Kardia House is about reframing the conversation.
Kardia is a Greek term meaning heart, but it means much more than most of us think of when we think of heart. Heart is the seat of love and compassion. It is where mercy lives. It is the source of our humility, our forgiveness and our compassionate communication that we offer to the world. Heart is the wholeness of who we all are…together. That is why you belong here. Because we belong to each other.
Our Writing & Publishing, Speaking, and Framework services are all focused on crafting a journey towards relational wholeness, organizational health, and evolutionary thinking through generous communication.
Kardia House Consulting, LLC may have been founded in 2021, but the unlikely creative partnership between Josh & Sharyl began in the summer of 2015 when a co-worker suggested they meet up to discuss a potential joint project. With equal amounts curiosity and skepticism, they met to discuss a third-party idea they would soon craft into their own. It would take months of building trust, breaking down barriers, and the skillful mediation of a trusted friend for a true collaborative spirit to emerge. Since then, they have teamed up on countless projects and initiatives with the singular focus that Kardia House shares – generous communication.
Josh R. Ritter
Rev. Dr. Josh R. Ritter, M.Div., Ph.D., is an award winning author and a communication consultant and a trainer and facilitator of public deliberation who focuses on risk mitigation, diversity education, and conflict transformation. He worked in the higher education sector for over 15 years as a chaplain and a teacher of rhetoric, writing, leadership, and public speaking. He is the former co-founder and co-leader of Baylor’s Public Deliberation Initiative, and he is the former co-founder and co-leader of all of Baylor’s interfaith programming and events, including the Good Neighbor Project and the Civic Interfaith Studies Minor. He is an interfaith activist, a minister of 20 years, a contemplative Christian, and co-founder and co-owner of Kardia House Consulting, LLC.
Josh has several academic publications and has presented at conferences around the country on civic interfaith leadership in public life and religious rhetoric in the public sphere, but his real passion is the practice of engaged contemplative
spirituality and reframing the ways we approach religion, justice, communication, and the spiritual imagination. His first publication is his co-authored book, Following the Way of Wisdom Jesus, that focuses on communication as a mindfulness practice of generosity. His second book, These Dry Bones, is the winner of the Literary Titan Silver Book Award and is an exploration of the beatitudes from the wisdom perspective. His upcoming book, A Hidden Hum, is a collection of reflections on Advent, the wisdom tradition, and the spiritual imagination.
Josh is specifically concerned with our communication practices within businesses, community organizations, and congregations, and he offers his expertise to partner with communities and work cultures that are fractured and divided due to polarizing communication practices. He now also writes extensively on topics related to generous communication, mindful leadership, change management, organizational culture, group and team formation, and gathering practices.
He is available for speaking engagements, trainings, and retreats. He also offers individual spiritual direction.
Sharyl Loeung
Sharyl West Loeung, M.Div. is a speaker, preacher/former pastor, writer and educator who spends her days working with faith leaders, community members, writers and speakers to help them consider what it means to belong in a diverse world. She worked in the higher education sector for over 8 years in diversity, education, training, and program management, and she is now a TedX speaker, DEI trainer and writing consultant.
Though her career has taken her in many directions, the common thread has always been facilitating space for intercultural relationships through bridge building, story-sharing and nurturing cultural humility for the discovery of common ground, and ultimately, meaningful social change.
Sharyl is married with two sons and a hoard of cats. As an avid consumer of current events, op-eds, long form essays, etc., a habit dating back to her days as an extemporaneous speaker and later couch, her love language is article-sending. She also love theater, music and sports.
Sharyl’s Master of Divinity includes a concentration in World Christianity. This contextual framing of Christianity has made the move to Interfaith Studies a natural one. She finds it humbly to encounter the stories of other places and traditions she would not know without story-sharing and active listening. Interfaith leadership is now a primary lens through which she navigates the world along with the importance of recognizing theological diversity in every setting.