2025 Ministry Highlights
As we approach the end of 2025, we find ourselves reflecting on what it means to live boldly in our faith during times of uncertainty, and we are feeling deeply grateful for you.
Fascism, white supremacy, and christian nationalism threaten the values we hold sacred. Peaceful immigrant families face separation, deportation, and being disappeared. Our LGBTQ+ siblings and families live in fear and under threat. Those seeking reproductive healthcare are criminalized. Entire cities are being ambushed by masked, militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement and National Guard troops. And we know that Denver will be one of the cities targeted next, to which Juniper Formation’s Mutual Aid Sanctuary ministry will respond.
Yet in the face of these challenges, our faith community has not retreated. We've taken action with courage and the conviction of what Mary prophesied in her song of revolution (Luke 1:46-55, Mary’s Magnificat) and Jesus affirmed in his vision for humanity (Matthew 5-7, Sermon on the Mount): We are called to seek the radical transformation of the world. Jesus’ teachings demand a fierce dedication to justice for the oppressed, insisting that God lifts up the marginalized, fills the hungry, and utterly overturns the thrones of the Empire. We commit to living the Beatitudes—blessing the peacemakers, the merciful, and all who hunger and thirst for righteousness—by practicing unconditional love for our neighbors and even our enemies, and by refusing to be spectators when the vulnerable are threatened.
This is the bedrock of our ministry, and we need your help to sustain our momentum.
Your year-end gift ensures we can continue to stand on this bedrock, embodying God's justice and radiating hope in a world fraught with cruelty and despair.
The Impact We've Made Together
We all need spiritual encouragement and the tools to be the first responders, cultural change agents, and cocreators of new systems that this moment and our faith demand of us. With your partnership, Juniper Formation has offered this spiritual encouragement and tools through these extraordinary ministries in 2025:
We led the cocreation of the Mutual Aid Sanctuary
The Mutual Aid Sanctuary is an interfaith network of congregations across Metro Denver and beyond, providing protection and care to immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, those seeking reproductive healthcare, and other targeted populations. We've offered a legal training with renowned immigration law expert Violeta Chapin, delved into the rise of christian nationalism in the United States, and engaged congregations in vision-casting. Most importantly, we're resourcing individuals and families who are under threat and keeping families together through deportation processes that would otherwise tear parents from their children.
We hosted the "Prophetically Reimagining the Church" Conference
(September 19-20, 2025) on Denver’s Auraria Campus—and it exceeded what we could have imagined for an inaugural Conference put on by a new church start!
We brought together 112 faith leaders from 14 states and 77 institutions, representing 11 different denominations and faith traditions.
Featuring renowned Womanist biblical scholar Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, and amazing workshop community leaders, the conference equipped leaders from Baptist, Buddhist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, and other traditions to embody liberative theology and take concrete action for justice. We connected seminary leaders, pastors, lay leaders, denominational judicatories, parachurch ministries, organizing coalitions, nonprofit leaders, and local congregations in powerful, relational ways locally and across the country.
The feedback speaks volumes: We asked participants how they felt when they arrived versus when they left. Many shared they arrived tired, discouraged, anxious, uncertain, not belonging. And when they left? They expressed hope, courage, strength, excitement, energy, connection—and belonging.
“To be less afraid of mixing faith with action,” was one reflection from a Conference participant. Another person shared that the most important thing they learned at the Conference was that “skills and tools for community organizing are fundamental to empowering new generations of [the] Church.” Finally, one participant shared that the Conference “felt worth it to my soul.”
Participants have asked us to make this a regular event, a testament to how desperately faith leaders need spaces like this. And we hope to do that with your support. The impact of those two days will ripple through communities as we cocreate places of refuge and possibility for years to come. Out of this conference we are also building a faith formation digital space for recorded workshops and for future skill-building workshops. Once it is ready, we will send you an invitation.
We're transforming congregations through Transgender and Gender Expansiveness training
By helping churches become truly affirming, celebrating, and culture-changing spaces within their communities and beyond.
This fall, we launched "Sex Ed for 30-40 Somethings"—a groundbreaking 6-week online program especially valuable for LGBTQ+ folks and those recovering from purity culture. Rooted in the Our Whole Lives curriculum and facilitated by experienced sexuality educators, Rev. Candace Woods and Theo Isoz, this free program (funded by a UCC Neighbors in Need grant) helps participants reframe their understanding of sexuality and spirituality through topics like consent culture, deconstructing shame, pleasure and desire, and liberatory spirituality. This is the kind of healing, life-giving ministry the Church is capable of offering.
We continue providing Daily Ripple
Daily Ripple is the ONLY liberative, progressive Christian Bible-based app in Google Play and Apple App Store, with daily rituals and reflections written by 20+ diverse lay and clergy writers from across the country, and run by Rev. Dr. Jason Whitehead and Rev. Javon Bracy.
Download the app here or sign up to the Substack to receive daily ripples straight to your email inbox Monday through Friday:
The Juniper Formation Covenanting Service
We’re committed to the formation of lay and ordained ministers. We’re specifically responding to God’s call to ministry for those on the margins of society and the Church. We walk alongside one another as we are called to new forms of ministry, as we gather from various denominational backgrounds, and as a community of believers deconstructing harmful theologies to coconstruct a liberative and inclusive faith.
Juniper Formation UCC became a local church of the United Church of Christ in 2021, in the midst of the Covid Pandemic. We waited for a time when we could all be together to covenant with our ordained and lay ministers. On September 21, 2025, over a
Palestinian communion dinner and anointing ritual, we covenanted with our UCC ordained ministers Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Rev. Candace Woods, and Rev. Kari Collins. We covenanted with our ecumenical clergy Rev. Dr. Jason Whitehead, ordained in the
Presbyterian Church (USA), and Rev. Javon Bracy, ordained within the American Baptist Churches. We covenanted with our lay ministers Theo Isoz, Amanda Creek, Bry Brannan, Terra Greer, and Katelin Champion, three of whom are in seminary and/or the ordination process. Finally, we covenanted with everyone who gathered for anointing as part of the priesthood of all believers.
We continued growing our Wearables Ministry
We have continued expanding our Wearables Ministry to publicly promote progressive, liberative theology in the face of increasing christian nationalism, violence, and fascism.
Browse the shop here: www.etsy.com/shop/JuniperFormation
The Honest Truth About Where We Stand
Here's what we need to share with you: right now, we're running a deficit. We've invested heavily in urgent and necessary work—the Mutual Aid Sanctuary, the Conference, expanding our faith-leader training programs—because the moment demands our response and presence. We’ve chosen impact over caution. We’ve shown up for people in crisis and to bring visions of wholeness to life, even when the budget wasn't fully there yet.
As a newer church, we have no traditional savings, no endowments, no assets to cushion us and many of our members are figuring out how to make ends meet. What we do have is a track record of results that prove this work matters—and supporters who understand that building something new and prophetic requires taking bold steps forward.
Here's why we’re sharing this with confidence rather than panic: The need we're meeting is real. The impact we're having is measurable. And movements like ours don't grow by playing it safe—they grow because people like you see the extraordinary results and decide to invest more deeply.
We're not asking you to rescue a failing organization. We're asking you to fuel a faith-rooted movement that's succeeding faster than our fundraising has caught up. That's a good problem to have—and one we can solve together.
What Your Support Will Make Possible
If you have not donated to Juniper Formation UCC before, we invite you to consider making a contribution. If you have been a donor in the past, thank you! We're asking you to give again and to consider increasing your gift if you can—because the needs are greater and the opportunities more urgent than ever before.
With your support, we will:
Expand the Mutual Aid Sanctuary network to more congregations to offer protection to immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and those seeking reproductive care;
Provide more Transgender and Gender Expansiveness trainings to transform churches and communities;
Equip more faith leaders to respond to fascism, white supremacy, and christian nationalism through ongoing formation, trainings, and communities of practice;
Continue to accompany ministers in formation and through the ordination process;
Grow and sustain our ministry team to meet increased demand; and
Build the financial stability that will allow us to lead prophetically and boldly.
Our goal is to raise $50,000 by the end of the year. We’re asking you to join us in this collective investment in our movement for liberation and wholeness.
How You Can Make a Difference
Make a year-end gift today. As a new donor, what could you contribute to help us urgently respond to God’s call and the needs of our time? If you’ve donated to Juniper Formation previously, again, thank you! And if you've given $50 in the past, could you contribute $150? If you've given $500, could you make it $1,000?
Become a monthly sustainer. Recurring gifts provide the stability we need to take risks. Whether you are able to give $25/month or $100/month, you are making a profound difference in our ministries.
Create your own online fundraiser. Through our new fundraising platform, you can create a personal fundraising page and invite friends to support Juniper Formation. Will you join our Leadership Team in starting personal fundraisers with goals of $500 each? If 50 people helped us raise $500 each, we'd be halfway to our goal of $50,000! To create a personal fundraising webpage, go to: https://gcld.co/wgbkbGP. Then write an invitation that highlights why you give to Juniper Formation and share your personal fundraising weblink with those people in your circles who, if they knew about Juniper Formation’s mission and impact, would jump at the opportunity to offer support. You may choose to send emails, printed letters, and/or share on your social media accounts.
Partner with us. If you’d like to partner with Juniper Formation by offering a major gift or cocreating ministry with us, reach out to a member of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team so we can schedule a conversation together.
Connect us to others. Do you know foundations, grantors, denominational bodies, or individuals who share our values? We'd love a warm introduction.
This is Personal
You are part of this movement. Your partnership makes you a cocreator of the world as it could be—a world that follows the disruptive peacemaking ways of Jesus.
As we close out 2025, we are asking you to stand with us in a bold, significant way through your financial generosity. The stakes are too high to do anything less than our most courageous work together.
Thank you for being part of this prophetic community. Thank you for believing that the Church can be on the frontline as first responders, shoulder-to-shoulder with other community leaders. Thank you for investing in the Church as cultural change agents and cocreators of new, more liberative, loving, and inclusive systems that our faith invites us to imagine.
With gratitude and hope,
The Juniper Formation UCC Leadership Team
P.S. The need is immediate and the opportunity is now. Will you make your most generous gift today to fund our movement for liberation and wholeness?
Donate Here or mail your check to Juniper Formation, PO Box 19541, Denver, CO 80219.
