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Johnson University

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Project Name: Three Rivers Collaboration
Description:

Johnson University is establishing a Three Rivers Collaboration: A Learning Community of Resilient, Adaptive, and Transformative Congregations (TRC). The project's goal is to help guide Knoxville-area congregations through a process of reframing their God-given mission within their ever-changing cultural context. The name alludes to the three rivers that give shape to the city of Knoxville, where the convergence of the French Broad and Holston Rivers forms the Tennessee River. The project leaders believe three rivers is an apt metaphor for the collaborative process that leads to thriving congregations. Only in the collaborative confluence of resiliency and adaptation can churches flow together into God’s great river of transformation (Ez. 38; Rev. 22). To help cultivate a collaborative learning community, TRC has been crafted around a series of retreats, workshops, and immersion trips in which learning communities of 12 congregations work together through four phases: resilient in mission, adaptable in context, transformative in strategy, and collaborative in spirit. Over five years, the project leaders hope to serve more than 60 faith communities, not so much as experts but as “river guides” on the currents of Spirit-empowered transformation. They dream that these congregation might be able to join the poet Langston Hughes in his declaration, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

Location: Knoxville, TN
geographic scope: Regional
Contact Information
Contact: Gary Stratton