Our Model for Public Theological Education
We anchor our teaching and training in an innovative approach that integrates theological action research, popular education, broad-based community organizing, qualitative inquiry, and reflection rooted in critical theologies and theories.
Our team brings long experience in these realms of action and thought as scholars, organizers, pastoral leaders, and social movement strategists.
Theory of Change
While we appreciate and continue to learn from others engaged in the deep work of faithful social change, we have honed our own theory of change through many years of experience and experimentation. Our theory is comprised of the following four pillars:
Hospitality to the Rhythms and Movements of God’s Spirit
The theologian Henri Nouwen named a primary task of Spirit-led leadership as repetitive movements from hostility to hospitality (to God’s Spirit leading). These movements, he maintained, were shaped by two commitments in tension: radical receptivity (to the songs, dances, and stories of others) and radical honesty (being present in values and callings derived in faithful disciplines.
This rich notion of hospitality shapes our alignment to the movements of Spirit toward healing and justice. As a result, we think the basis of change begins in forging new and deeper relationships.
A Dynamic Understanding of Reality
Learning and Teaching, for us, are indelibly shaped by an attentiveness to the dynamic reality of language, power, story, bodies, places, and identities. Hence, action is a central dimension of learning. Just social change is impeded, often intentionally, by perspectives and commitments defined by the interests of dominant, oppressive classes/cultures.
A static and fixed view of society, knowledge, people, spaces, and history is the result. Thus, paralleling our sense of the dynamism of God’s Spirit, we believe that a renewed society is to be continually reconstructed through the abolition of regnant oppressive orders and the co-creative fashioning of a more just and commodious world.
Practice-based Formation
Our understanding of the dynamic nature of God’s work and our world affirm practice-based formation (for individuals and collectives) as a key methodology of change.
Identities and agencies of just leadership are constructed by discrete faithful practices in distinct spaces of action. Hence, meaningful change is not abstract, simply hoped for, or created merely by declaration or information transfer in disembodied spaces. Change takes shape through practice where people are formed to be free and learn together to flourish.
Institutionally-Focused
Our long experience has affirmed the essential role of institutions (like congregations, unions, people’s organizations, etc.) both for the capacity to make substantive change and for the durability and stability of that renewal. Neither celebrity leaders nor resolute individuals who make change. Rather, deep and lasting change (structural change) manifests in the transformation of institutions.
Thus, our theory of change remains grounded in a commitment to collaboration across institutions for the creation of an alternative to the domination system of market exploitation and extraction, xenophobia and imperial aggression, financial supremacy, and nihilistic despotism.
Tools of Change: A Theological Action Research Method
Practice-based, theological formation located in distinct spaces of action demands the development of discrete skills for enacting change.
The skills for making change originate in relational practices of observation, listening, and research honed from tools deployed by broad-based community organizing as well as methods developed in emancipatory, qualitative research.
Focused on thick discernment, our methodology integrates the learning gained through these tools and skills with a rich spirituality and critical theology to foster meaningful, collaborative action in local communities, organizations, and congregations.
This pattern of listening/learning — critical reflection/discernment — collaborative action is a historically efficacious process of action research deployed in organizing, social movements, and other forms of emancipatory campaigns.
When deployed iteratively, the action research process reinforces a conversion toward a “ground-up” approach to mission and action that aligns with local community needs, assets, and interests.
Learning in and with communities confronts inert traditionalism or sentimentality in congregations and organizations, builds common interests that transgress lines of social division and fragmentation, and shapes institutions as spaces of meaningful action.
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