Liberated Together:
Co-creating a way forward
Liberated Together creates community for Women of Color, Queer WOC, and non-binary folks who follow Jesus to explore liberated and embodied theology, decolonized approaches to social justice, and radical solidarities across ethnic lines. Healing together, so we can co-create a way forward.
Our Story
What spaces are truly FOR Women of Color?
As I (Erna) moved through church, non-profit, and racial justice spaces, I saw WOC working their asses off. They were exhausted, burnt out, and traumatized with no space to truly exhale.
When we were allowed to rest, it seemed like it was just to recover enough to labor unto burnout again. For those working in Christian spaces, the theology and Christian justifications for these dynamics only deepened the harm.
I wanted to create a space that was truly FOR us. To rest, connect, learn theology that was about our liberation, do justice work in life giving and sustainable ways, and build real WOC solidarity.
How We Launched
Liberated Together officially launched with a cohort for WOC leaders over 30. My plan was to run one cohort a year, while working as a pastor. We had our first in person retreat March 2020 and the next weekend we went into shelter in place for 2 years. During that time I had to reimagine what Liberated Together was going to look like. I had always imagined that it would be primarily in person gatherings.
May 2020 I left my job as Executive Pastor, which ended up being the same week that George Floyd was murdered. I decided to post on Facebook to see if any Asian American women wanted be a part of a cohort exploring liberated theology, Asian American identity, and anti-Blackness in our own communities. Over 100 women signed up, and that was the beginning of Liberated Together being a full time endeavor.
Since then we have hosted 10 cohorts for Asian American women/folks, as well as 4 cohorts with the Badass Indigenous Grandmas, cohorts for 20 something leaders, Luchadoras a cohort for Latina women/folks, another Grown Ass Woman cohort and a cohort for Asian America men who want to interrogate patriarchy.
Summer 2023 we are launching a new branch of Liberated Together, Liberated Together Spiritual Care. With an amazing team of spiritual care practitioners, we will be launching a school for Spiritual Directors, a Network for Spiritual Directors who have already been trained, and spiritual care groups.
What We Do
Our vision is to create healing spaces, so that we can imagine new ways forward.
We do this work in four ways.
Cohorts
Cohorts are focussed closed communities that dive deeper into liberated and embodied theolgy, decolonzied apporaches to social justice work, and radical solidariteis across ethnic lines. In the cohort for Asian American women we explored ethnic identity, doing racial justice work as Asian American women and non-binary folks, and confronting anti-Blackness in our own communtiies. In the Badass Indigenous Grandmas cohort we learn through story from our Indigenous elders.
There are also longer cohorts that run for 4 to 9 months, where dive deeper into community and cross racial solidarities.
In-Person Retreats
In person retreats are a sacred time to feel that justice is about our joy, laughter, healing. We go through great lengths to create an experience of care, extravagance, and connection. This allows us to begin to hope and dream and move forward from places that have minimized and traumatized us.
Liberated Together Community
Liberated Together Community in an online community where gather to gather for conversation, connection, and growth. We create a space for conversations that WE NEED to have.
WOC centered Biblical interpretation
Liberative approaches to social justice work
Our Late in Life Queers Network
Spiritual Care Groups led by our trained Spiritual Directors
Local in person gatherings to meet other Liberated Together folks
Launching Fall 2023
Spiritual Care
This is a space for spiritual nurture in both one-on-one and group settings.
Liberated Together Spiritual Care was created to meet 3 needs.
A way for WOC/ Queer WOC and non-binary folks to train to become spiritual directors and spiritual care practitioners without having to experience the trauma of a white institution. And without having to go through two years of white centered training and then self educate in order to serve your own community.
A way for WOC/ Queer WOC and non-binary folks to explore spiritual care in a way that centers our lived experience and opportunities to learn new ways to connect with Creator.
A network for WOC/ Queer WOC and non-binary spiritual directors to network and continuing learning in order to better serve us.
Meet Erna Kim Hackett, Founder
I am passionate about Women of Color, justice, and Jesus. I want WoC, Queer WoC, and non-binary folks of color to know, that IF they want, there is a way forward with Creator and Jesus that is liberative, ancestral, and embodied.
I have always been passionate about racial justice and cross racial connections. I was raised in the Korean immigrant church, I joined the Black Student group in my high school, and I later started the Asian American student group. I attended Scripps College because I wanted to be in an all women’s learning environment, and I wrote my senior thesis on Anti-Chinese sentiment that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. After I graduated I worked with InterVarsity Christian fellowship because it seemed like an amazing way to live out my faith, my passion for justice, and to be taken seriously as a young woman leader.
Over the years I focussed in on social justice programs and Black Campus Ministries.
In 2014 I started my Masters in Intercultural Studies with the Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies. My first class was taught by Dr. Randy Woodley who invited me to Eloheh and introduced me to his wife Edith Woodley. It was the beginning of an important relationship that continued long after I graduated. I currently serve on the Board of Eloheh: Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Edith Woodley is one of our Badass Indigenous Grandmas.
The support I received through the Woodley’s helped me navigate my role as Director of Worship for Urbana Missions conference. A 15,000 person evangelical missions conference that was taking place in St. Louis at the peak of the movement for Black Lives. It was a brutal season of seeing the depth of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy in an organization that had been my home. I and so many of my colleagues were ousted or traumatized out of the organization as a result of our speaking up against white supremacy and in support of BLM. I created Liberated Together in part to provide the space I wish I had had during those painful years of losing my spiritual community, the theology that had shaped me, and feeling so much grief and loss and confusion.
I was grateful to move to the Bay Area in 2018 to serve as Executive Pastor at The Way Berkeley, a predominantly Black church with its roots in the Black Liberation and Pentecostal traditions. I launched Liberated Together in 2019, expecting that it would be a side project while I worked full time as pastor. However, I left my pastor role in 2020, the same month that George Floyd was murdered. I posted in Facebook asking if any Asian American women would like to do a cohort examining anti-Blackness in our own communities, and over 100 women applied. That was the beginning of Liberated Together becoming a full time endeavor. I began coaching WOC/folks one-on-one and experimenting with different cohorts.
Over the last couple of years I have learned so much with the Liberated Together community. In a beautiful and organic way I feel ready to help Liberated Together grow through Liberated Together Spiritual Care and our online community.
My passion is to see us heal, so we can co-create the spiritual communities that we have longed for.