Mandala - Adventurous Learning for Wholistic Living

Classes for the Winter/Spring 2012 Session

You may register online below using your credit card, by downloading the registration form to mail with your payment, or calling the church office at 336-275-6403.

Download Mandala Program Brochure (PDF: 1.8 MB)

Special Events Promotional Flyers:


2012 Keynote Speaker: Rita Nakashima Brock
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Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D., is Founding Co-Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good, an organization dedicated to educating the public about the values and concerns of religious leaders and organizations. She is a research associate at Harvard Divinity School and also works with The New Press in New York as Senior Editor in Religion. Brock’s first book, Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power won the Crossroads/Continuum Publishing Company award for the most outstanding manuscript in women’s studies in 1988. She is the co-author of Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States, and the co-author of Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, published by Beacon Press in 2001. Her most recent collaboration with Rebecca Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, was selected as a finalist for the American Academy of Religion book awards. Dr. Brock has lectured in Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Canada, as well as throughout the United States, and is a member of the U. S. group of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, the leading global organization of liberation theologians. Her work continues to interweave religious questions with issues of justice in the U.S. and international contexts.

Event cancelled; to be rescheduled at a later date.

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Leader(s): As an active member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Rita has served on its General Board and Administrative Committees. In 1993, she represented the National Council of Churches on an ecumenical, international, high-level delegation to Guatemala and El Salvador to support the peace-making processes in both countries. She served for nine years as a trustee of Starr King School for the Ministry (Unitarian Universalist), and has been a visiting scholar at the school. She lives in Oakland, CA.


Leadership Journey for Those Who Serve and Lead
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Leadership Journey for Those Who Serve and Lead is a series of five 3-day retreats scheduled from Fall 2012 – Fall 2013 at St. Francis Springs, Stoneville, NC., led by Russ Moxley. Through a unique retreat-based approach, participants will renew personal identity, professional integrity, and vocational vitality. The facilitator helps create a quiet, focused, and disciplined space – a circle of trust – in which one can begin anew to hear a personal inner voice. In large group, small group, and solitary settings, participants use personal stories, reflections on professional practice, and insights from poets, storytellers , and various wisdom traditions to explore the relationship between the inner life of mind and spirit and the outer life of work and service in the world. Please call th4 church office, 336-275-6403, for details on payment and to get a registration form!

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Leader(s): Russ Moxley, M.Th., an ordained minister and an experienced facilitator in formation retreats, has led retreats for educators, health care leaders, clergy and non-profit agency leaders. He has worked with Parker J. Palmer and The Center for Courage and Renewal for more than a decade. An honorary senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership, Russ is the author of Leadership and Spirit, co-author for the first two volumes of The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook on Leadership Development, and has contributed chapters in four edited books.


Sun-Tues, Oct 7-9, 2012; Thurs-Sat, Jan 7-9, 2013; Apr 18-20; Jun 27-29;Sep 26-28
Total Cost: $2000	Maximum Participants: 24


Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World
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Coming Back to Life, written by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, is a guidebook to assist individuals and groups to enhance their vitality as well as their determination in assuming a fair share of responsibility for the healing of our world. The authors view our culture as being in a tenuous position, given our worsening social and ecological condition. Macy makes use of her Judaic- Christian upbringing, her doctoral work in living systems, and her present practice of Buddhism to assist scores of individuals and groups as they think and act their way into new practices that reinforce the "Work That Reconnects." Coming Back to Life contains both the ideological foundation for the "Great Turning" as well as dozens of practical exercises to assist individuals and groups strengthen their commitment to a livable world of all beings on Earth. The sessions will focus on a study and discussion of the first three chapters of Coming Back to Life, which contains the perceptual framework. The leaders will then guide the group to employ different exercises from this guidebook to practically facilitate the "Great Turning."

Leader(s): Chris and Lou East are Co-Pastors at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. Chris East, PsyD. is also a trained family psychotherapist in natural Systems Theory who has been working with The Bowen Center in the Study of the Family for the past ten years. Lou East, MDiv is also on the national staff of Covenant Network, a progressive network advocacy for full inclusion and welcome regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity in the PC(USA).


3 Thursdays: April 19, 26, May 3, 7-8:30pm & Saturday, May 5, 9am-2pm (lunch included)
Total Cost: $30


Mining for Gold: Reflective Writing Workshop
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In this two-day workshop, we will mine the unconscious for jewels of fresh material. We’ll explore memory and dreams, and work with characters and inner dialogue. We’ll play with genres - including poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction - and access our truest voices. Come prepared to write a lot in response to a series of evocative prompts. You’ll be delighted to uncover new levels of creativity and be inspired by the stories you find within yourself. Bring your laptop or a notebook and pen, along with a willingness to explore. You’ll leave with a trove of ideas, an eagerness to pursue them, and a new group of writing friends. This workshop is appropriate for all skill levels and genres.

Event has been cancelled; to be rescheduled at a later date.

Leader(s): Carol Henderson teaches writing workshops and coaches writers at every skill level in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. She has published columns, reviews, essays, and feature stories. Her memoir, Losing Malcolm: A Mother’s Journey Through Grief, is a redemptive story about the loss of a baby. Currently, she is editing several essay anthologies and memoirs. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC. Learn more about her at www.carolhenderson.com.

You may register online below using your credit card, by downloading the registration form to mail with your payment, or calling the church office at 336-275-6403.

Download Mandala Program Brochure (PDF: 1.8 MB)