Reimagining faith and justice: decolonising workshops

You are welcome to join one or all three upcoming workshops with Jane Hope and Naomi Wolfe. These workshops seek to create space to understand and transform our relationships and practices with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. You are invited to explore and engage with ways of decolonising our faith practices.

Participants will reflect upon how shared colonial histories have shaped how religious traditions and spiritual spaces interact with Country and peoples. Together we will learn to reclaim and reshape spiritual practices that respect wisdom, justice and cultural diversity. The overall aim is to build communities that are aware, compassionate, and inclusive; that work towards an equitable and rich society.

The dates are Saturday, 5 April, 12 April and 10 May 2025. Each session will be from 1pm to 4pm.  

We strongly encourage you to come to all three sessions, however the sessions will be standalone, so if you can only come for one or two sessions, please join us. 

More about Jane Hope

Jane Hope is a Spiritual Companion and Quaker who is a 6th Generation Coloniser-inheritor. She has been trying to work out how to respond to living on stolen land all her adult life. Jane was one of the founders of the Indigenous Hospitality House and has lived at Gembrook Retreat for over the last 20 years. At Gembrook Retreat, she helps retreatants to connect with nature and deepen their spiritual life through contemplation, spiritual companioning and deep ecology work. Jane completed the Spiritual Companioning Course at Wellspring in 2023 and did her final research assignment on, 'The role of Spiritual Companioning in the work of decolonisation.' As Jane learnt about Spiritual Companioning, she saw how helpful this practice can be for the Truth Telling of our shared colonial history in these lands. She is hopeful that Wellspring and other Spiritual Companions can lead the way, or at least support the Christian community to lean into our colonial stories and face the reality we live in, and discern what is ours to do.

More about Naomi Wolfe 

Naomi Wolfe is a Trawlwoolway Aboriginal woman with Jewish German and Irish heritage who lives and works on Wurundjeri country (Melbourne, Australia) as a historian and theologian. She teaches Indigenous and ancient histories at the Australian Catholic University and was formerly the Academic Coordinator of the Jim-baa-yer Indigenous Higher Education Unit at ACU. Naomi is a member of the NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, and previously she was one of the foundation staff members of the School of Indigenous Studies, University of Divinity. She is an adjunct at St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra. Naomi is a kinship carer, a history nerd, and coffee tragic.

Please do not let finance be a reason you do not come. Please contact us. 

You may choose to sponsor someone else to come.

Bookings will close two days before each session, so please register as soon as possible. 

The workshops are in person only, at WellSpring. If you are interested in a similar online event in the future, please email us. 

Gift Voucher / Event Credit

If you have a WellSpring gift voucher or event credit that you would like to apply to this booking, please choose Direct Deposit as your payment method. Then, please transfer the order amount less your credit amount, and email the office to advise us of this: info@wellspringcentre.org.au. Please provide the relevant order and transaction details in your email.