The kinship collective is a diverse and radically inclusive community committed to togetherness! We believe we’ll build empathy and solidarity by courageously offering our truest stories! We believe a communal imagination of scripture helps us cultivate a huge, helpful and healing understanding of God!
Meet Mark Fields
I have been a part of a lot of ministries in my lifetime [I listed them before but realized you’re the kind of person who will give me a hearing without me listing all the accolades] and I realized that there are a lot of harmful ways of understanding God being communicated in a lot of places. A lot of the places people are going to encounter peace and acceptance have become hallmarks of rejection, discrimination and exile. Ironic how the God most known for liberation and love would be represented by places known most for small-mindedness and fear.
I started The Kinship Collective to be a part of reminding us all of what is most true. We are reminding the world that God is good and anything that doesn’t feel or point to that goodness is “sin” or simply missing the point. We are reminding the world that we are good. We are not broken, depraved, or inherently evil. We are good with all the inherent dignity, divinity, creativity, beauty, power, faith, hope, love, joy, peace… (you see where I’m going with this) you associate with being good. When we are oriented by these truths we can experience the world as family, there is a KINSHIP we can experience and point toward that grows our ability to experience the journey of life how we’ve always desired. This KINSHIP makes us beacons of tender justice, humble ferocity, and fiery kindness toward others. This kind of agency and power, this kind of community, and this kind of understanding of God is what The Kinship Collective is all about!
See the beauty of The Kinship Collective is we know this isn’t about some “sage on a stage” with all the wisdom and perspective to shape a community. This is FUBU theology! (Remember FUBU my fellow 80s babies) “For Us, By Us” theology… [historically called public theology] where we form our understanding of God together and develop a communal imagination for scripture together. This isn’t about one person telling the story that God is good or that humanity is good or that we are family. This is about each of us helping others to experience the goodness around us, together, and living into the KINSHIP we know and desire deep within our bones. LETS DO THIS TOGETHER!