Beyond Affiliation: Leadership for Belonging in a Faith-Adjacent Foster Youth Mentoring Network

In the U.S. context, religious disaffiliation poses challenges for denominational religious educators seeking to remain faithful to God's call. This ethnographic account of Tapestry, a West Coast foster youth mentoring ministry founded by mainline Protestant clergy, presents a case study in responding to these challenges through creative reinterpretation of familiar organizational models, meaning-making rituals, and theological values. In this article, I offer a critical appraisal of key decisions chronicled in my three-year study of Tapestry's formation practices. This organization's flexible, responsive leaders are valuable role models at a time when so many religious educators are reimagining approaches to our work.