About

Christ & Cascadia is an annual gathering and online journal that exists to inspire innovative faith practice and the exchange of ideas among Christ followers—to explore, imagine, and create the future of Christianity in Cascadia.

Each gathering is organized around a question that we invite you to explore with us through facilitated discussion and serendipitous connections. Beyond facilitating generative connections between Christian practitioners and leaders, the purpose of the gathering is to build a sense of regional-cultural community that includes and transcends the diverse communities and cultures who call this region home.

The engagement from the gathering continues to be explored throughout the year here as a digital journal. The publication additionally functions as a means to affirm generative experiments and derive principles for adaptation for other communities, and to celebrate the diverse ways that spiritual communities are joining God’s activity for the benefit of people and planet.

We imagine Christianity as an ecosystem: every tree, plant, animal, and insect is impacting every other component. We imagine established congregations as the old growth trees of a forest—far-reaching branches full of wisdom and deep roots that reach wells of nutrients. Innovative faith communities are the saplings in the understory, growing new roots and shoots, experimenting to figure out what will thrive in this context into the next generation of the forest’s life.

• We envision Christ & Cascadia as the mycelium (the fungal network between plants) connecting the many organizations of Christ followers in the region for connection and mutual learning.
• We envision an ecology of Christian community that resources the understory and honors the old growth.
• We envision a robust, diverse understory of alternative Christian community models that offer hope and belonging to all.

We believe…

The church in North America is in a crisis of relevance and must reform and reinvent itself in response to generational and cultural diversity.
Christian faith praxis finds fullest expression when it is shaped according to a particular people, place, and time, as Jesus modeled his ministry.
Cascadia offers new models and innovative designs for the broader church that challenge the status quo and offer hope for spirituality in post-Christendom contexts.

History

Christ & Cascadia was founded in 2013 by the Fuller Institute for Theology & Northwest Culture, now Brehm Center. Their aim was to facilitate thoughtful conversations between Christian thinkers, artists, and ministers on what it means to follow Jesus in this place. In 2019, stewardship was generously gifted to The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

The Seattle School exists to train people to be competent in the study of text, soul, and culture in order to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships. Christ & Cascadia shares and extends that mission of service into the expansive network of Christian organizations in the region.

STAFF
Kate Rae Davis: Editor-in-Chief of Christ & Cascadia, Director of the Center for Transforming Engagement
Lauren St. Martin: Managing Editor