JOIN US FOR A COFFEE BREAK WITH JENNIFER ALLEN CRAFT
Join Tim Soerens in conversation with Jennifer Allen Craft, author, artist, and theologian.
Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Time: 9am PST/12pm EST
Topic: Placemaking and the Arts
How does place shape our faith—and what might it mean to be formed by the places we inhabit?
Join us for a conversation with theologian and author Jennifer Allen Craft, whose work invites us to reflect deeply on the role of place in the Christian life. In her book Placemaking and the Arts, Craft explores how the arts can help us become more rooted, attentive, and imaginative people—people who see our neighborhoods, churches, and homes not as incidental backdrops, but as sacred spaces where theology takes on flesh.
She writes that the arts are a form of placemaking, helping us be more fully present in our local contexts—from the natural world to our worshiping communities—and shaping us into people formed in the image of Christ.
We’ll also hear insights from her recent workshop at the Inhabit conference, where she explored the idea of “sins of place”—the structural and systemic injustices embedded in the landscapes of our cities, and the ways the church has often been complicit in them. Through practices like confessional mapmaking, Craft calls us into a posture of repentance and repair, asking how our churches can become more faithful to the places we call home.
Bring your questions, your curiosity, and your own stories of place—we hope you’ll join us for this rich and necessary conversation.
This conversation is sponsored by Fellowship Hall, Parish Collective’s membership community
These conversations are open to folks in our Parish Collective membership community. Donate what you are able to join us:
Jennifer is Professor of Theology and Humanities at Point University in West Point, GA and a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Lagrange, GA. Author of Placemaking and the Arts: Cultivating the Christian Life (IVP Academic), she is interested in the ways that humans are inherently creative, place-dwelling creatures, along with the ways that art reflects our Christian calling toward confessional and reparative placemaking work in the world. She is also a visual artist and is currently writing a book on place, displacement, and Christian theology while she raises 2 small children named after rivers, a German shepherd, and 4 chickens with her forester husband Brandon.
Read a book by one of our past Coffee Break guests
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Parish Collective connects people to be the church in the neighborhood.
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-John Pattison
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