Keynote Address by Rev. Rich Tafel
Swedenborgian Convention 2025
Good evening. We gather this year to consider the concept of spiritual innovation.
What if the secret to spiritual innovation means showing up?
Over my past decade as pastor of the Church of the Holy City in Washington, DC, I’ve witnessed something extraordinary: the beauty of watching people find their spiritual path through the twelve gates of the Holy City.
Showing up has meant being present, meeting people where they are, and trusting divine providence to work through us.
Let me share what it looks like in real time.
Through the Gate of Physical Need: A 21-year-old jogger pulled a muscle running past our church, stumbled in during a service seeking relief, and discovered deep conversations during coffee hour.
Through the Gate of Intellectual Seeking: A young university professional woman arrived one Sunday wrestling with a spiritual question that wouldn’t let her go; that week’s sermon spoke directly to her struggle.
Through the Gate of Service: A prominent progressive activist seeking calm after the 2016 election upended her world, found a safe place to discuss her concerns.
Through the Gate of Dialogue: A young secular business leader came for our interfaith dialogue with a Buddhist monk and eventually joined the community.
Through the Gate of Truth-Seeking: A secular law student who was seeking a faith path, became frustrated by DC churches that seemed to preach for one political party or another, and checked us out as a place for honest dialogue.
Through the Gate of Healing: A young scientist at the nation’s leading laboratory came with questions about her ability to use energy to heal, that she hadn’t shared publicly.
One of Swedenborg’s great teachings is that the twelve gates to the Holy City, speak to the variety of spiritual paths by which we come to God.
I believe I’ve witnessed someone come through each one of those different gates.
What’s remarkable is none came to learn about Swedenborg. So it must have been the great preaching, right?
I’m sorry to admit, none came because of the world-class preaching of the pastor. They came because they were seeking practices that work, communities that heal, wisdom that helps them navigate a chaotic world—and community there to meet them.
Only after we met them, where they were, did they discover that our tradition’s insights are perfectly designed for this moment.
The Courage to Show Up
When I was 22, I explored the Swedenborgian ministry as a student in Boston, coming from an American Baptist background. I left because I felt the denomination didn’t offer me a clear path forward.
Forty years have taught me that we don’t get to see the full path forward. Spiritual innovation requires we release our need for certainty about outcomes and remember that our job is simply to show up.
As one church member reminds me: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I’d add: Trust the Lord and the angels to do the rest.
This power of showing up is embodied by our church patriarch, Dr. Malcolm Peck, who joined our community 40 years ago and continues serving as both our historian and board vice president. Malcolm demonstrates what showing up looks like across decades.
Our tradition is uniquely situated to offer guidance in a chaotic age asking:
How do we create peace in a time of polarization? How do we find community in a time of loneliness? What wisdom do we have for the rising generation?
Swedenborg’s revolutionary predictions speak directly to these questions:
• To bring about a new order, you must go through a time of chaos
• Traditional religious forms would fade as new spiritual communities would arise
• What matters isn’t belief alone, but love and usefulness
These teachings directly answer the questions of our time.
Breaking Through Fear
Despite being blessed with these insights, we, Swedenborgians often get stuck.
We freeze when innovation feels risky and resources are thin. We calculate how long our endowments will last, instead of asking God, what do you want to birth through us?
We risk becoming museum curators instead of movement builders, burying our talents like the fearful servant in Jesus’ parable, rather than investing them for the Kingdom.
Two things we can do right now to prepare ourselves to be truly innovative: first, avoid burnout so we can show up; second, shift our focus from the past to the future.
If showing up is the critical element to innovation, then we must do all we can to cultivate talent and protect against burnout. What I’ve learned from the social investment world is investors expect startup leaders to commit fully for several years with large teams before expecting returns.
But in church work, we do just the opposite. We ask ministers to work part-time for minimal compensation while carrying everything. We quickly add laypeople to boards, dropping new responsibilities on them. We tell our nontraditional ministers to figure out their own path. This isn’t the way to innovation—it’s a recipe for burnout. We must transform how we support and cultivate talent in our pulpits, pews, and chaplaincies.
Second, we must escape the nostalgia trap. We must stop looking backward and begin describing the future. We’ve become overly focused on our past contributions, forgetting to make present ones. At times I become a walking Swedenborg Jeopardy category. I’ll take Swedenborg for $1000.
This famous Swedenborgian tree planter traveled through Ohio?
This major city’s plan was inspired by Swedenborg’s vision?
This Swedenborgian pastor coined the phrase “the New Age”?
This Swedenborgian inspired the founding of AA?
We’ve accomplished great things. That’s wonderful. But the world doesn’t need us to talk about what we once did—it needs us to be great now.
We get proficient at talking about the past, but the world doesn’t need us to prove Swedenborg influenced AA’s founding.
They need us to create the next AA.
The question isn’t whether we have something to offer—we do. The question is whether we’ll cultivate our talent to be there to meet those in need, and whether we have a vision of the future to lead them into.
Three Paths of Spiritual Innovation
So how do we move from preservation to transformation?
Innovation can feel impossible for our small community facing overwhelming needs.
But what if everything we’ve seen as our weaknesses, are actually our greatest strengths?
I see three crucial areas where ways we can lead:
1. We Must Lead Peacemaking
The greatest threat to our nation and world is our descent into a spiral of contempt, addicted to outrage. Swedenborg’s teachings offer radical inclusion for a faith community, more crucial than ever. We can be proud of our past efforts of inclusion. My presence tonight as your Chair of the Council of Ministers speaks to this. We need to build on our inclusion.
At our 2022 Long Beach Convention, I introduced Cultural Translation—a bridge-building methodology that doesn’t compromise values. Here’s how it works: instead of arguing about positions, we help people understand the values beneath opposing viewpoints.
For example, when conservatives express concern about immigration, we help progressives hear the underlying value of security and community stability. When progressives advocate for immigrant rights, we help conservatives hear the underlying value of compassion and human dignity. Once people understand each other’s values, they can find creative solutions that honor both.
Today, just three conventions later, Cultural Translation has been taught to White House Fellows, leading government agencies, Navy officers, and corporate leaders. One political leader told me, “This training was a blessing at work, but personally I’ve built a bridge back to my brother who I haven’t spoken to in years.”
And it is growing: the Society of Human Resource Managers is interested in piloting with their network of a thousand businesses.
Introduced at our convention, supported by our congregation, and piloted with Swedenborgian volunteers nationwide—many sitting here—that’s peacemaking in action. That’s our inclusive theology lived out.
We can begin to share this training through our own denomination network now.
2. We Must Build Authentic Community
We’re living through a loneliness epidemic, but we know how to build genuine community. I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of churches full of sweet people. Yet, there’s a kindness in our denomination that’s actually our secret weapon.
I wondered why and the answer might surprise you.
I’ve realized there’s no prestige in being Swedenborgian—no social status, no career advancement. If money, prestige, or earthly power is your goal, then look elsewhere.
Those who choose our path, do so purely to be useful. What the world sees as our weakness—being small and unknown—is actually our superpower. We’re not protecting institutional power; we’re free to focus on transformation.
We must use this insight to innovate new forms of community. The Garden Church is a good example of creating something new to meet the current moment.
In DC, we sold our massive church building and created Swedenborg House DC—a hybrid spiritual center with kitchen, shower, guest space, and areas for both in-person and virtual worship alongside honest conversation.
Our congregation helped redesign our services to include open discussion after sermons, wrestling with questions like: “How do I make a difference? Should I stay in my job?”
This is innovation in action.
New York faced a similar cliff—five members, enormous building. They could have managed slow decline, taking the titanic into the iceberg. Instead, President Anna Rich called then-President Jane Siebert for help. Members from across our denomination shared time and energy to help a New York congregation most had never met. Their collaborative leadership transformed their legacy into a $14 million innovation fund for nonprofits in NY and our Swedenborgian communities.
They didn’t preserve the past—they sparked a future. That’s what life after death looks like in this world. That’s spiritual innovation.
These examples show us how we are building community within our tradition. But innovation also calls us beyond our comfortable boundaries to serve those who may never join our churches, but desperately need what we offer.
3. We Must Serve the Rising Generation
In addition to facilitating peacemaking and building community, we must venture outside ourselves to serve the next generation.
In the early 1900s, our DC church pioneered the nation’s first preschool for Black children—bold innovation for its time. What are we doing today?
Today’s challenge is equally urgent. This rising generation is spiritually awake but practically focused. We need to leave our comfort zones to serve them where they are.
A member of my congregation, Steve, offers a simple solution: What if we partnered with existing youth programs in our community and offered to work together?
When you show up to meet the rising generation where they are, they will take you to places you’ve never been. Two areas in particular have pushed me to learn more, and I’m beginning to see concrete ways we can engage.
Navigating Mystical Experiences
We are a mystical church and among the rising generation there is a hunger for the mystical. Whether through yoga, breathwork, or medicine journeys, we’ve got to get out of our heads and into our hearts in developing practices to meet their needs.
It requires us to keep an open mind to their new spiritual paths. Numerous secular young adults describe medicine experiences remarkably similar to Swedenborg’s writings—direct perception of spiritual reality, encounters with divine love, understanding of universal interconnectedness. Dismissing them means we miss opportunities to serve those genuinely seeking God.
Sharing our deep understanding of dark forces could also help protect them.
Imagine if we’ve started hosting monthly “Mystical Conversations” where young adults share their spiritual experiences—and we explore how Swedenborg’s teachings offer framework for understanding these encounters.
The Age of Artificial Intelligence
Another crucial area where we’re uniquely positioned to serve the next generation is navigating the age of artificial intelligence. As AI handles cognitive tasks, young people ask deeper questions: “What makes me irreplaceably human? How do I find meaning when machines can do my work?
When I did some work with Google ten years ago, they brought me into a meeting to ask from a religious perspective what was uniquely human. Our tradition offers profound answers: that love, wisdom, and spiritual growth are humanity’s unique contributions to creation.
Our faith tradition offers profound insights into what makes us essentially human—our capacity for love, our ability to choose between good and evil, our role as spiritual beings having a natural experience.
Imagine that we developed workshops for college students and young professionals called “Irreplaceably Human,” helping them discover their unique calling in an AI world.
The Vision for Our New House
When we commit to showing up and trusting in God’s providence amazing things can happen.
Those transformation stories I shared of young seekers aren’t exceptions—they’re the pattern.
That young man who pulled a muscle jogging by our church now helps the homeless at the nation’s leading social impact housing firm and serves on our board.
That young professional woman full of questions, now leads Sunday worship.
That activist who found peace during political chaos, leads our board and runs an organization bringing left and right together around kitchen table issues.
That business leader shares his faith journey with skeptical friends and serves as our treasurer and on the Swedenborg Foundation board.
That energy healer recognizes she’s not alone and is writing academic papers bridging science, healing energy, and Swedenborg.
That law student is building a legal career around bridge-building and service and serves as our youngest board member.
None of these innovations could have been written into a strategic plan.
Spiritual innovation happened because we showed up. We met people where they are and asked God to work through us. When we get discouraged, we must remind ourselves that we don’t get to see where it ends up.
But when we can articulate our vision and ask God to work through us as instruments of his peace, amazing things can happen.
The New Jerusalem isn’t a place we wait for—it’s descending to the degree that we co-create it.
Your Invitation to Spiritual Innovation
Transforming the world requires us to transform ourselves. There are small actions we can take:
• To be peacemakers, we must release the contempt you feel for people who vote differently
• To build community, we must offer spaces where the minority voice feels heard
• To meet the rising generation, we must choose curiosity over judgment when young people share their spiritual paths
The Torch Is in Your Hands
We’re not superior because we’re Swedenborgian; we’re just blessed. To whom much is given, much is expected.
Much is expected of us—specifically, to become instruments of God’s peace in a divided world, to create communities where authentic transformation happens, to mentor a generation hungry for meaning beyond materialism.
Swedenborg didn’t build a church. He carried a torch that lit the darkness and offered insight. That torch has been passed from generation to generation to each of us to illuminate faith’s mysteries.
We cannot hide that light under a basket; we must let it shine before others, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.
Through some strange grace you are here tonight asking God how to be useful. In this very moment, the torch is in our hands. We have the opportunity to light pathways toward healing, to illuminate spaces where the lonely find community, to kindle hope in hearts that have grown cynical about faith.
The world hungers for what we carry: practical mysticism, healing community, and the radical truth that love is stronger than contempt.
Those young seekers I’ve met represent millions approaching the twelve gates of the Holy City right now. They’re not looking for another institution to join—they’re looking for a community that heals and mentors without judgment.
The New Jerusalem isn’t behind us. It’s ahead of us, waiting to be born when we have the courage to show up and innovate.
The seekers are already at our gates. The world is waiting.
The only question for those of us gathered at this Convention is this: What will we light?
Thank you.