Disciple: Lessons from an ‘Un-Conference’

Asset-Based Community Development and congregational vitality

By Joy Shillingsburg

In May 2024, eight members of the Diocese of North Carolina traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, to attend an “un-conference” with nonprofit and church leaders from across the country. The un-conference was hosted by The Learning Tree, a thriving Indianapolis organization rooted in asset-based community development (ABCD). The Learning Tree, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, serves as a vehicle to invite people to multiply goodness in the world by revealing the gifts and talents of community members, cultivating opportunities, and creating a culture of abundance for social transformation.

Why an “un-conference”? Just as the focus of the gathering was to look at things a different way, so was its structure. Rather than gathering in the same space every day, sessions took place around the community in partner and nonprofit spaces. The structure of the content, speakers and sessions were also un-conference-like. The keynotes were a combination of community members, academics, government officials, authors and people whose life experiences brought them into organizations practicing ABCD. They lived the concept rather than lectured on it, the lessons to be learned quite apparent in the stories shared. The un-conference structure created an intentional space for leaders to learn from each other, build deep connections, create, strategize and plan together.

[Images throughout: Scenes from the un-conference and follow-up gathering. Photos courtesy of Joy Shillingsburg]

The Learning Tree founder, De’Amon Harges, is a community organizer, faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University, chairperson of the Grassroots Grantmakers Association Board, and layperson in the United Methodist Church. Harges has connections with many leaders in the Diocese of North Carolina and most recently connected with the Rev. Mawethu Ncaca, associate rector at St. John’s, Wake Forest, when Ncaca was a fellow at Trinity Wall Street’s Trinity Leadership Fellows Program. Ncaca shared a TED Talk given by Harges soon after I began my work as the diocesan mission strategy coordinator.

In that TED Talk, I saw a clear road to our mission strategy priority of Congregational Vitality. Harges urges us to “find the gifts and talents of everyone in the community. Find a place for those gifts, and utilize those gifts in ways that build community, economy and mutual delight.” Our mission strategy priority of Congregational Vitality urges congregations, leadership and individuals to “recognize the diverse God-given gifts of each member of the church, and amplify these gifts through worship, formation and service. Congregational vitality is an outgrowth of the laity and clergy using their gifts and resources to love and serve ourselves and our neighbors.”

TODAY’S GIFTS

In practice, ABCD uses storytelling as social capital, recognizes the losses and traumas of the past, and sets time aside to grieve these losses as a community. It then mobilizes the gifts and skills of the people in our midst. Practicing these tenets in our congregations may provide powerful tools for living into our missional priority of Congregational Vitality.

If a small congregation in a rural town with an aging population lived into the tenets of ABCD, the outgrowth of this work might look like grieving the loss of an active children’s Sunday school or EYC program as a faith community, turning to listen to the way people in the congregation see God in their own lives and town, and taking time to ask what this congregation means to them today. Using these stories as capital to inform practice might lead to starting an Alzheimer’s caregivers support group; beginning a noonday healing service and light lunch; or maybe even unlocking the sanctuary and inviting local first responders and healthcare workers to come into the space for prayer, coffee and quiet. By practicing ABCD within a church, this small, older, rural congregation would be vital in ways they might never have imagined or that look radically different than what vitality looked like a generation ago, but nonetheless it would be vital, life-giving and loving.

The group of deacons, canons, lay leaders and clergy who attended this “un-conference” practiced how to center stories, lead conversations with members of our congregations and community, and strategize how to mobilize the community’s assets, gifts and talents to build vitality. Lifelong St. Stephen’s, Winston-Salem, member Demetria Nickens reflected on the sessions that allowed us to practice ABCD techniques with each other and was reminded that a Jesus-centered church is one that values the stories and experiences of the people gathered. Nickens shared her hope that congregations focus more on community assets instead of money and status, which are the keys to re-centering congregations on Jesus’ teachings. Nickens stated, “I needed this trip to remind me that proper support is important to develop dreams into reality; that God moves even in the smallest of moments and interactions with others; and that the work that I do is important and to keep going, because the people who you need, God will lead you to them. Trust the process.”

This un-conference created the space to develop skills to ask the right questions in our congregations, view vitality with a different lens based on the stories, skills and interests in the room, and, once identified, imagine how to propel these assets. Our team was inspired to brainstorm how each of us could use these techniques in our congregations to bring people closer together, and discern how the stories and talents of members could transform programming and practice within our church walls.

DEEP LISTENING

Our team of eight practiced deep listening to the riches of the community members and nonprofit leaders who led three days of sessions. Opening the un-conference was Dr. Mindy Fullilove, who has written about the impact of urban renewal. Her books, Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted Out Cities and Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, give practical ideas for building coalitions for community engagement. Other keynote speakers and session leaders included a formerly incarcerated gang member and now leader in Father Greg Boyle’s Homeboy Industries gang rehabilitation program in Los Angeles, California, and staff members of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office, who are doing important work on battling the epidemic of loneliness in our country by training leaders to employ ABCD practices to connect and build communities.

On a tour of areas of Indianapolis that have been transformed through community members partnering with The Learning Tree, we were introduced to a program called Voices that offers alternatives for juvenile delinquents. We listened to the stories and gifts of residents in a high-crime area of the city, including that of a former juvenile detention officer who purchased a two-story elementary school, now used to equip juveniles with skills for a life outside of crime. The once-vacant school now houses computer courses, art classes and a teaching garden, and gives juveniles space to create and sell their art and food at a weekly farmer’s market. The space also houses services like legal aid, Medicare, a food pantry, a gym, social services and a clothing closet, just to name a few. Witnessing and experiencing the power of deep listening and ABCD practices through these speakers and organizations, our diocesan team began imagining how living into this approach in our congregations would lead to healing and community building that will strengthen our churches. The team also began to strategize how ABCD practices will lead our congregations outside the walls of our churches to listen to the strengths in the communities in which we reside.

Harges warns church and nonprofit leaders against viewing neighborhoods as a collection of problems that require an outside program to impose remedies. “God does not need the church to bring God to the neighborhood,” Harges reminded us. Instead, churches must deeply listen to God and the gifts in the community in ways that amplify abundance and lead to transformation both inside and outside of church walls. Our group reflected many times over the course of this gathering that the church has the institutional power to lead in the way Jesus modeled, by centering the marginalized and setting tables that connect resources and abundance.

The Rev. Pamela Haynes, deacon at St. Andrew’s, Greensboro, shared with the team how her congregation is already living into the concepts we learned and lived at the un-conference, and how she hopes to build on these long-standing relationships with nonprofits. Moved by the models she witnessed in Indianapolis, Haynes hopes to bring together the congregation’s nonprofit partners who serve diverse populations of Greensboro and meet regularly to increase communication between agencies, listening to their ideas and dreams and leading to improved services in the community. Haynes said, “I plan to have serious talks with the leaders in my congregation and other churches in our community to try and bring The Learning Tree concept into fruition. I know this will take a lot of hard work, hard truths and time, but, from what I have seen in our community, it can be done.”

On June 8, Harges and leader Kurt Isaacs traveled to Charlotte to hold a training session and build on the momentum of the un-conference. Both Bishop Sam Rodman and Bishop Jennifer Brooke- Davidson attended with deacons from across the diocese and several outreach leaders. The Rev. Valerie Davis, one of the team members who went to Indianapolis, invited members of the St. Alban’s, Davidson, outreach team to attend. She said, “It was an eye-opening session as it relates to assisting us with adjusting our mindset and not participating in outreach by providing what we want, but understanding the importance and impact there is when we better understand the actual needs of the community and not just throwing things at them that we believe they need.” Echoing the reflections of all who attended this two-hour session, Davis said that, “the outreach team came away with a totally new perspective. We were very energized by this session.”

The first simple step that St. Alban’s, like St. Andrew’s, is taking is reaching out to long-standing outreach partners to schedule sessions to understand better how the congregation can be more impactful and provide value-added services and support. The ripple effects of this unconventional un-conference are beginning to spread in each of the congregations represented in Indianapolis, and the fruits of this work will contribute to both Congregational Vitality and vitality in the community.

TRANSFORMATIONAL POWER

Our team witnessed the transformative power of living into ABCD practices in Indianapolis. This witness sparked dreams and ideas about how to live into these practices to cultivate vitality in our congregations, and how to reimagine how we engage with our neighbors. In the podcast episode of “At the Table: Christian Community for the Common Good” on which he was a guest, and to which our team listened to as we prepared for our journey, Harges says, “Church is changing, so let’s celebrate that change, pay attention, get curious and shift from programs to practice” in our ministries.

Before founding The Learning Tree, Harges was the “Roving Listener” at Broadway United Methodist Church. Pastor Mike Matthers saw a path to increase congregational and community vitality by commissioning a “Roving Listener” to go through the neighborhood, block-by-block, and spend time with neighbors, not to gauge their needs, but to understand what talents were present. By naming gifts, blessing them and connecting the church to the neighborhood and the neighbors to each other, Harges and his growing team of Roving Listeners at the church built “community, economy and mutual delight” in the congregation and the community.

Isaacs says this work does not require “an exhaustive budget, but when we limit currency to money, we really miss the mark. Social capital, storytelling, curiosity, imagination, friendship, trust…these and many more are currencies we often overlook…this movement believes in the power of stories, relationships, imagination and trust. It is a movement that celebrates diversity, creativity and resilience.”

Our team became a part of this movement and believes that practicing ABCD can transform congregations and communities. Our team is committed to sharing these strategies and practices with interested congregations in our diocese, as every congregation and every parishioner has a gift to share.

LEARN MORE

Interested in learning more about using asset-based community development to identify the gifts in your congregation? The diocesan un-conference attendees, pictured above, are ready to help:

• The Rev. Mawethu Ncaca: St. John’s, Wake Forest
• The Rev. Canon Franklin Morales
• Joy Shillingsburg
• The Rev. Valerie Davis: St. Alban’s, Davidson
• Demetria Nickens: St. Stephen’s and St. Anne’s, Winston Salem
• The Rev. Cuyler O’Connor: El Buen Pastor, Durham
• The Rev. Pamela Haynes: St. Andrew’s, Greensboro
• Jeff Crawford: The Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill

Learn more about The Learning Tree at thelearningtrees.com.

Joy Shillingsburg is the mission strategy coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina.