We design the fellowship to foster deep relationships among those involved in the program. Through shared experiences, deep conversations, and intentional life-on-life connection we all learn what it means to have meaningful, lasting community.

This is done through sharing…

• Projects to help the local community.

• Meals that we prepare or are prepared for us.

• The joys and sorrows of our lives (current and past).

• Encouraging words for one another alongside hard truths.

• Ideas and hopes for the future.

• sharing needs we have and the gifts we bring.

• Your life with mentors and others who intentionally walk beside you.

Our hope is that you leave the fellows year with a faithful and supportive network upon which a life of flourishing can be built.

Often the hardest person to love is ourselves. In our fellowships we long for each participant to see themselves as God sees them…in love. Not the conditional, easy, self serving love of our cultures and media, but the unconditional, truthful, and generous love of God. Spirituality leads us there. Psychology leads us there. Sociology leads us there. Our hearts lead us there. So let’s go there. Inside our program fellows will do this by being invited into community explorations into…

• Mental health topics such as our relationships with time, fear and anxiety, boundaries, etc.

• Cultural topics such as our relationships to technology, our own bodies, our culture of origin, etc.

• Relational topics such as conflict management, forgiveness, non-violent communication, etc.

• Vocational topics such as collaborative and cross silo problem solving, design thinking and collaborative design processes, mentoring, and integrating a wholistic or redemptive work ethic, etc.

Our only requirement is that you bring your questions or your project where you need a breakthrough. It can be related to your…

• Vocation (examples: I am starting my own business or I am feeling burnt out at my current job)

• Spiritual (examples: I am not sure I believe in this or I want to learn more about prayer)

• Relationships (examples: I want to learn to be a better leader or I struggle with feeling included).

• Personal Growth (examples: I struggle with Imposter Syndrome or I cannot say “No”)

Bring this with you and open yourself to God working and he will. It will not be easy, but it will be good. We are broken and beautiful creatures surrounded by divine love and care.

Collaborating together with humans and the divine is a beautiful dance. Sometimes we dance in the dark and it is hard, but we are not alone. In that darkness we truly learn our dance steps, how to communicate with our fellow dancers, and to lean into the music. Then when the light comes, the beauty is truly seen.

Our God is a working, risk taking creator and we are made in his image. So often in the world today, our relationship with work is out of balance. We either worship it or hate it. Neither is the correct path. At the Rivendell Fellows we seek to help each participant learn how to integrate work into their life in a fruitful and faithful way. We do this through…

• Vocational Placement - If the fellow does not come with a digitally nomadic job, then we will work to place the fellow in an internship of interest.

• Vocational Mentorship - Each felllow will be coached by our staff and we will find an elder in your field or a similar field for you to learn from.

• Vocational Integration - We will be living together as a community, learning rhythms that help us fully live into who we are…including when we are at work.

Fellowships will participate in the following…

Monthly Rhythms

Meetings with Rivendell Team to customize your experience, Interviews with local and global discussion leaders, mentorship meetings, curated trips around NZ.

Weekly Rhythms

Sabbath, Community Meals (Fellows only meals and meals with families from the church), Intentional Solitude, Explorations (Spiritural, Health and Wellbeing, Cultural discussions, etc), Service Projects (Church, Community)

Daily Rhythms

Prayer (Individual and Community), Meditation, Silence/Reflection, Presence with God and Others, Work.