Deep Time's mission
To employ, celebrate and create a spiritual community with people impacted by incarceration.
Each moment of engagement and exchange happening through this mission widens a circle of kinship, and offers a glimpse of kin-do hope for our neighbors whose back are against the wall.
God offers Deep Time, Not Hard Time.
Who we are
These stories have coalesced into a faith community that centers meaningful and gainful employment, liberative and innovative spiritual community, and fundamental celebration of the dignity and potential that God has placed at the center of who we are. We currently offer employment and workforce development by way of specialty coffee roasting; and have visions of cafes, food trucks, publishing houses, media outlets, tattoo shops, and much more. We currently worship weekly at the Buncombe County Jail, Monthly with our Faith and Recovery Gathering, and Weekly through the school year via our Wednesday Warmup; and we have visions of a weekly healing arts gathering, a stripped down liturgical worship gathering, and worship at the local prisons. We offer celebration through our Curator of Community in Residency program, and our Sojourner program; with visions of our Sojourner Program growing into a wrap around 18 month journey for justice impacted individuals that offers housing, employment, access to medical care, and intentional spiritual formation.
The myth that incarceration tells, is that Hard Time is rehabilitative. We believe that Deep Time is rehabilitative. Deep Time is the language Christian mystics use to describe Kairos moments: moments to where a radical encounter with the Incarnation makes hours seem like seconds and seconds seem like hours, moments of creating beloved community.
With a close ear to those who are ensnared by the barriers to re-entry, Deep Time was created with the story of our West Asheville neighbors in mind. Stories of not being received into a worshiping community after a stint in prison. Stories of a felony charge keeping a young family out of employment and housing. Stories of lives lost in the winter months due to being relegated to the outdoors.
We are a Church Plant of the United Methodist Church, a tradition that centers grace as the key to salvific community. It is from this seedbed of grace that we are unapologetically committed to, and celebration of, the fullness of human identity. Race, class, legal status, gender identity, marital status, ability and disability, age, and spiritual identity are some of the the dynamic contours that compose who God created us to be - and we do our best to fully embrace all who we encounter.
God Offers Deep Time, Not Hard Time.
Make a donation.
Donations to Deep Time go towards setting up this venture, hiring and training those impacted by our justice system and creating a community of interdependence.
