The Leadership Institute for Growth, Healing, and Transformation as an Ecotone Case Study

In this chapter, the author discusses the challenges, opportunities, and possibilities of starting a lifelong learning program from the ground up, with attention to the ecosystems of a particular context and occasion. Offering the Leadership Institute for Growth, Healing, and Transformation (LIGHT) as a case study, the author explores the unique features of a multifaith liberal religious ecotone, showing how authenticity and formational theological education are evidenced through three prisms: faith orientation, design principles, and learning needs. In the case of LIGHT, these prisms take the form of a non-creedal standpoint, a practical theological lens, and a hunger for spiritual belonging and meaning. The chapter concludes with an invitation to others to identify the faith orientation, the design principles, and the needs, wants, and desires of their own contexts.