Countercultural-Module

As you begin this course, pause and give some thought to Dr. Rendle’s guiding question for this webinar: What is your deepest faith conviction about the way in which God intends the world to work and for people to live together? Journal this answer before you begin the course, and you will come back to this question later.

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-20 minutes)

Do you identify as someone with a “faith-based worldview”? If so, reflect on how it helps you to see differently, and to be different in the world. Discuss this with your small group, or with a friend or family member. Ask for feedback about what is remarkable to them about how your faith motivates you. Is it how you see yourself?

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-20 minutes)

What causes you the most anxiety when you think about your faith community? Where has your faith community placed its focus in the last 5 years? Where is it focused now and in the immediate future?

How do you find that your personal faith, and your faith community do not “fit in” to the culture right now? 

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-30 minutes)

“People are not drawn to voluntary organizations unless they see authenticity there that they themselves are seeking in their own search for meaning,” Dr. Rendle says as he discusses his slide: “the changed landscape for meaning making.” Discuss or journal the challenges and the opportunities which you see available today for people who are searching.  

If you are connected with a congregation, think about its size in relation to the challenges and opportunities Dr. Rendle presents. Specifically, what about large and well staffed congregations (350+ in worship) put them at an advantage in this cultural moment? Discuss or journal your answer.

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-30 minutes)

Dr. Rendle says that Religious Institutions are: values, truths, practices, and disciplines that answer the questions of meaning making that the culture is asking. Religious institutions use an organization to “house” these values, truths, practices, and disciplines. Do you agree that anxiety is misplaced if it is focused on the organization rather than on the central values, truths, practices, and disciplines? Do the values themselves become embedded in the organization? What opportunities open up if we disengage them from the congregation’s organizational structure?

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-30 minutes)

Dr. Rendle recommends having at least two important conversations going on at the same time in the congregation, these may be with different leaders: 1) about vitality, and 2) about sustainability. The vitality conversation has to do with how we can do what we are doing better, while the sustainability conversation looks at how long current practices are sustainable. These are both important conversations to nurture among congregational leadership. Are these conversations taking place in your congregation? What role do you have in these conversations and how can you support them?

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-20 minutes)

The pre-webinar question is: What is your deepest faith conviction about the way in which God intends the world to work and for people to live together? Dr. Rendle says that in this new religious landscape we need to be clear on how we believe the world works, and then to live it out. Our behaviors need to match our truths. Finding and clearly articulating our deepest convictions is an important first step to addressing the current cultural environment. How do you answer this question? Journal or discuss your answer.

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (20-30 minutes)

Dr. Rendle offers research demonstrating that neighborhood relationships (village on the graph) have evaporated. The neighborhood, the local level, is the only place where people will cross differences to form community relationships. He notes that political gridlock in Washington is a symptom of this. Do you agree or disagree? Can you think of other places where people form community relationships across differences?

“If the congregation is going to be clear about the truth that it holds, it has to learn to operate in the neighborhood where it is already located: where it will cooperate and will collaborate.” Think about your congregation’s community-based programming. How much of it is led by community members, and how much is coordinated by outside actors? Does being mindful of these relationships help to open up possibilities?

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (15-30 minutes)

In his presentation, Dr. Rendle describes “the worthy work” that the congregation does to re-enter their own neighborhood as a participant not as a provider. Dr. Rendle gives an example of how one congregation engaged their community with a community garden, and by hosting important community conversations about what is important to people locally. As you reflect on the Provider/Participant chart, what opportunities and challenges do you see for your congregation? How does participating in the neighborhood ground a congregation and prepare them for engaging in ministry?

Questions for Individual Reflection/Group Discussion: (20-30 minutes)

“Worthy work is finding a new place on the religious landscape.” A Divergent congregation is a worshipping congregation , with a steady focus on one specific topic, related to the surrounding community in a highly contextualized way. How does this fit with your understanding of what your congregation is called to be today? What is challenging about this description? And what is affirming? 

What is one thing that you can do that fits within the “worthy work” framework? What makes it worthy? What about it will be hard work? Share your ideas.

Selected books by Gil Rendle: 

• Countercultural: Subversive Resistance and the Neighborhood Congregation, 2023, Rowman & Littlefield publishers, inc. 
• Doing the Math of Mission: Fruits, Faithfulness, and Metrics, 2014, Rowman & Littlefield publishers, inc 
• Quietly Courageous: Leading the Church in a Changing World, 2018, Rowman & Littlefield publishers, inc.

 Jody Howard blog for The Gospel Plow https://www.thegospelplow.com/p/leading-the-church-in-a-divergent

Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebhur, 1951, Harper and Row

Divergent Congregations: The Bright Promise of Alternative Faith Communities 2017, by Tim Shapiro and Kara Faris, Abingdon Press