resonate beyond the setting for which I wrote it. So, unless we are Facebook friends or chat from time to time, the only clues you have to what has been keeping me busy are the occasional updates to my bio page. Currently, I'm juggling six part-time vocational roles in addition to being a human striving to prioritize family, friends, and fun—including soaking in the beauty of Slovenia and the surrounding region before we move to New Delhi this summer.  

In God's classic sense of humor/wisdom, the moment I stopped chasing the dirty pink bunny of productivity and professional "success" and discovered that I quite enjoyed being an underemployed semi-recluse was the moment that folks started knocking on my door asking me to teach/coach/help them. This is the very abridged version of how I now find myself with three jobs in academia (coordinating the Osijek Doctoral Colloquium program and teaching courses at MTSO and BGU) on top of my unpaid appointments as shepherd of The Church of England's congregation in Slovenia, president of FPM, and Bishop Mande Muyombo's Executive Assistant for Strategic Partnerships and Engagement (i.e., his wingwoman/Gal Friday for relationships with the anglophone world). Oh, and there are some exciting upcoming collaborative book projects too. 

So, yeah, I didn't exactly go into early semi-retirement after all, but now the well-being of my body/mind and my inner circle of family/friends take priority over anything I'm asked to present or write for acquaintances and strangers. And this shift has been huge. Now I go on family nature hikes, take dance lessons with my husband, up-cycle "trash" into cool cardboard dollhouses with my daughter, create elaborate vintage and runway hairstyles, play boardgames with new friends, and video chat with my people all over the world BECAUSE I CAN and doing so makes me better at all that other stuff. 

Speaking of that other stuff, here's a webinar I recently recorded for BGU on the topic of decolonizing church partnerships. 




   

Taylor