The 2026 Board of Directors
by Jillian Shannon, TCL Pastoral Assistant
TCL community,
We just returned from our annual retreat with The Church Lab Board of Directors in Dripping Springs, TX! It was a weekend full of laughter, joy, deep reflection and bonding over what TCL means to us and how to strategize our mission for the next 1, 3, 5, and 10 years!
One of our board members said it best: For a long time, I thought the mission of The Church Lab was to add color to the world by expanding our understanding of God. This is still true, but now I see that The Church Lab responds to the question: How do we exist in this world? And how do we get up in the morning?
This testimony speaks to the natural progression of TCL and where we find ourselves now in 2025. At our core, we’re an interfaith dialogue group, expanding one another’s awareness of God and of each other. The particular power of interfaith dialogue is that it does not threaten our own beliefs, but deepens and expands them. When we get to know people different from ourselves, our worlds become more colorful.
Today, we realize that the experiences and tools we’re sitting on from the 12+ years of dialogues speaks to larger existential questions about life. Relationships are strained due to intense polarization. People are suffering with purpose and meaning. And sometimes all we can see in front of us are the problems and tragedy that plague our news.
One of our new board members, who is also a longtime TCL participant, suggested: The nugget of hope that TCL offers is this: There is a home for you.
The Church Lab not only makes room for your pain, grief, and difficult questions; it is also equipped to hold them as we see one another through to the other side. We’ve witnessed much transformation in our 12 years of service. Now we are intent on sustaining and streamlining our offerings so that we may meet the demand of the moment.
To this end, we brainstormed ways in which we could extend our mission to a wider audience without compromising what works so well, which is small group, long-term, relational practice. (Stay tuned for some of the creative ways we intend to do this!)
We also got the opportunity to review the ways TCL has steadily grown throughout the years! Our board member and metrics chair, Ashley, put together a comprehensive slide deck with all of the data we could acquire from all our years of service. We were so thrilled to see that we’ve hosted up to 13 different faith identities (did you even know there were that many?!), had unexpected numbers of website traffic, and consistent growth in donations from you, our generous and faithful community. More on that in the annual report!
We were thrilled to welcome 2 new board members, Julie Weeks and Donna Mills-Lambeth who have already added so much dynamic texture and expertise to our group.
We hope you take comfort in knowing that the TCL Board of Directors is a group of diverse, vibrant, passionate members who are energized by keeping this engine running, and that the TCL board practices exactly what we preach: authentic relationships across differences, and hope, joy and laughter all along the way.