Rabbi Nancy Kasten

Faith Commons Chief Relationship Officer

Since moving to Dallas 33 years ago, Rabbi Nancy Kasten has modeled the welcoming spirit she saw her parents give her childhood neighbors in Boston through interfaith work.

“We had people at our house all the time that were from different countries [and] who spoke different languages,” Kasten said. “All colors, all sizes, all backgrounds, all religions. They were my parents’ friends. My parents were incredible hosts.”

Kasten serves as the chief relationship officer at Faith Commons, a Dallas-based inclusive-faith organization committed to “promoting the common good” and allowing people to express their faith and values in a public space. In this role, she works to upkeep and find relationships that help the organization fulfill its mission.

“We do conversations where we bring people from different sectors of society together, to learn together, to talk together, to get to know each other, and trust each other,” Kasten said. “We try to model conversations that are based on mutual respect and true curiosity.”

A year after founding the organization in 2018, the Rev. George Mason, former senior pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church, invited Kasten to join him in lifting people’s voices and bringing communities together.

“We bring very different perspectives to the table, but we also bring a history of engagement with the Dallas community and with a lot of different civic organizations and nonprofits and educational institutions in the area,” Kasten said. “We share a lot of values, and often the same frustrations, and see the same kind of needs, but we often approach them from very different places, so we learn from each other.”

The Faith Commons community sees great value in uplifting women. In February 2022, it, along with 30 partners, sponsored Valerie Kaur to give a lecture on her work, the Revolutionary Love Project, which Kasten said was one of her proudest moments.

“I feel like being a woman in any kind of public space today is an opportunity, and we have an obligation to raise awareness of what people actually need — what human beings need to thrive,” Kasten said. “Lifting up the voices of women who come to their work through deep faith-based convictions, whether they are religious or ideological, is something that is part in parcel of the work that we do and who we are in this organization.”

While Kasten was doing similar work before joining the organization, Faith Commons gave her a foundation and resources to expand her reach. She said being able to associate herself with an identifiable organization like Faith Commons has helped her connect with more people.

“Calling up someone and saying, ‘Will you meet with Rabbi Nancy Kasten?’ as just some lone wolf out there versus ‘Rabbi Nancy Kasten, chief relationship officer for Faith Commons’ — it conveys a different message, even though sometimes the reality of the work isn’t that different,” Kasten said. “[The resources have] also been meaningful and helped me do the work that’s so fulfilling to me, and I think is making a bigger difference.”