What’s open right now.
Everything currently open for registration lives here, from a single evening circle to the seven month cohort. What's open changes with the season, so check back if you don't see what you're looking for yet. Have questions about registration? Email Lisa at lisa@40orchards.org.
Open now: Justice & Faith Cohort (October - April) · Ancestors Roots (October -May) · Full Day Reclaiming Circles (September 19, January 10, & May 1) · Open Circles (September 9)
Save the Dates: Advent Evening (December 10)· Lent Lunches (February - March)
Justice & Faith Cohort
The work of repair, resistance, and communal liberation has always been ours to do. In a time of rising authoritarianism and oppression, that call is harder to ignore.
This seven month cohort, October 2026 through April 2027, is a community where Scripture, justice movements, and lived experience become a shared framework for how we think and how we act. Two in-person gatherings anchor us: a Grounding Gathering, October 23 to 25, and a Releasing Gathering the last weekend of April 2027. In between, we will gather twice a month, with in-person and virtual options, and shared discussion board space in between.
Tuition is $3,600, with a $100 non-refundable deposit. If cost is a barrier, please tell us. We can set up payment plans, explore a scholarship option, or help you find a way to fundraise your spot.
Applications close September 1. Responses go out by September 15.
Ancestors Roots
The people of Scripture were not illustrations. They were people, frightened, faithful, complicated, and alive, just like us.
Ancestors Roots is a monthly in-person gathering for people who want to sit with the biblical tradition not as a text to be explained, but as a community to be joined. We'll move through narrative stories in Genesis, Exodus, or the Prophets, asking what people carried, what they knew, and what they might say to us now. With curriculum to help the rooting continue outside of our gatherings.
We meet the first Thursday of every month, 6:30 to 8:30 pm, beginning October through May.
$500 per person with a sliding scale that includes generosity, reduced, and scholarship pricing options. See more about pricing options here.
Starts Thursday October 1, 2026.
Full Day Reclaiming Circles
A full, immersive weekend day for the questions that need more than an evening to unpack.
Reclaiming Sin. A day about human goodness and repair. Sin doesn't have to be where our story with God starts. We'll gather to wrestle with questions that have shaped entire theological systems: Is substitutionary atonement necessary—or even true? Was separation ever the foundation of the human-divine relationship? And what happens when we start not with our brokenness, but with our belovedness?
Together, we’ll explore the roots of these doctrines, the harm they’ve caused, and the liberating alternatives within Scripture, tradition, and experience. This is a space for sacred disruption, theological curiosity, and reclaiming a story in which we are, in fact, very good.
$100 per person with a sliding scale that includes generosity, reduced, and scholarship pricing options. See more about pricing options here.
Friday September 18, 9 am to 3 pm in person.
Reclaiming Heaven & Hell. A day about what might happen when we die, which really is about how to live now. For many of us, heaven and hell have been the framework for faith. Life was understood as a test, salvation as escape, and eternity as reward or punishment. But what if those ideas were never meant to be taken so literally? What if the point was not where we go, but how we live and love here and now?
Together, we’ll explore the origins of these ideas, the control and comfort they have offered, and the possibilities that emerge when we let hope, not fear, define the story. This is a space for sacred disruption, deep honesty, and reclaiming a faith where love really does have the final word.
$100 per person with a sliding scale that includes generosity, reduced, and scholarship pricing options. See more about pricing options here.
Sunday January 10, 9 am to 3 pm, in person.
Reclaiming God's Plan. A day about how much God controls, which is really about human agency and co-creation. For many of us, faith came with a blueprint. We were taught that God was in control and had a specific plan, waiting to be discovered. Life became a search for the right path. Every detour felt like failure, and each choice was filled with worry. But what if there was never a plan?
Together, we'll explore a theology of presence and partnership. What if God is not a puppeteer pulling strings or a problem-solver waiting to be unlocked? We'll wrestle with the hard question: if God isn't controlling the story, what is God doing? This is a space for sacred disruption, honest questions, wrestling to reclaim a theology of with-ness.
$100 per person with a sliding scale that includes generosity, reduced, and scholarship pricing options. See more about pricing options here.
Saturday May 1, 9 am to 3 pm, in person.
Open Circles
A time to bring your questions and perspectives and learn from the others gathered.
A two hour evening circle for wrestling out loud instead of alone. Bring one question you're carrying. No history with 40 Orchards required. We ask for a $30 donation, but invite you to come for free if it is your first time.
Wednesday September 9, 2026, from 6:30-8:30 pm, virtual.
Save the Dates
Advent Evening
Thursday evening, December 10, 2026. Location TBD.
Lent Lunches
Wednesdays during Lent, from 12 pm to 1 pm CT, virtual. February 10-March 24, 2027.