Convocation
Please Donate to Convocation
Convocation is the spiritual heart of the Goodenough Community
Donations to Convocation support:
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Sahale Learning Center This assures that Sahale and her gifts continue to be enjoyed by all. Monthly pledged donations are especially needed at this time.
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The Programs of Convocation
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Pathwork | A twice-monthly Sunday evening online gathering for those who intend to become ever more awake humans.
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Watchcare | Responding to the unexpected and unsettling events in individuals and families' lives.
Convocation: A Brief History
Convocation: A Church and Ministry was incorporated in 1987. Colette Hoff was the Senior Pastor.
Convocation is a community of faith which supports individuals who perceive their life’s work as service and who are willing to commit themselves to developing their own and others’ ability to be of service in the world. We are also a community of practice that serves the work of developing worthy people capable of strong relationships and a life of service.
Our purpose is to learn to witness to a way of life that honors Spirit and its expression through each unique individual. We call people to be guided by the intrinsic experience of God rather than to look solely outside themselves for guidance.
We embrace an interfaith approach that acknowledges the wisdom at the core of all the world’s great religious traditions, the body of truth passed down through the ages (often referred to as the Perennial Philosophy), and the precepts of transpersonal psychology.
In summary, a group of friends became a church. People have come and gone and yet through 30 years of practicing and worshipping together, participants in Convocation have become a serious witness to the hope of interfaith spirituality. Convocation continues to welcome interested individuals to practice and worship with us.
If you find yourself interested in any aspect of our work, and want to become more involved, please email goodenoughcommunity@gmail.com to continue a dialogue with us.
CONVOCATION PROGRAMS
Program workshops and retreats are occasionally held at Sahale Learning Center on the Kitsap Peninsula.
Watchcare
This program focuses on the whole of life. Community is lived in the intimate zone where members care about and respond to the events in each others’ lives. For more than 30 years, members and friends of the Goodenough Community have been offering the Watchcare of compassion and practical friendship through Convocation.
Currently, Hollis Ryan is the Watchcare liaison for the Women's Culture, and Jim Tocher is the Watchcare liaison for the Men's Culture. Watchcare provides an enriched experience of service through intentional caring and support during and through times of adversity.
The Watchcare team appreciates knowing of specific concerns or of individuals in need of care in times of illness, death in the family, family transitions, etc. Currently the Watchcare group is sponsoring training in Eldercare, an area of interest expressed by many community members. While one of our members presently needs specific care, we are using the situation to learn, knowing that Eldercare skills will be essential as we age.
Pathwork
Currently, the program meets under the Goodenough Community Lay Leadership. It expresses a carefully designed curriculum as an interfaith circle of practice.
Recent curriculums include:
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Utilizing Buddhist principles and the work of Rick Hanson to explore the idea of using our brain to change our minds.
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Studying Islam to better understand and respond to the social context in which we find ourselves. [more]
Our Pastoral Legacy
John and Colette Hoff, founding pastors, served jointly. In addition to providing spiritual leadership to Convocation, they coached and counseled individuals and families in relationships of all kinds for 45 years.
November 10, 1947 – April 21, 2022
Mary Colette Hoff, M.Ed
Colette died peacefully at her daughter's home in Seattle, surrounded by family and friends, after a long illness. Click here for her obituary.
Colette is a professional educator and counselor with extensive experience in adult and family education. She uses community as a method and context for human growth and development. Her work is valued by both men and women. She also has a recognized vocation for working with women and women’s spirituality and teaching about the divine feminine.
Prior to earning her Master’s degree from the University of Puget Sound and a certificate in Pastoral Care and Counseling from the Christian Counseling Service, Colette spent 10 years providing nutritional counseling and motivational workshops for the NW Lipid Research Clinic. She has 52 years experience attending and facilitating the annual Human Relations Laboratory.
In 2000, she was ordained as a pastor by Convocation: A Church and Ministry, an interfaith approach to spirituality. Colette is a coach to many and a trustworthy guide for relationships for individuals, marriages, and families.
Colette is missed, yet travels in our hearts and minds...her teachings are alive and in motion in the Goodenough Community work.
July 07, 1935 – February 14, 2018
Dr. John Lawrence Hoff, ThD
Founder of the Goodenough Community. Husband, Father, Grandpa, Pastor, Teacher and Friend to Many.
John died peacefully at his home at Sahale, surrounded by family and friends, after a long illness. Click here for his obituary.
John was a professional educator and counselor. His life’s work and passion was creating community as an environment for growing “good people”. John received his doctorate in theology and pastoral care from the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ (1961) and trained by the National Training Laboratories (NTL Institute). His livelihood was earned through teaching, training and the pastoral care of individuals and organizations. He taught compassion and the value of relationship through his own life and faith.
Since 1981, John was a leader in the Goodenough Community System, Since 1987, John served as pastor, teacher and counselor through Convocation: A Church and Ministry. John retired in 2013. He continued to consult on a limited basis and was respected as a founder and elder in the Goodenough Community until his last days. We thank him. We miss him. We carry him in our hearts, in our work and in our service.
The Spiritual Practice
If the world is to be at peace, then our churches need to be about the work of helping individuals understand the authentic search that each faith represents.
Convocation gathers individuals from various traditions who work together to better understand what we have in common while also identifying the issues that have divided us historically. We observe that wherever interfaith work happens, there is a growing respect and love among the people involved. That is true for us in Convocation!
The founding pastors of Convocation were Dr. John L. Hoff and Mary Colette Hoff, M.Ed.
Spiritual Self-Development
convocation |ˌkänvəˈkāSHən|
noun
the action of calling people together.
We find ourselves called together by our own interest in qualities of spirituality and areas of belief that come from several faith traditions.
This lay-led church encourages us to seek what is wise and powerful in a variety of historic faiths. One core truth is that our faith should be manifest in our life, should be practiced. One aspect of being called together is that we desire to be of service, to make a difference, and to be a blessing in the world about us. The concept of service or ministry is a natural expression of a full and loving heart. We encourage participants to serve by passing on to others what we have found helpful for ourselves.
Those involved with Convocation are encouraged to be thoughtful and conscientious throughout their lives.
We facilitate a process wherein individuals assess their needs for development and reflect on their goals as they attempt to improve the way they live their lives.
Programs encourage personal development, sound thinking about relationship, and making and keeping agreements with great care.
Some members of Convocation have committed leadership to the “Community of Practice Project” in which we are doing research on best practices for supporting individuals with a variety of temperaments and issues in living.
Meditation, prayer, and care-filled conversation are vital resources for group formation and spiritual deepening. To this end Convocation participants are encouraged to serve in the social network that surrounds them and to pass forward the compassion and truth they experience.