Faith leaders and communities, as uniquely powerful hubs of connection and belonging, have increasingly stepped up to combat the epidemic of social isolation, utilizing their deep-rooted networks to offer support and foster relationships. In fact, faith communities might be one of our most underutilized resources to combat this crisis. innoFaith has teamed up with Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute to host a conversation with leaders engaging faith communities as part of the solution. Join us on September 18!

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, she will make history not just as the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian president but also as the person with the most religiously diverse background to ever hold the role.

Meet E.N. West, Lead Organizer for the Faith Land Initiative at The Church Council of Greater Washington. An innovative community organizer, E is building bridges between communities in Seattle to help use church property assets to address community needs. In listening to churches, E and their colleagues spotted an opportunity to support white faith communities discerning what to do with congregational land by connecting them with the needs and vision of Black faith communities and other groups wrestling with issues of displacement from their communities. As a result, religious assets are now being stewarded to address the challenge of affordable housing and advance economic and racial justice.

Meet Rev. Cynthia Johnson-Oliver, preacher, poet, and public servant. Cynthia is founder of the FaithJustice Foundation, as well as the Bishop Joseph Johnson History Project, which she created to tell the story of her grandfather, the first African American to graduate from Vanderbilt University, and his role in civil rights history. Cynthia carries on her grandfather’s legacy not just by sharing his story but through her deep dedication to social justice in our time.

Meet Brie Loskota, new Executive Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion, former Executive Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC, co-founder of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Incubator, and many other things. She is a curious and creative champion of pluralism, a deep thinker, and a prolific doer.

Meet Evan Taylor, incoming divinity student at Wesley Theological Seminary, lay leader in youth and young adult ministry, designer, and perpetual creator and change-maker. Evan is always up to something, usually many things, to actively live out her faith in the community. We were lucky to collaborate with her as co-creator, facilitator, and design thinking teacher for our Interfaith Youth Innovators Summit earlier this year.

George Floyd’s agonizing death at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has galvanized a diverse coalition of people, organizations, companies across the country who are saying “enough is enough.” But let’s be honest, enough was enough a long time ago for our Black sisters and brothers and should have been for all of us. … We definitely have deep inner spiritual work to do. Likewise, we must name injustice and proclaim a different way. And as a systemic problem, racism also requires us to problem-solve.

They say a crisis reveals who you really are. And sometimes, we don’t like what we see. This might be the case for faith institutions in the current crisis. We should hope that it is.

Did you know only a third of Americans have documented their wishes for the end of their lives? And only 19% of black adults over 64 have done so. Faith leaders, trained to spiritually support and counsel the dying and their loved ones, have a better vantage point than most on the stress, anxiety, guilt, not to mention financial challenges and pressure on both families and the medical system that this lack of preparation creates. We don't like to talk about death, but not doing so has numerous ramifications on our well-being as individuals, as families, and as a society.

Baltimore pastor Rev. Heber Brown is sparking a movement with his Black Church Security Network, an initiative he started after seeking to do "something beyond prayer" to support his community members wrestling with health and diet issues. Rev. Brown is engaging churches in planting fresh produce on their own land as well as connecting them to black farmers, ultimately seeking to position churches to further equity in the food system.