Start a Wild Church
The Earth is Calling.
What if you're the one who will respond?
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Starting a wild church doesn't require a masters degree in divinity or a committee affirming your gifts or a religious affiliation at all. The calling comes from Earth herself, in the form of spiritual connection that aligns with who you already are. The decision to start a wild church requires a deep listening for what the holy and the wild is initiating in your home place.
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What is needed are people who are willing to listen to the call of the wild and hold space so others can fall in love again with their home. We are living in a time of tragic loss, changing climate, and cruel abuses of land and communities. In this time, small gatherings of kind humans are coming together to listen to the land and to the still small voice within their own souls. It's not about "doing church outside", it's about helping people fall in love again with their small place on our groaning and glorious Earth.
The Way of Wild Leadership
Anyone can start a Wild Church. This movement is fueled by a new kind of spiritual leader, one who feels a call to restore spirituality’s deep connection to the land. Some are trained as traditional religious leaders, but most wild church leaders are simply those who experience the sacred most directly in relationship with trees and sunsets and hummingbirds asking you to refill the feeder. Many are weary seekers, tired of the ways that Western culture has distorted religion and severed our spiritual reality from the rest of the alive world.
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Because there are no rigid pre-requisites for starting a wild church, the Wild Church Network focuses on offering a landscape of support. For those who feel this calling deep within their soul, the network provides companionship through Zoom gatherings, courses, and mentoring—offering tools for anyone ready to approach the world with reverence within a spiritual community.​
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Wild Leadership is about holding the vision of restored relationship tightly, while holding the specific outcome loosely. Each community is an organic reflection of its own place, honoring the unique language of the human community and the specific needs of the places we love and all their wild beings.​​
If you feel a yearning for a spiritual community that aligns with your eco-spiritual values and you're willing to trust your inner authority to act on a call of the holy wild, maybe you're the one to plant a wild church in your home habitat?
Wild Church Intro Calls
Join a free monthly online info session to learn more about starting a Wild Church and joining the Network.
The Practice: The Rhythms of a Gathering
While every wild church is unique, many gatherings follow a shared "anatomy" designed to foster direct encounter. We begin with Grounding, using embodied practices to root ourselves in the sacred presence of a specific place. The heart of many gatherings is the Saunter, an ancient practice of solo wandering where the "sermon" is delivered by the wind, the crows, or the creek. We then return to the Circle to share our stories, creating a safe space to "re-story" our relationship with the land and witness the mystical encounters hidden in everyday moments.
The Anatomy of a Wild Church
The elements of this practice are akin to the structure of an oak tree—with roots, a trunk, and branches that hold the space for wild encounter. For a deep dive into these nine core elements of wild leadership, take the next step with the Field Guide to Wild Church book or the Wild Church Leadership training course.
Resources
The Books
Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz explores the restoration of our sacred relationship with the Earth, offering an ecospiritual lens on what it truly means to be "church" in an interconnected world.
Field Guide to Church of the Wild provides a practical framework for the Wild Church journey, filled with rituals, prayers, and practices for gathering in reverent relationship with the more-than-human world.
Together, they serve as both the vision and the roadmap for the Wild Church movement.
The Course
The Wild Church Leadership Course, hosted by the Center for Wild Spirituality, is a seven-week journey for those starting or growing a Wild Church in their local watershed. This program offers a process of listening to what is emerging within your own soul and your particular place. It is designed to provide the training and tools necessary to support you as you begin the sacred work of rooting a congregation in the holy wild.
Seven week online program
$525
Waitlist open for Summer 2026 course
"When a seed is planted in your soul to start a wild church, you’ll know. ... Pay close attention to that yearning. What that seed grows into will be particular to you, your vision and background, the ecosystem where you live, and the people who are drawn to join you."
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— from Field Guide to Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz and Valerie Luna Serrels
