Call for Proposals
OSLA 26–27 Workshop Series
Opens August 1, 2026 · Closes August 22, 2026
Decisions September 5, 2026
Teach with Us
Each year, One Spirit Learning Alliance opens its workshop series to proposals from the community at large: practitioners, scholars, facilitators, graduates, activists, professionals, and spiritual leaders who have something to offer the wider work of interspiritual formation.
Are you being called to facilitate a needed topic or skill with the One Spirit community? Consider this your formal invitation to submit a proposal!
We're looking for proposals in two categories, Skills-Building Workshops and Deeper Study on a Tradition or Thinker, and we welcome submissions from new and returning presenters alike. Below you'll find what we mean by "interspiritual" in practice, what each category is calling for, what to include in your proposal, and how we'll review it.
Please read this page in full before you write.
The information is meant to help you shape your proposal, in addition to providing the instructions for how to submit it.
We look forward to exploring the possibilities with you!
A Word Before You Write Your Peroposal
Interspirituality is the sharing of sacred ideas and practices across religious traditions, as well as the recognition of the shared mystical core that lies at the heart of the world's religions.
— Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart
Grounded in the Nine Elements
One Spirit's educational efforts are grounded in the cultivation of Wayne Teasdale's nine elements, the marks he found consistently in mature spiritual figures across traditions.
An actualized moral capacity: spirituality that has become ethical character, not sentiment
A felt solidarity and interdependence with all beings
Deep nonviolence, understood as an interior orientation before it's a behavior
Humility of heart
A committed spiritual practice: the actual discipline of prayer, meditation, or chant, not just the idea of one
Mature self-knowledge
Simplicity of life
Love expressed in action
Prophetic voice, witness, and action where warranted: a concern for justice, peace, and the social and environmental order, not only the interior life
We're building this year's workshop series around this profound understanding. Every proposal should show us how it lives inside that definition, not just alongside it.
This list doesn't end at contemplation. It ends at prophetic action. Teasdale built it to walk from interior formation straight into public engagement, and he meant that walk as the definition of maturity, not an optional extension of it.
This year we're emphasizing the ninth element in a specific way: bridging the distance difference creates. That means making space for people who don't agree with us, without abandoning the work of alleviating suffering. It means practicing the dignity of those we perceive as opposition through our own behavior, not just our rhetoric.
A strong proposal names this bridge-building explicitly. It doesn't just describe a topic; it shows how the session will help participants stay in relationship across real disagreement.
What We Are Calling For
We're accepting proposals in two categories. Please read the reasoning behind each before you write your proposal, as the categories should shape what you propose.
Skills-Building Workshops
Interspiritual leadership takes more than contemplative or theological formation. It takes the practical capacity to hold people across difference and to communicate clearly. This year's focus areas are bridge building, facilitation and presenting, and marketing as a tool for ministry.
Bridge building in particular embodies the unitive principle directly: it's the applied skill of holding multiplicity in shared community. If you're proposing in this category, tell us what your participants will be able to do differently by the end.
Deeper Study on a Tradition or Thinker
This is where interspiritual pedagogy shows its integrity. Past offerings, including courses on James Baldwin and Howard Thurman, took a tradition to new depths through an interspiritual lens rather than flattening it into generic universalism. The unitive principle only means something if the particulars underneath it are honored. We want the same rigor here: depth on one tradition or thinker, not a survey.
What to Submit
We have developed an in-depth Workshop Proposal Submission form that will ask you to summarize your workshop topic, structure, and format, along with specific marketing details, facilitator information, and scheduling logistics needed to bring your workshop to life if it is selected.
We recommend reviewing the full list of questions before you begin. You can view and download them here: Workshop Proposal Submission Questions
Our suggestion is to compile your proposal answers in this Word document first, then transfer them to the official Proposal Submission Form when you're ready to submit. This gives you room to draft, revise, collaborate, and get feedback before submitting.
How Proposals Are Reviewed
Reviewers will score proposals on:
Interspiritual exploration. Does this genuinely engage the sharing of sacred ideas and practices across traditions, or the shared mystical core beneath them? Does it help participants bridge difference and hold the dignity of those they perceive as opposition, rather than simply describing that difference from a distance?
Building of Practices. Does the workshop leave participants with something to do, not just something to think about?
Attention to and Analysis of Power. Does the proposal name and examine how power operates within its subject matter, rather than treating the material as neutral?
Use of Multimedia. How will the session use media beyond straight lecture?
Experiential Quality. Is this something participants do and undergo, not just attend?
Please be explicit about these aspects: how this workshop is interspiritual, how it's experiential, and how it assesses power. Please don't make us infer it. We will ask directly, so please tell us directly in your submission.
Compensation
One Spirit compensates Workshop Facilitators at a rate of 50% of the total Public Registration fees received for the course. Current students and affiliated graduates are gifted registrations and considered an in-kind contribution, with no additional presenter compensation.
Timeline
August 1, 2026: Call for Proposals opens
August 22, 2026: Submissions due
September 5, 2026: Decisions made
October 1, 2026: Workshops open for registration; series runs through Spring 2027
Ready to Begin?
Once you've drafted your proposal, use this button to officially submit.
Submissions are due by August 22, 2026.
Use this button to review the questions and draft your proposal.
Ready to Submit?
Questions?
Please email the One Spirit Learning Alliance team at help@1spirit.org.