Queer Renewal: Wilderness & Homecoming

Join Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries & Proclaim as we retreat together at Holden Village and explore Queer Renewal in times that challenge us, that call for our transformation & resiliency. How might being surrounded by wilderness, metaphorical & actual, provide us a way home to ourselves & to support we need in community? Whether through discussion forums with fellow attendees, through making art, hiking, sharing talents, or reciting poetry outdoors by a fire, there’s a place at this retreat for your Queer self to thrive. We’ll participate in workshops & podcasts together, & we’ll play together with a healthy dose of Holden Hilarity. On Sunday, September 28, we’ll gather for a festival worship to celebrate 40 years of Holden’s Reconciling-In-Christ witness to the Lutheran & wider church.

Spouses, significant others, children, & the rainbow manifestations of your Queer family–all are welcome to attend. We pledge to collaborate on meeting accessibility needs, as best we’re able, given Holden’s remote location. As the year progresses, some partial registration scholarships may become available for seminarians and those between calls or awaiting first call, especially TEEM students & BIPOC candidates for ministry.

Keynote Speakers

Rev. Carla Christopher (she/they) is a Caseworker and comedic Burlesque Performer turned Community Organizer/Educator as well as a Poet Laureate and a Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Trainer between gigs with her poetry-funk fusion band. Now ELCA Redevelopment Pastor and Assistant to the Bishop for Justice Ministries with Lower Susquehanna and Delaware-Maryland Synods, Carla is a frequent movement chaplain, consultant to synods and faith-based nonprofits, and coordinator of ELCA Vital Congregations Training and ELCA Region 8 LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency and Racial Justice Training. To stay mindfully balanced during a doctoral program in evangelism, she continues to find communal and personal healing through storytelling and creative expression. Rev. Carla Christopher is also our retreat weekend’s Poet-In-Residence.

Rev. Elle Dowd (she/they) is an author, activist, and pastor. Currently a PhD student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Elle has pieces of their heart in Sierra Leone, where their two children were born, and in St. Louis, where they learned from the radical, queer, Black leadership during the Ferguson Uprising. She was formerly a co-conspirator with the movement to #decolonizeLutheranism and served as a board member of the Euro-Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice, does community organizing in her city as a board member of SOUL, serves on the Clergy Advocacy Board for Planned Parenthood, and facilitates workshops in both secular conferences and Christian spaces. In 2021 she published a book with Broadleaf, Baptized in Teargas, about her conversion from a white moderate to an abolitionist is available now in print, e-book, or audiobook.

Liturgist/Artist-in-Residence

Sam LaDue, MDiv, MA (she/her), trusts the deep wisdom of our bodies, especially when it comes to communal rituals. A liturgist certified through LMU-LA, artist, photographer, and communications nerd, she’s spent 20+ years directing music and crafting liturgies that invite presence and noticing. She serves as Media Director for San Francisco Night Ministry while completing the candidacy process for Word and Sacrament in the Southwest CA Synod. You might have seen her liturgical art and environment work at Bishop Brenda Bos or Bishop Jeff Johnson’s installations. When not contemplating the universe and its complexities through glitter and paint, Sam enjoys cycling, hiking, and a good long nap with her Yorkshire Terrier.