Co-Pastor
Gilead | Rogers Park
Co-Pastor
Bethany United Church of Christ | Ravenswood
Creator, Facilitator
Earshot Stories
Projects and Work
Gilead Chicago
Gilead is a new church in Rogers Park, on Chicago’s far north side. Just about 1½ years into gathering for worship, Gilead meets in a bar on Sunday nights. Founding co-pastors Rebecca Anderson and Vince Amlin dreamed of a congregation that would be another, new, necessary translation of the Gospel — a church for and with people who’ve been told, or made to feel, that church isn’t for them. A place where more people could hear the Gospel in their own vernacular. A community that makes beautiful, creative worship; grows and shares good food; and tells true stories that save lives. These days, Rebecca and Vince also dream of Gilead being a force for creative reform in worship throughout the Church.
Earshot Stories
Earshot offers interactive workshops, weekend intensives, and coaching that strengthen skills of crafting and telling true, first-person stories. Earshot grew out of experiencing the surge in public storytelling and witnessing what that same kind of storytelling can do in faith communities. Rebecca is passionate about the work that stories can do in a group of people: building intimacy and deepening relationships, expanding the sense of what “counts” as a story worth telling in faith communities, developing abilities to interpret text (whether Scripture or the stories of ourselves and others).
Available for
Comment/
Consultation on
Storytelling in congregations and other groups
Crafting stories for performance, fundraising, preaching
Personal narrative as spiritual practice
Press Coverage
TODAY Visits the Church That Holds Its Services in a Pub (The Today Show)
Chicago new church start attracts national attention before first worship service. (United Church of Christ News)
Baptized in Beer (DNAInfo)