Whole-Life Discipleship: Free Course

Resilient Communities Center is an Atlanta-based organization that integrates spiritual formation with strengths-based learning to support human flourishing. We offer coaching, training, and partnership to ministry workers, nonprofit and social impact staff, and community leaders, both online and in person. We are a member of Discipling for Development, a ministry of The Navigators.

We work with ministry workers, nonprofit and social impact staff, cross-cultural and intercultural workers, program designers, and team leaders. We also partner directly with organizations to adapt their existing programs. Our partners include Friends of Refugees, Cultivate, Global Frontier Missions, Grace Village, CAMA Relief and Development, Evangelical Friends Church, and Steady Hope Counseling.

Yes. Spiritual formation is embedded in every offering rather than added on. Our framework is explicitly rooted in following Jesus. Every program is faith-informed, because we believe that meaning making and participation in a religious community are part of the markers for human flourishing (see the Global Flourishing Study by Harvard University and Baylor University). Those outside this faith tradition are welcome in our programs. Each of our sessions incorporate a consideration on where these values and principles we present appear in your own cultural heritage and stories.

None of those. Our coaching is mental health coaching, not psychotherapy, and it does not diagnose or treat mental health conditions. Our training and partnership work is closer to capacity building than to consulting, because the goal is that your team runs the work without us. If you need clinical care, we can help you identify what you are looking for and connect you to licensed providers through one of our community partners.

Community resilience means the capacity of people and groups to flourish in everyday life, especially under stress, isolation, and other forms of hardship. We define it precisely as the capability of a network of relationships to recover its intended purpose after the deformation caused by compressive stress. Resilience is therefore a property of a network rather than of one person's toughness, though we understand an individual as a network too, of mind, body, and spirit. In practice, resilient leaders influence relationships, their own included, to recover purpose and grow as God leads.

Relational poverty means isolation and broken relationships rather than only a lack of money. We use the term because the communities we work with often experience both, and because addressing material need alone rarely restores the relationships that make a community durable.

We are based in metro Atlanta. Our Group Movement classes meet in Clarkston, and we host mentoring groups in Clarkston, Decatur, and Stone Mountain. Many of our programs are available online anywhere. Reach us at info@resilientcenter.org.

Resilient Communities Center is a ministry of The Navigators and a member of Discipling for Development, which has facilitated community transformation work since 1983.Governance: Our strategy, budget, and hiring are approved by the leadership of Navigators World Missions, the global branch of The Navigators responsible for recruiting, developing, and serving local leaders in everyday disciple-making contexts.Curriculum: We draw our curriculum from a library shared by all members of Discipling for Development. We have also developed material specifically for Resilient Communities Center, including all of our virtual formats and our We/ve group materials. Each Discipling for Development location decides which curriculum to use, in consultation with its local community partners and leadership.Funding: Our work is funded by program fees and by designated gifts made to The Navigators. Our staff also raise personal support; program fees and donor-advised fund gifts reduce the amount each staff member needs to raise individually.Staffing: The staff listed on this page are Navigators staff, employed by The Navigators and assigned to this work by our executive director. Some hold additional employment elsewhere, and some serve as associate staff without pay.

Resilient Communities Center is a ministry of The Navigators, not a separately incorporated organization. The Navigators is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 84-6007896) based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.Gifts are made to The Navigators and designated for the work of Resilient Communities Center. They are tax-deductible as allowed by law, and you will receive a receipt from The Navigators.Because the IRS classifies The Navigators as a church, it is not required to file an annual Form 990. Financial information is available through The Navigators' published financial reports and through its ECFA member profile at ecfa.org.