Who We Are
We are designers, theologians, practitioners, strategists, and gatherers. We are animated by joy, inspired by tradition, and motivated by the future.
More and more of us are alone in our spiritual lives, and I want to help reverse that trend. My passions are supporting spiritual innovators and creating networks of small groups focused on spiritual growth. Some of my inspirations in this work include the Church of the Saviour in DC, Alcoholics Anonymous, YPO, and communities of women religious.
My most consistent personal practice is taking 20 minutes every day to go inward and spend time with God. I’m also an avid student of the Urantia Book and an active participant in the community of Urantia Book readers. I have loved volunteering at Recovery Café DC since spring of 2019.
I am an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where I have helped to develop and teach a course for Harvard graduate students called the Spiritual Lives of Leaders. I went to Brown University and Harvard Divinity School, where I served as a Ministry Innovation Fellow from 2016-2021.
I live in Falls Church, VA with my husband Vipin Thekk and our son Orion.
Nothing makes me happier than learning from religious traditions to inspire new ways for us to live lives of greater connection, meaning, and depth. In the midst of enormous changes in how we experience community and spirituality, I bring people together to create projects that ennoble the everyday and help build a world of joyful belonging.
My own core practices include harmony folk singing and keeping a tech sabbath, and I’ve spent the last eight years experimenting with new forms of text study on my podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and community-building through Nearness.
I hold Masters of Divinity and Public Policy degrees from Harvard University, and served as a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School from 2016-2021. My book, The Power of Ritual (HarperOne) was published in 2020 and I live with my husband Sean Lair in New York City, NY.
As a sociologist and educator, I understand that community requires work and reaps benefits. In this spirit, I study and contribute to groups and organizations that support meaning-making, identity development, and feelings of belonging.
I hold a Masters in Education from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Sociology from SUNY Stony Brook. My research focuses on contexts of formation, including families, community colleges, and religious institutions in the United States. I work part-time on select projects at Sacred Design Lab and also hold a full-time academic position in sociology. I live in New York City.
I've always believed that building a meaningful community starts with creating a genuine sense of belonging. Throughout my career in both corporate and startup environments, I've discovered that forming genuine human connections requires asking deeper questions than business model canvases and value propositions can provide answers to.
As an artist, I bring imagination and creativity to envision what's possible. As an engineer, I apply rigorous problem-solving to understand complex systems. As an entrepreneur, I execute with determination to turn ideas into reality. This blend of imagination, analysis, and action has guided my meandering career path as I've explored different ways to create spaces where people can authentically connect and find meaning.
I live in Raleigh, NC, with my wife Dee and our two dogs, Bubbles and Yanni. I spend most of my free time in the outdoors—fishing, hiking, and camping. I believe in nurturing the sacred bond we share with nature by rewilding throughout the year, whether with friends, family, or in solitude.
Founding Story
Our story began when Angie and Casper, both Master of Divinity students at the time, discovered a shared curiosity about where religiously unaffiliated millennials were finding meaningful community. We began mapping innovative secular communities around the United States, which led to our first report, How We Gather. This gained traction across the country and led to a series of innovator gatherings at HDS, as well as a second report about innovative communities within religious traditions, called Something More. Thanks to anchor support from the Fetzer Institute, Angie and Casper became Ministry Innovation Fellows at HDS upon graduating in 2016.
Increasingly, institutional partners became interested in our work, including religious denominations, foundations, theological educators, and business leaders. Sue Phillips, then New England regional lead for the Unitarian Universalist Association, joined the team to support these partners in engaging questions of spiritual innovation.
By 2019, we had written five reports on the changing landscape of community and spiritual life in America and hosted more than half a dozen convenings of innovators, denominational leaders, funders, and elders. This connected us with hundreds of incredible practitioners from across sectors who care about spiritual well being. We saw the opportunity to create our own organization dedicated to working with innovators to help develop the spiritual infrastructure of the future. Sacred Design Lab was born!
Over the years, our team has had the privilege of partnering with organizations including the Fetzer Institute, Wesleyan Impact Partners, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Jim Joseph Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Einhorn Collaborative, Well Being Trust, and the Obama Foundation, as well as Google, Pinterest, and IDEO. And we’ve led projects with amazing teammates including Jen Bailey, Darrell Jones III, Katie Gordon, Hilary Allen, Derrick Scott III, Justin Landwehr, and Tiffany Ketant.
In 2024, Sue left Sacred Design Lab to join the founding team of the Workshop for Emotional and Spiritual Technology.
Elders & Ancestors
Press
Sacred Design Lab is a project of Tides Center, a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation.