Our next Writers' Community Session will take place September 12th at 7am Pacific.
Please find the Zoom link HERE.
Title for the Workshop: Pain and Promise: Creative Writing as a Pathway to Transformation
Guest speaker: Dr. Randy White
Brief description: So much of what influences us to action is not mere information but feeling and experience. Information overwhelms, and logical or moral arguments can paralyze us in their complexity. But a story or a poem opens windows, lets the light in, reveals our vulnerabilities as well as new possibilities as carefully curated words work their magic on our souls. It’s why Jesus used story. Non-fiction has an important function. But in this workshop, we will explore fiction and poetry as a vehicle for truth that catches the reader unawares, circumvents skepticism, and pulls them into the grand story. Dr. White will share some of the process of writing his novel, Consummation, as well as how some of his published poetry was crafted and has been used.
About the speaker:
Dr. Randy White has worked with faith and civic organizations for more than forty years, focusing on individual, organizational and community transformation. He began as InterVarsity's National Coordinator for Urban Projects, and founded the Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership. He then helped renowned urbanologist, theologian and historian Ray Bakke build the global Bakke Graduate University. He finished his formal career founding the FPU Center for Community Transformation, contributing multiple economic transformation initiatives in his community of Fresno, California. Concurrently, he led the Master of Arts degree program in Community Leadership and Transformation at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, and founded the Certificate in Community Transformation for Spanish-speaking leaders across the Valley.
White and his family lived in Fresno's highest crime, lowest income community for thirty years, seeing its well-being in the name of Christ. He now lives in and seeks the well-being of the multi-ethnic and multi-class Jackson neighborhood of central Fresno. Randy & his wife Tina live on the same street as their two sons and their families, which include six grandchildren.
Randy is the author of many articles, and seven books, among them: Consummation, a novel (2025), You are the Full Cloud: Selected Poems (Bookemon, 2024), Out of Nazareth: Christ-Centered Civic Transformation in Unlikely Places (Urban Loft, 2017), The Work of Our Hands: Faith Rooted Approaches to Job Creation, Training or Placement in Contexts of Concentrated Poverty (Condeo Press, 2012), Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation (IVP, 2006), and Journey to the Center of the City: Making a Difference in an Urban Neighborhood (IVP, 1996).
Randy has earned a Doctorate of Ministry in Global Urban Leadership from Bakke Graduate University, a Master of Arts in Urban Sociology and Community Development from Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, and a Master of Christian Studies from New College Berkeley.
You can purchase Randy's latest book HERE.