About
About Journey Center Great Lakes
We are not a church or an institution.
We are a vibrant and multi-layer community of people who have encountered God’s welcome and are being made more healthy and whole through God’s expansive love.
We create space just as God has created space for us.
We are here to listen, support, and to journey together — never to dictate what your spiritual path “should” look like.
We believe everyone is created in the image of God. We celebrate the richness of human diversity — including sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religious background, age, race, culture, range of abilities, religious background, education, and economic experience.
We offer resources, events, gatherings and opportunities (online and local) that are both Christ-centered and respectful of all spiritual paths.
If you desire to know God’s radical welcome or to join us on a journey toward wholeness, you are so welcome here. You are invited to Come As You Are, Encounter the Holy, Be Renewed.
Journey Center Core Values
We, as a part of the Association of Journey Centers, embrace the same core values known as the Journey Center Way. The core values may take different expressions in each Journey Center, as we each are called in unique places and communities. We are each on a journey of learning to live in an authentic relationship with ourselves, others, and the Holy One. This is how we describe and embody the core values at Journey Center Great Lakes.
The Way of Hospitality
God loves us deeply, accepts us fully, and meets us exactly where we are. We listen to each person’s story with love and respect, honoring the differences that make us who we are.
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Our God is a God who made each of us uniquely, just as we are, regardless of how we may describe ourselves. God loves us deeply, accepts us fully, and meets us exactly where we are. The essence of Jesus’ life was one of radical hospitality—welcoming the wandering stranger into the embrace of a community. We listen to each person’s story with love and respect, honoring the differences that make us who we are. We invite all to come and experience the boundless love and welcoming grace of God.
The Contemplative Way
The contemplative Christian tradition offers many simple practices, rooted in the invitation to simply “be” with God. We listen reflectively with a spirit of openness, care, and support because people matter, and their stories matter.
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The contemplative Christian tradition offers many simple practices, rooted in the invitation to simply “be” with God. With each person we encounter, we listen reflectively with a spirit of openness, care, and support because people matter, and their stories matter. The way of contemplation adds a depth and richness to your journey, whatever path you are on.
The Way of Spiritual Direction
Everything we do at the Journey Center is rooted in Spiritual Direction — listening to each person’s unique story, and together, “sifting” for the gifts of God’s presence and love being revealed.
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We believe God is in all our stories because God cares so deeply for each one of us. Everything we do at the Journey Center is rooted in Spiritual Direction — listening to each person’s unique story, and together, “sifting” for the gifts of God’s presence and love being revealed. We practice the Way of Spiritual Direction through our programming and discernment, as well as training future spiritual directors.
The Way of Silence + Solitude
We believe our souls crave for both stillness and a profound connection with the Holy. By stepping away from the noise and demands of everyday life, we create space to be alone and quiet, allowing us to hear both our own hearts and the voice of God more clearly.
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We believe our souls crave for both stillness and a profound connection with the Holy. By stepping away from the noise and demands of everyday life, we create space to be alone and quiet, allowing us to hear both our own hearts and the voice of God more clearly. Here at JCGL we offer deep listening spaces in order to provide opportunities for people to have that connecting reflective space with God.
The Way of Discernment in Community
Listening is at the heart of who we are. We are honored to create and hold sacred space for whatever the Spirit is doing—in the lives of individuals and within us as a community. Just as we listen in prayer to discern the Spirit’s voice, we also remain attentive to what God is doing around us, letting that awareness guide our path.
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Listening is at the heart of who we are. We are honored to create and hold sacred space for whatever the Spirit is doing—in the lives of individuals and within us as a community. Together, we practice listening through prayer, scripture, workshops, and gatherings that nurture the mind, body, and soul. These practices invite healing, wholeness, and a deeper awareness of God—not by prescribing how others should live or believe, but by being fully present to the Spirit’s movement. Just as we listen in prayer to discern the Spirit’s voice, we also remain attentive to what God is doing around us, letting that awareness guide our path.
The Way of Mission
It is our deepest desire to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone on their journey. It is said that through contemplation, action flows. We listen for the inward journey as well as how the Spirit is leading us to do for the least of these… for you are doing it for Me.
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In the greater Journey Center community, our hearts are open to discerning what the Spirit is inviting us to bring to each of our communities. Part of that mission is to extend welcome, to deeply listen, and to reflect God’s unconditional love to everyone, especially for those who haven’t found welcome in traditional spaces. It is our deepest desire to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone on their journey. It is said that through contemplation, action flows. We listen for the inward journey as well as how the Spirit is leading us to do for the least of these… for you are doing it for Me.
The Way of Love
God’s love is expansive, healing, active, and transforming. It is unconditional, accepting, and changes us as we are. To that end, we seek to love each one who comes just as God loves us—fully present, radically welcoming, hospitable, and compassionate.
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God’s love is expansive, healing, active, and transforming. It is unconditional, accepting, and changes us as we are. We believe, as God told us, that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and that God is for us. As God’s love is active in the world, we are invited to bear witness to and live out that same love in the beauty and messiness of our day-to-day relationships. To that end, we seek to love each one who comes just as God loves us—fully present, radically welcoming, hospitable, and compassionate.
Our Journey
Just as we listen in prayer to discern the Spirit’s voice, we also remain attentive to what God is doing around us, letting that awareness guide our path. God’s love for us is fully present, radically welcoming, hospitable, compassionate, offering healing. These particular elements below flow from our Core Values.
Our Racial Justice Journey
We believe racism is a deep and abiding sin in our world. It is in this difficult truth, that the Journey Center Great Lakes invites each of us to travel inside ourselves, and into the history of racially motivated experiences that have perpetuated the pain, and the people groups that have been recipients of such pain and injustice.
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We believe God accepts us where we are, and invites us to become more…
Jesus’ essence was one of welcome and radical hospitality alongside an invitation into a deeper awareness of self and the Holy, and of reconciliation with ourselves, and with others.
Therefore, we acknowledge and believe white supremacy is a deep and abiding sin in our world–from the genocide of the Indigenous nations to pervasive forms of institutional racism against Black, Latiné, Indigenous, Asian, and other People of Color. We ask God to show us how to face this painful reality as well as how we can do our part in dismantling it.
It is in this difficult truth, that the Journey Center invites each of us to travel inside ourselves, and into the history of racially motivated experiences that have perpetuated the pain, and the people groups that have been recipients of such pain and injustice. We offer this with deep humility, aware of the limitations each of us has, but we come with hearts open and are eager to name truth and be in an authentic and safe community to learn, confront, lament and grow.
Our Journey of Inclusion
We believe everyone is created in the image of God. Therefore, we embrace and affirm the diversity of all of God’s beloved children, including diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and its expression. We desire to create space that is loving and inclusive of all persons and that empowers each person to live, seek, and lead as the Spirit leads them.
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We believe everyone is created in the image of God. Therefore, we embrace and affirm the diversity of all of God’s beloved children, including diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and its expression.
Central in our values is a desire to create space that is loving and inclusive of all persons and that empowers each person to live, seek, and lead as the Spirit leads them.
We acknowledge the history of institutional condemnation and exclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons and are committed to work to end such discrimination.
We welcome all into full community and participation as children of God. We are people who have encountered God’s welcome and are being made whole through God’s expansive love. We create space for all just as God has created space for us all.
Our Healing Journey
We welcome everyone who is seeking and longing to encounter the Holy, right where they are. We recognize that everyone’s spiritual/faith journey is their own, and that many of us have experienced challenges, hurt, and even trauma along the way, whether it was in traditional church settings, or through experiences with those from a faith community.
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We welcome everyone who is seeking and longing to encounter the Holy, right where they are. We recognize that everyone’s spiritual/faith journey is their own, and that many of us have experienced challenges, hurt, and even trauma along the way, whether it was in traditional church settings, or through experiences with those from a faith community.
We are devoted to listen to and support each person’s Journey, offering capacity to be heard and to find healing in community, and with the Holy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Journey Center Great Lakes part of a particular church or affiliated with a specific denomination?
Journey Center Great Lakes is a non profit organization and is not a part of a particular church or denomination. Those who are part of our leadership community are involved in various Christ-centered faith communities, but we do not represent a particular church. All are welcome.
Do I have to agree with your beliefs in order to attend classes/events?
- You’re welcome to attend any workshops or events that interest you—just come as you are. Our deepest desire is that you’ll find this to be a safe, welcoming space filled with love and acceptance. Among the resources we offer, we hope you’ll discover something that nourishes and supports you, wherever you are on your journey.
What people are saying...
Meet Our Team
Jennifer Andersson
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Welcome! I am Jennifer Andersson and I have been walking with people on their personal journeys for over 30 years as a spiritual director, clinical social worker, teacher, retreat leader, and community pastor.
I became part of the greater Journey Center community at its very start and originally felt led to start a Journey Center based in the greater Detroit area. That community has only expanded. The desire and need for a place that offers safe space to explore one’s spiritual journey, to heal, and to engage in justice issues such as racial righteousness and inclusion, has only grown. The urgency for a place of warm and radical welcome is greater than ever.
I am grateful I do not have to travel alone and find deep life in community, friendships, family, as a mom, and as a partner with my husband.
Learn more about Jennifer at https://enrichedself.com/about.
Rev. Aaron Johnson
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One of the things that immediately drew me to the Journey Center Great Lakes is the deep commitment to creating hospitable space where everyone belongs just as we are, in all of our beauty and messiness. In a time in which we are consumed by lists and tasks, divisions and boundaries, conflict and violence, the ability to create hospitable and safe space for people to be still, to be heard, to be embraced, and to encounter the holy is in and of itself a subversive act. I’m excited to be a part of what God is doing in and through the Journey Center Great Lakes.
Kitchie Ranillo Bakken
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Kitchie Ranillo Bakken has been serving as a spiritual director since 2020 and describes this calling as “her heart’s work.” She is deeply passionate about creating spaces where people feel loved, seen, and cherished and creating spaces where people can encounter God in (re)new(ed), life-giving ways. Her greatest desire is to walk alongside others as they discover how deeply the Divine loves and embraces their full, authentic selves. Being Filipina, Kitchie is especially drawn to the rich intersection of spirituality and culture. JCGL has long been a nourishing space in her journey, and she is deeply honored to be part of its vision and mission!
Kitchie is also a new mom to a precious little girl and an “old” mom to a 5 year old pup! She has loved every second of being a mom. She is also married to a fantastic partner, Tommy.
Rev. Janet Lundblad
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The challenges and joy of learning to know new cultures and new ways of experiencing life has marked my life as a missionary kid from the Democratic Republic of Congo all the way now to my retirement in the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania. Along my way more recently, the Journey Center has provided a welcoming and sacred space to learn to know myself better as I navigate this journey, trusting the Holy One to be present to my learning in all its twists and turns. I am excited that opportunities to learn and to deepen friendships will continue through the ministry of the Journey Center Great Lakes.
Malin Andersson-Williams
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Malin Andersson-Williams is a poet, editor, storyteller, grant writer, and musician. Originally from Metro Detroit, Malin attended the University of Michigan, where she received a B.A. in Creative Writing & Literature with a Sweetland Minor in Writing and a Minor in Music in 2022.
Ever curious about this expansive universe, Malin is drawn to Journey Center Great Lakes for the opportunity to be in an inclusive community with others, be encouraged to ask and encourage the asking of questions, and encounter the Holy through creativity.
In addition to providing support for Journey Center Great Lakes, Malin manages the Kalamazoo Children’s Chorus, writes for the Center for Socially Engaged Design at the University of Michigan, is a senior writing consultant with TEDxKalamazoo, and is a freelance editor and grant writer. She also plays cello, piano, ukulele, mandolin, and sings.
Website: https://malinanderssonwriting.
Jeff Ondrey
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I joined the Journey Center board as treasurer in 2021 shortly after retiring from a career in longterm care as a Nursing Home Administrator and Senior Living Community Executive Director.
I look forward to growing into and loving my true self, created in the image and likeness of the creator of all things and who then proclaimed that it was all, “very good!”, and then loving and welcoming others, just as they are. The vast diversity of creation itself is evidence of God’s love for all, just as it is, just as we are…journeying along together in this great process of transformation into love. This is an especially exciting time as we transition into the new Journey Center Great Lakes and I look forward to Journeying together with Jennifer and the other JCGL board members.
Renee Roeschley
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I am honored to be invited to serve on the board of the Journey Center Great Lakes. The Journey Center’s mission of radical welcome, deep listening, reflecting God’s unconditional love to all are what has drawn me in to experience many retreats, prayer practices and workshops over the years and provide support wherever I could.
As a trained spiritual director, grief companion and end of life doula, my heartfelt call is to create space for others to find their own voice and story, as well as hear the voice of God. I am semi-retired and serving in the hospice setting, providing grief support and chaplaincy.
I look forward to learning, growing, contributing, partnering, discerning and witnessing the movement of God’s Spirit in this journey with my fellow board members on behalf of JCGL.
Journey Center Association
Journey Center Great Lakes is part of an Association of Journey Centers, a growing, vibrant movement of God’s Spirit inviting people to encounter the Holy.
