Activating agents of thriving through storytelling
“Seek the shalom of the city where I have called you...”
Jeremiah 29:7
Call to Shalom is a series of conversations about what it means and takes to be agents of true thriving in particular fields, communities, and this cultural moment.
Through multimedia storytelling, we seek to amplify, curate, and facilitate stories that will inspire hope and show how thinkers and doers are practicing shalom in their own communities. We bring together thought-leaders to share their own vocational and personal journeys of seeking out this biblical call that will inspire and equip practitioners.
Series Host
Josh Yates
Executive Director of Ormond Center
Josh Yates is Executive Director of the Ormond Center for Thriving Congregations and Communities at Duke Divinity School, Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, and Founder and CEO of the national nonprofit, Thriving Communities Group. Dr. Yates weaves together two decades of academic research and social practice in an on-going quest to understand what it means and takes to thrive in contemporary community contexts.
Agents of Thriving Stories
Story One —
Transformational Social Innovation /
Renewing Christian imagination
Calling all frustrated philanthropists and repentant bankers. Long-time friends Kim Tan and Greg Jones discuss the role of innovation in the Christian story and what counts as transformational work and how to know when you see it. Learn about virtuous cycles, Tikunn Olam, and faith-driven social impact investing.
More content coming soon!
Guests
Kim Tan
Chairman of SpringHill Management, a private fund management company specialising in biotech and social venture capital investments. He is a partner of several social impact funds including Inqo Investments (South Africa), Springhill Equity Partners (US), Novastar Ventures (Kenya) and Garden Impact Investment (Singapore). He is the co-founder of the Transformational Business Network and is a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and the Centre for Enterprise, Markets & Ethics (Oxford). He was the founder chairman of NCI Cancer Hospital (Malaysia) and the inventor of sheep monoclonal antibodies. He is a Pro-Chancellor of Surrey University (UK) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK). He is a former board member of the Saracens Rugby Club and the APEC Life Science Innovation Forum
Greg Jones
L. Gregory Jones is a leader and strategist whose creative engagement has helped institutions across the world to create transformational resource models. Greg’s global imagination has guided business, education, and religious leaders in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. Greg has a particular gift for incubating talent, ideas, and networks. He is passionate about re-shaping cultures within and across organizations and has coined the term 'traditioned innovation' to capture how he re-frames complex challenges to seize significant opportunities.
Greg currently serves as President of Belmont University in Nashville, TN. He is the former Dean of Duke Divinity School. Greg is a United Methodist elder in the Western North Carolina Conference.
"What we need now is imagination, business models is the secondary question."
Story Two —
Pathways of Repair /
The Christian Call for Reparations
Pathways of Repair explores the Christian call for both repentance and repair. Nicole and Greg discuss the brokenness of racism, the Biblical call to repair racial brokenness, and offer a vision for the journey towards healing and wholeness amongst the Church and people of faith.
With guest host: Bruce Grady, NC Thrives Director at Ormond Center.
More content coming soon!
Guests
Nicole Martin
Rev. Dr. Nicole Martin currently serves as the Senior Vice President for Ministry Impact at American Bible Society. A former management consultant with Deloitte Consulting, Martin has also previously served as an Executive Minister at a multi-site church in Charlotte, NC. Martin teaches courses in Ministry and Leadership Development at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the author of two books: Made to Lead: Empowering Women for Ministry and Leaning In, Letting Go: A Lenten Devotional. Martin has authored several articles that have been featured in USA Today, Christianity Today, and The Charlotte Observer.
Gregory Thompson
Gregory Thompson (PhD, University of Virginia) is a pastor, scholar, artist, and producer whose work focuses on race and equity in the United States. He serves as executive director of Voices Underground (an initiative to build a national memorial to the Underground Railroad outside of Philadelphia), research fellow in African American heritage at Lincoln University (HBCU), and visiting theologian for mission at Grace Mosaic Church in Washington, DC. He is also the cocreator of Union: The Musical, a soul and hip-hop-based musical about the 1968 sanitation workers' strike. Thompson lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“As we mend the wounds of the trauma of racism in America, we’ll start to see a mending of the wounds of trust. Trauma and trust have both been broken.”
Story Three —
Eugene Peterson /
The Quest to Becoming Fully Human
Winn Collier shares about Eugene Peterson’s quest to be fully human, and why he has given so much of his life devoted to this pastor. Eugene believed that to be truly human, truly enlivened by God, was the deepest need. Learn about spiritual geography, the holiness of words, and discovering how becoming more like God means becoming more truly human. Winn tells how we need women and men to sift after the scent of the Spirit with courage and boldness, to go out ahead in darkness, their capacity to sift after the scent of the Spirit with courage and boldness.
More content coming soon!
Guest
Winn Collier
Winn serves as the Director of The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. Winn loves the church and beauty and all the things that make up being human in God’s verdant, sacred world. A pastor for over 25 years, Winn was the founding pastor of All Souls in Charlottesville, Virginia, and also serves as the founding director of The Genesis Project, a community providing circles of friendship and contemplation for pastors and writers. The thread through all of his work is delight in the God who exists as the blazing center of everything that is good, beautiful and true.
His teaching centers in pastoral theology, connecting the ancient streams of Christian wisdom to the grit and wonders of the parish, where our stories and hopes and sorrows are enveloped in God’s mercy. His most recent book is A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson.
"Being made in the image of the Triune God and becoming more fully human requires doing work in particular places, particular contexts, and for particular people."
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