Articles & News
Get the latest news plus articles on resilience, community, calling and more.
Articles are written by Center staff, program participants, friends, and faculty of The Seattle School.
Pastors and the Problem of Social Constraint
Social constraint is the perception that other people don’t want to hear about your life and problems. It’s the thing that makes you decide not to give a real answer when someone asks how you are doing. It’s the thing that makes you swallow your own hurt or stifle...
The Seattle School Receives $1,250,000 Grant from Lilly Endowment
The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology has received a grant of $1,250,000 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help continue efforts to equip leaders by gathering lay and ordained, active and aspiring preachers in the western region of the United States to develop...
Only You Can Start Forest Fires: Reduction as Resilience
In 1935 the United States Forest Service (USFS) instituted a policy called the “10 a.m. policy.” Already using fire suppression as the way of dealing with devastating wildfires for two decades, the 10 a.m. policy was instituted in response to particularly bad fire...
Through the side door: Why hope is the ground for community resilience
If you cross the river from Georgetown in Seattle and find yourself in need of a cup of coffee, you’d probably find your way to Resistencia Coffee, a little shop I have the joy of co-owning with my wife and a few neighbors. If you get a cup of coffee and decide you’d...
Engaging in a Community of Resilience: A Collectivist Approach
One of the ways we can cultivate resilience as we engage with one another is to notice how we show up in our communities. Dr. Ron Ruthruff, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, shares his thoughts in a...
To Stay, Walk Away
When vocation intersects with calling—like church ministry—it can be difficult to step away and unplug. We often feel guilty for not being always available, for not pouring every waking moment into the work of ministry. Here, Andrea Sielaff, Program Evaluation Manager...
Celebrating the Beginning
https://vimeo.com/698703177/643dcfc16c A few weeks ago, we held a celebration ceremony to honor the work that has been done to launch the Center for Transforming Engagement. Whether you celebrated with us from a distance or in person at The Seattle School, thank you...
Tending Wounds Gently – A Reflection from Resilient Leaders Project
I burned my hand while cooking. It was a stupid, split-second mistake with painful consequences. I needed to move a pan that was sitting on the stove – a pan I cook with regularly. However, in my rush, I forgot that tonight, I had put that whole pan into the oven to...
Purpose Reconsidered: An Alumni Story
My journey with purpose has been fraught with fits and starts and loads of apparently meaningless lulls in between. I was born and raised in Texas and my worldview was highly influenced by the predominantly white southern Baptist church that taught me about Jesus and...
The Betwixt and Between: Finding Resilience in Liminality
My all-time favorite movie line comes from the Western Five Card Stud. Dean Martin is out demonstrating his six-gun prowess to Inga Stevens, shooting bottles off the corral rails, when up rides Bob Mitchum as “The Preacher.” Mitchum asks to give it a try, so Dean...
