Faith-Rooted Organizing in the Wilderness
Pre-Festival Offering
Thursday September 3, 2026
9 am–5 pm
cost: $59.00
Join Lisa, Alexia and Jen in this essential one-day training on how to organize your community to navigate, resist and overcome the wilderness space of authoritarian power. This team represents nearly a century of collective experience organizing faith-rooted initiatives for racial, economic, immigrant, and gender justice. In this one-day training, participants will learn the tangible power of faith to bend the arc of the moral universe. You will be equipped to understand the most pressing needs of your community, strategize to move power, build collaborative networks, and take transformative action! Don’t miss this rare opportunity to glean from these extraordinary leaders—all in one place.
FACILITATOR
From Ferguson to New York, and from Germany to South Africa to Australia, Lisa Sharon Harper leads trainings that increase clergy and community leaders’ capacity to organize people of faith toward a just world. A prolific speaker, writer and activist, Ms. Harper is the founder and president of FreedomRoad.us, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap in our nation by designing forums and experiences that bring common understanding, common commitment and common action.
Ms. Harper is the author of several books, including Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…or Democrat (The New Press, 2008); Left Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics (Elevate, 2011); Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith (Zondervan, 2014); and the critically acclaimed, The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong can be Made Right (Waterbrook, a division of Penguin Random House, 2016). The Very Good Gospel, recognized as the “2016 Book of the Year” by Englewood Review of Books, explores God’s intent for the wholeness of all relationships in light of today’s headlines.
A columnist at Sojourners Magazine and an Auburn Theological Seminary Senior Fellow, Ms. Harper has appeared on TVOne, FoxNews Online, NPR, and Al Jazeera America. Her writing has been featured in CNN Belief Blog, The National Civic Review, Sojourners, The Huffington Post, Relevant Magazine, and Essence Magazine. She writes extensively on shalom and governance, immigration reform, health care reform, poverty, racial and gender justice, climate change, and transformational civic engagement.
Ms. Harper earned her Masters degree in Human Rights from Columbia University in New York City, and served as Sojourners Chief Church Engagement Officer. In this capacity, she fasted for 22 days as a core faster in 2013 with the immigration reform Fast for Families. She trained and catalyzed evangelicals in St. Louis and Baltimore to engage the 2014 push for justice in Ferguson and the 2015 healing process in Baltimore, and she educated faith leaders in South Africa to pull the levers of their new democracy toward racial equity and economic inclusion.
In 2015, The Huffington Post named Ms. Harper one of 50 powerful women religious leaders to celebrate on International Women’s Day. In 2019, The Religion Communicators Council named a two-part series within Ms. Harper’s monthly Freedom Road Podcast “Best Radio or Podcast Series of The Year”. The series focused on The Roots and Fruits of Immigrant Labor Exploitation in the US. And in 2020 Ms. Harper received The Bridge Award from The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation in recognition of her dedication to bridging divides and building the beloved community.
Lisa is host of the Freedom Road Podcast, cohost of The FOUR Podcast and author of her weekly column on Substack, “The Truth Is…”. Her much anticipated book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World–And How To Repair It All, is now available!
Rev. Jen Butler is a faith leader, author, and strategist who has spent over three decades strengthening the progressive faith movement. Her books include Who Stole My Bible: Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny and Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized. She founded and led Faith in Public Life for twenty years. Under her leadership, FPL helped pass the Affordable Care Act, blocked discriminatory religious freedom bills, and organized faith leaders to resist Trump-era authoritarianism and racism. Jen’s global advocacy began earlier as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s representative to the UN, and continues through an international network she launched in 2022 to support faith-based democracy defenders worldwide. She also served as national faith engagement director for the Harris presidential campaign and chaired the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra is the Academic Dean of the Centro Latino at Fuller Theological Seminary. She has been a national leader in faith engagement in immigrant justice for over 25 years, including the co-founding of the New Sanctuary Movement and the Evangelical Immigration Table, and the co-authorship of God’s Resistance: Mobilizing Faith to Defend Immigrants.
Check In for pre-festival events will be available on Wednesday from 1 pm to 5 pm, and Thursday from 7am to 9 am.
If you’re tent camping, there’s no additional campsite charge for Wednesday night.
Some campsite locations are restricted due to large venue tent construction in several areas.
RV campers will need to purchase an additional night.