Tentative Summit Schedule

NAUA Yearly Summit: October 17-20
Spokane, Washington, USA

Workshop

Visioning Workshop Description: Visioning NAUA’s Future  

Judi Durham, Workshop leader

Board members: Terry Anderson, Mike Long, Stephen Polmar

This workshop will begin with members of NAUA’s Provisional Board reviewing the many accomplishments and organized activities during NAUA’s first year. In participant based small groups, we will explore our ideas, aspirations, hopes & dreams for the future of this growing organization. Where and how do we want to go and grow? For instance, does your vision for the future of NAUA include the development of Fellowships or regional groups? Do you think NAUA should have stated a commitment to Justice in its many forms? What new committees or groups would you like to participate in?

During breakout groups, workshop participants (both in person and online) will brainstorm ideas with a group recorder keeping track of ideas that have been generated. Participants will then come back together to the larger group to share their ideas. Each recorder will hand or email their lists to the workshop leader to be compiled and given to the NAUA board. 

Judith (Judi) C. Durham, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Saint Joseph in Connecticut. Before retiring, she also had a psychotherapy private practice for about 30 years. Her career began as an APRN in Adult Psychiatric Nursing before she obtained her advanced degrees in psychology. Her specialization areas included multicultural and international counseling, and the intersection of diversity, culture, and social justice in the provision of mental health services. With this expertise, Judi has taken students to Guyana, So. America; attended and presented at international conferences; and made several trips to Bhutan to support the development and expansion of their nascent mental health services.

Judi grew up in, and as a teen was very active in the UCC-Congregational Church. She still remembers the heated discussions about Ecumenism during the merger of the Congregational Church with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. It was during these discussions that she began to develop her understanding that diversity need not mean division, but rather as something to be embraced. When her husband said he wanted a ‘church home’, Judi found the Unitarian Universalist Society in Manchester, CT., as it spoke to her social justice, inclusive spirituality. Judi and her husband Lauriston (Lorry) King have been members for approximately 15 years.  

Workshop

Losing Your Religion: Moving Toward Healing

Candace Schmidt and Lynn Jinishian, Workshop leaders

Many traditional liberal religions have turned their backs on Enlightenment Values such as rationalism, democracy, and intellectual and religious freedom, replacing them with various forms of collectivism, authoritarianism and intolerance. This has left many churchgoers feeling confused, disoriented, hurt, fearful and/or betrayed by their faith, as well as isolated from their former social circle and somewhat unmoored. Moving Toward Spiritual Healing will provide a space for participants to process their experiences in small groups, with an opportunity to share personal stories and also listen to others who are also grappling with similar experiences and emotions. The two facilitators, Candace Schmidt and Lynn Jinishian will lead the group in processing difficult feelings in a supportive environment, and ultimately help them to gain a better understanding of what they have gone through and how to move on, toward a mindset focused on building a healthy religious liberal home for themselves and others.

Lynn Jinishian was born and raised in Spokane, Washington. She recently completed a 36 year career as a Registered Nurse and Nurse Educator. Lynn joined UUCS in 1996 to be part of a religious liberal community with her husband Robert and their then infant son, Brian. Today she enjoys learning the tiniest details of things she didn’t have time for previously—like how to make the perfect loaf of sourdough. She loves all dogs. If she is not at church on Sunday to learn more about Unitarian history and values, she’s not far away—probably just unplugged at a cabin in the woods of North Idaho where there is a never-ending list of projects.

Candace Schmidt has been attending the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane for 16 years.  She currently serves as a board member of the North American Unitarian Association and also on the Editorial Board of the Liberal Beacon.  Candace is so grateful for the existence of the NAUA as it has given her a liberal home and a means to contribute to building that home.  Her hope is to continue to contribute to the NAUA as it becomes a thriving and vigorous organization meeting the needs of people searching for a place that values the worth and dignity of every person.

Workshop

Kerdcera – The Art of Being Thoughful

Rev. Dr. Todd Eklof, Workshop Leader

Kerdcera (pronounced curd-car-ah) is derived from two proto Indo-European words meaning “heart” and “head.” Dojo is a Japanese word referring to a place students practice a particular art, usually a martial art. The Kerdcera Dojo is a place participants practice reason and emotional intelligence, “The Art of Being Thoughtful.” Developed in 2017 by Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof and psychologist Candace Schmidt, PhD, its participants have been meeting weekly to practice the Kerdcera technique ever since. “The purpose of Kerdcera has always been to boil logic down to its most fundamental principles so this ancient tool can be useful anywhere, anytime, to anyone,” Eklof says. “But people are also emotional creatures. We all think and we all feel. Kerdcera is about both heart and mind working well together.” In this workshop, you’ll learn the Kerdcera technique and can begin practicing the Art of Being Thoughtful for yourself.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Stephen Hassan, Keynote Speaker:  Steven Alan Hassan is an American writer and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of cults and new religious movements. He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.

Hassan has written several books on the subject of mind control and is sometimes described in the media as an expert on mind control and cults. Some researchers in the sociology of religion, however, are critical of his application of mind-control theory to new religious movements

Hassan is a former member of the Unification Church, and founded Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979. In 1999 he founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center.

Worship Leader

Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof, a native of San Francisco, CA, where he was born in 1964, has been the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, WA since 2011, where he’s appreciated for his mind-altering sermons, compassionate soul, and social activism. Rev. Eklof started in the ministry as an ordained Southern Baptist minister but left the Christian faith while still in seminary as a young man, explaining, “I simply outgrew it.” He then started a 16-year career in TV news and corporate video production, during which time he became a Unitarian Universalist (1988) and reentered the ministry as such in 1999, when he began serving the Clifton Unitarian Church in Louisville, Kentucky until 2011.

He’s been widely appreciated for his environmental and gay rights activism, in addition to engaging in the areas of criminal justice reform, restorative justice, the peace movement, as well as immigration and racial justice. Eklof has two undergraduate degrees, one in Philosophy, the other in Communications, a Master of Arts in Religious Studies, and a Doctor of Ministry. He is also a certified member of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA), completed Singularity University’s Executive Program in 2018, He and his spouse of 35 years have a 32-year-old son and a 28-year-old daughter, along with Chester and Wiley, their two canine companions.