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Webinar Panel Discussion: Thursday, February 26 | 1 PM ET / 10AM PT
Join Us!
In a season marked by burnout, uncertainty, and diminishing reserves of hope, many Christians are left wondering whether simply enduring still counts as faithful living. In this webinar, we will reframe survival not as spiritual failure, but as a deeply faithful practice—one shaped by Black Christian communities and other marginalized traditions that have long learned how to remain human, joyful, and grounded under pressure.
This live webinar invites participants into a rich, embodied conversation about what it means to endure faithfully in exhausting times — not by numbing ourselves or pushing harder, but by practicing joy, creativity, song, movement, and communal care as forms of resistance.
Hosted by CSA Program Director Avril Z. Speaks, this conversation explores how embodied practices — moving, singing, gathering, celebrating — can sustain hope when words alone fall short. Features panelists such as Jane Hong, Phillip Joubert, Nia Campinha-Bacote, and Brandi Miller. Full line-up will be announced in the weeks to come.
What We’ll Explore
Together, our panelists will reflect on endurance as something more than grit or survival — and instead as a spiritual discipline formed over generations.
Key themes include: survival as a spiritual discipline, joy as resistance, embodied faith under pressure, exhaustion without shame, holding grief and joy together, and what the Church must relearn.
Host: Avril Z. Speaks
Avril Z. Speaks is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and showrunner whose work spans narrative film, documentary, and television. With an MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University and a background in African American Studies and film from the University of Maryland and Howard University, Avril brings both academic rigor and creative vision to her storytelling. She has produced acclaimed projects such as Jinn (SXSW Special Jury Recognition, distributed by MGM/Orion Classics), African America (a South African film now on Netflix), and Dotty & Soul. Her work often explores themes of race, gender, and spirituality, and she is deeply committed to telling stories that foster connection, reflection, and change. She serves as Senior Program Director for the Storytellers Collective.
Nia Campinha-Bacote, MDiv, RYT-200, is a budding theologian, lover of dark chocolate, and seeker of joy. She received her Masters degree from Yale Divinity School and certification from Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music for her work in music thanatology, through which she co-produced Gilead, a Sonic Healing Album blending Afro-diasporic melodies with the sounds of nature, offering a healing presence to listeners. Nia dedicates her life to the work of emotional reparations on a global scale, collaborating with Afro-diasporic grassroots collectives, faith communities, and healing practitioners across Brazil, Colombia, Cape Verde, and the United States. Whether through writing, salsa dancing, or facilitating grief rituals, Nia’s passion remains rooted in her desire to curate spaces where grief, joy, and liberation can coexist.
Phillip Joubert is an artist, songwriter, emcee, rapper and a key spokesperson for Common Hymnal. Born in CT, fostered in NYC, and now based in Knoxville, TN, Phillip draws on his vast palette of personal experiences to paint pictures of hope in song, from his upbringing in a broken ministry home to his journey of recovery. Phillip sees his art as an extension of the call on his life to speak truth to anyone who will listen. He loves pushing genre boundaries and finding the best ways to make songs come alive. Sonically, he can take you to the night club or the prayer room while on stage.
Based in Seattle, Brandi Miller is the Director of Formation and Story at Quest Church. For the last 12 years she has been a writer, speaker, podcaster, working at the intersection of faith, justice, and politics. Her passions outside of work include competitive weightlifting, escape rooms, and exploring all things food and drink with her partner.
Jane Hong is Associate Professor of History at Occidental College and the author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). A public-facing historian, she appears in the PBS docuseries, Asian Americans (2020) and has written for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine. Hong’s forthcoming book explores how post-1965 Asian immigration changed U.S. evangelical institutions and politics (Oxford University Press). Her next project, Beyond Demographic Destiny: How Im/migrants of Color Are Changing American Conservatism and Race, uses Orange County, California, as a lens to chart the rise of conservatism and political polarization among im/migrant communities of color, with a focus on Asian American and Latine conservatives since the 1970s.
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