2026 Re-Storying Institute: Weaving New Worlds | June 25th-27th

The Restorying Institute, now in its third year, is a multi-day experience for leaders, practitioners, and community members who are ready to imagine and build a different kind of world—one rooted in care, connection, and shared well-being. At the heart of our work is Kindred Abundance: the belief that true wealth is found in our relationships, our creativity, and how we care for one another across generations.

Through guided conversations, collaborative learning, and hands-on experiences, participants are invited to rethink what they have been taught about scarcity, power, and value while exploring new ways of leading and living rooted in reciprocity, trust, and collective thriving. The Institute fosters spaces for deep connection and story sharing, where participants can develop practices to carry back into their communities, with a central focus on restorying HIV/AIDS by moving beyond stigma and fear to center dignity, healing, and the leadership of those most impacted, while reimagining systems of care grounded in mutual aid and possibility.

This Institute is a collaborative offering from the Faith Compass Center at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, the Sacred Memory Project, and the 1Love Festival.

This is more than a gathering. It’s an invitation to reimagine how we live, lead, and care for one another—and to begin building that world together.

Info: We begin by gathering ourselves—body, spirit, memory, and breath—into a shared space of intention. This opening grounding is both ritual and teaching, inviting participants to slow down, arrive fully, and reconnect with what it means to be whole in a world that often fragments us.

Rooted in the principles of Kindred Abundance, this experience will guide participants to reconsider what we have been taught about scarcity, lack, and individual striving. Through reflection, embodied practice, and collective presence, we will explore abundance as something we already hold—in our relationships, our stories, our creativity, and our capacity to care for one another.

At the same time, we will center Sacred Wholeness as a way of being that honors the fullness of who we are. This is not about perfection, but about integration—bringing together the parts of ourselves that have been silenced, stretched, or separated, and recognizing them as sacred.

Info: Map existing reciprocal relationships, name where reciprocity is blocked, and imagine new exchanges of care and resources.

Info: Story circles on ancestral memory, shared dreams, and community myths; create a collective "imagery wall."

Info: Case work on real community challenges, practicing responding from emergence rather than control or scarcity.

Info: Connecting experiments across roles and institutions.

Info: Guided reflection on where current systems constrain reciprocity, imagination, and emergence. Paired "clearing" dialogues to surface tensions, grief, or stuck places around resources, institutions, and power.

Info: Collective ritual of release (writing, movement, or breath work), closing with shared commitments for Day Two.

Info: Teaching on emergent strategy principles. Participants form Praxis Circles organized by role or context (ministry, public health, education, philanthropy). Each circle:
Names one concrete site (institution, neighborhood, congregation, program) to work on.
Applies Kindred Abundance principles to design one small, experimental intervention (a new practice, policy, or ritual).
Identifies what data, stories, or signals will show increased social and economic vibrancy.
Mid-morning cross-pollination: circles visit one another to offer insight and questions, then return to refine their praxis plans.

Info: Silent reflection or journaling on what surfaced as hope, fear, or resistance during praxis design. Whole-group fishbowl or spiral dialogue where each circle shares its emerging experiment and receives appreciative inquiry. Somatic or creative practice (movement, art-making, song) to integrate learning and re-center in collective imagination.

Info: Mixed-group "ecosystem mapping" to see how the various praxis experiments connect across roles and institutions. Commitments round: each participant names one immediate action and one relationship they will deepen to support Kindred Abundance. Final Clearing circle to speak gratitude, name what support is needed, and bless the work as it returns to participants' communities.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Enterprise Conference and Event Center, 1922 South Martin Luther King Junior Drive, Winston-Salem, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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