OUR WORK
Our work
Membership is the hub, providing peer learning, ethical guidance, annual accountability review, and mutual support. From that foundation, our work extends through education, ethics and accountability, and legal advocacy.
THE HUB
Membership
Twelve mature churches meeting monthly, reviewing each other annually, and holding a shared code of ethics. Everything else on this page is built from what members learn together.
Turning Shared Wisdom Into Infrastructure
FOUR LINES OF WORK
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COLLECTIVE WISDOM
What one church learns, twelve churches use.
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ACCOUNTABILITY
Peers hold peers accountable, before harm.
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EDUCATION
New churches do not start from zero.
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LEGAL AND POLICY
A legal route any serious church can walk.
Cultivate collective wisdom
What one church learns, many communities can use.
Decades of practical knowledge about preparation, ceremony, integration, and belonging live within individual communities. SPA brings experienced leaders together to draw out that wisdom and make it usable, durable, and shareable across the field.
What this involves:
Convening experienced church leaders for peer counsel, mutual support, and collaborative learning.
Identifying and documenting lessons developed through decades of community-based practice.
Keeping standards grounded in trusting relationships, lived experience, and ongoing collective reflection.
Strengthen
accountability
Strong values matter most when communities have credible ways to put them into practice. SPA helps translate shared ethical commitments into clear accountability processes that protect communities, strengthen trust, and generate lessons for the wider field.
Ethical commitments need systems behind them.
What this involves:
Refining and practicing a clear ethics reporting and accountability process within SPA’s membership.
Publishing frameworks and anonymized findings so lessons can strengthen ethical infrastructure across the field.
Building a mediator network grounded in transformative justice and supported by experienced practitioners.
Establishing SPA membership as a trusted standard that responsible communities can aspire to meet
Prepare
responsible
leaders
Healthy communities require more than good intentions.
Emerging communities need practical tools for building responsible, accountable institutions without sacrificing their spiritual integrity. SPA helps leaders strengthen governance, ethics, safety, organizational development, and community care.
What this involves:
Creating a Standards Rubric that helps communities assess their institutional development.
Developing public educational resources that reduce isolated trial and error.
Training leaders in governance, ethics, safety, organizational development, and community care.
Piloting a 12-week peer-support program for emerging churches and developing it into a scalable education model.
Open the path
Religious freedom needs a fair and workable pathway.
SPA works toward a clearer route to legal recognition for sincere religious communities, informed by decades of institutional experience and paired with the education and accountability needed to sustain expanded access responsibly.
What this involves:
Developing a rulemaking framework proposing a clear and fair process for religious exemption.
Drawing on regulatory expertise and the experience of established communities.
Engaging churches, Indigenous rights holders, and field experts so reform honors sincere religious use.
Preserving litigation as a backstop if constructive engagement does not produce action.
Pairing expanded legal access with strong education and accountability infrastructure.
Get to Know SPA
Learn who we are and meet the team behind our work.