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2022 CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP FORUM THEME: AWAKEN WHAT’S POSSIBLE SMALL GROUP LEADER GUIDE|

Thank you for serving as a small group leader for FTE’s 2022 Christian Leadership Forum (CLF). Through your leadership with Forum participants, FTE seeks to create a safe and generative space for established and emerging leaders to have meaningful conversations with peers from diverse, ecumenical backgrounds.

CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP FORUM OVERVIEW AND THEME The Christian Leadership Forum will bring together approximately 100 diverse participants to explore the theme Awaken What’s Possible. The CLF participants include young adults who have been nominated by their communities, pastors, and other leaders of faith-rooted organizations, as well as a cohort of leaders from FTE’s vocational network. These network members are those who have received grants from FTE to work with emerging young adult leaders, along with faith-based leaders across a broad spectrum of religious programming (including, academic institutional leaders and nonprofit leaders). Who could have predicted this moment! What we all have experienced, lost, and endured throughout the pandemic. This apocalyptic moment now calls us to imagine and think differently about our work, each other, and the world we inhabit together. We invite us to awaken to what’s possible now in ourselves and each other as God’s beloved community. The way forward is hybridity and diversity. It requires church leaders to think differently about how they will accompany diverse, young people in exploring their purpose, passion, and calling to serve increasingly diverse churches, communities, and causes. This way will require that we occupy more than one exclusive form of church and training dedicated to connecting, educating, and healing diverse communities of people. The future and what’s now possible will need us to cultivate our vocational and ecclesial imagination for a post-pandemic era. During this year’s CLF, we’re gathering artists and futurists, priests, organizers, and designers to discern and awaken possibilities all of us are longing for, storying, embodying, and experimenting within our communities and with one another. Each of us holds stories and deep longings of a more hopeful future.

CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP FORUM GOALS By the end of the Christian Leadership Forum (CLF) we endeavor to: ●

Inspire and awaken in participants new possibilities for vocational discernment and accompaniment, and Christian leadership in a post-pandemic era.

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Cultivate participants’ vocational imagination and excitement for ministry through the engagement of discernment practices, leaders, stories, tools, and resources that awaken new possibilities for discerning purpose, passion, and call.

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Discover what young adults and institutional leaders need and what FTE can offer to support and sustain their vocational discernment and accompaniment.

EVALUATION FTE is interested in learning what transpires in each small group and possibility lab so that we might incorporate it into our ongoing learning, which will include a report on the Christian Leadership Forum to be shared with a broader audience. Along with the three overall goals stated above, FTE is particularly interested in better understanding the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and abilities that young adults need in order to explore and pursue Christian ministry as a meaningful vocation for making an impact in the world. Your observations and learning will also inform our work as we develop future iterations of the Forum and FTE’s strategic initiatives. After the Christian Leadership Forum, we will solicit your feedback on your experiences and observations from a broad overview in order to capture major themes, learning, and questions that emerged from your possibility labs and small groups.

PREPARATION & CONSIDERATIONS Be fully present (free from distraction) and welcoming: Mindfulness matters (affect, expression) Make sure everyone has a name tag visible Acknowledge every person who speaks – Thank you _________(name of person)! Invite participants to be mindful (not taking up too much space, allowing others to participate) ❖ Prepare ahead by reviewing your prompts ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Remember this is an invitation to slow down and facilitate conversation. You are holding space and creating the conditions to accompany others as you also invite them to share and reflect. 2

Conversation Covenants 1.

Be fully present, extend welcome and presume we are welcomed. We all work best in spaces where we are fully present and welcomed. Let us set aside the usual distractions of things undone from yesterday and things we must do tomorrow. Let us support each other by giving and receiving the gift of hospitality.

Acknowledge one another as equals. We don’t have the same gifts and graces, so let us be reminded that no person’s gifts and graces are more or less important than another’s.

Stay curious about each other. Curiosity helps create good conversation and enables us to share our deep longings and real fears when we feel others are genuinely interested in us. Let us be inquisitive and invested in one another.

Recognize that we need each other’s help to become better listeners. Let us listen intently to what is shared and the feelings beneath our words. As Quaker Douglas Steere writes, “To listen another’s soul into life, into a condition of disclosure and discovery—may be almost the greatest gift we can offer to another.”

Slow down so we have time to think and reflect. Conversation creates the conditions for us to rediscover the joy of thinking together. Let us take time to enjoy each other’s company and remember to pause between our thoughts to give each other time to reflect on what has been shared and to hear each other into deeper speech.

Expect our conversations to be messy at times. Life doesn’t move in straight lines and neither does a good conversation. Let us assume that our ideas, observations and conversations all come from a desire to create the future we all long to see. Consider that our ideas build upon each other even if we can’t see how they link logically one to another.

7. Know that it is possible for us to emerge from our time together refreshed, surprised,

and less burdened than when we came. Let us believe that this time can provide renewal, refreshment, and possibilities; that seeds planted here will keep growing and flourish in the days ahead in service to God’s church and renewing work in the world.

SMALL GROUP SESSION FACILITATION & REFLECTION PROMPTS Theme: Awaken What’s Possible

Small groups create space for CLF participants to reflect and process together emerging learning, questions, and key insights from their interaction with new ideas and colleagues. This space is designed to help participants integrate new ideas and inspiration into their emerging sense of vocation, purpose, and call.

Wednesday, June 1, 2022 5:45 - 6:45 PM

Focus question: “What questions or hope do you bring to this gathering?” Introductory Prompts: ❖ Briefly introduce yourself and your connection with FTE ❖ Remind participants we are being held by FTE’s Covenants of Presence Conversation Covenants (10 minutes): Ask participants to review the “Conversation Covenants” (a digital copy is available via the event app) and ask participants either to read one of the covenants aloud until they are all shared in the room or to share the ones that speak to them specifically. Please be sure that all of the covenants have been read into the space. If anyone would like to add one to the list, please invite her or him to do so. Share with participants that at this gathering, they will hear voices that come from a variety of traditions, belief systems, theologies, and cultural contexts, and that may affirm or challenge what they believe and offer another perspective on a topic or idea that is different from their own. This is bound to happen when we participate in communities and forums that invite everyone to show up and contribute to the conversation. The conversation covenants are a way of practicing life in community with each other in ways that allow for mutual sharing so that new possibilities may emerge. They are not intended to prohibit questions but rather to ensure that those questions are not intrusive and loaded with unexamined assumptions. ❖ Reiterate FTE’s Theme: Awaken What’s Possible ❖ Open up the conversation with a moment of silence (consider whatever may be happening in the world at this time, or use a brief prayer of invocation). Introductions: Ask participants to introduce themselves briefly. A suggestion for introductions may be: Young Adults ❖ Who are you? 4

❖ Where are you from? ❖ How did you learn about this opportunity? Partner prompt ❖ Who are you? ❖ Where are you from? ❖ What hopes do you bring to this gathering? Shared Reflection (if time allows): If time and the setting allows, invite participants to reflect and share their responses to the question: “What question(s) do you bring to this gathering?” Suggestion for the group: (ask for consensus) Extend an invitation for the group to continue their conversation over dinner by sitting together to build a sense of comfort and belonging through fellowship and conversation. If there is consensus, you may continue to discuss the reflection question for ongoing conversation.

Thursday, June 2, 2022 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Focus Question: “What ideas, insights, or questions have emerged for you today?” Opening (3 minutes): Participants have had a full day! In order for everyone to be fully present, you may invite participants to enter into a few moments of extended silence to center themselves, or a centering prayer. Group check-in facilitation: ❖ In one word or phrase, express what feeling or expression you are holding at this moment. Reflection on the Day (20 minutes): Ask participants to identify a conversation partner—someone they don’t know very well yet. Invite them to reflect on the following questions: ❖ What ideas, insights, or questions have emerged for me today?” ❖ What questions am I holding about my own sense of call or purpose? ❖ What’s possible now that didn’t seem possible before? Group Discussion (20 minutes): Call the group back together and ask them to share some of the highlights from their conversations in pairs. Journaling (5 minutes): In the remaining time, ask participants to take out their journals and write down some of the key themes, ideas, learning, and questions that have come up for them during the course of the day. 5

Closing (2 minutes): As time allows, close this session with silence, prayer, or another spiritual practice.

Friday, June 3, 2022 5:30 - 6:30 pm

Focus Question: “What opportunities am I beginning to see—for myself and my community? What are my next, most faithful steps?” Opening (3 minutes): Again, everyone has had a long and full day. In order for everyone to be fully present, invite participants to enter into a few minutes of silence to center themselves, or you may offer a centering prayer or use music/song. Group check-in facilitation: ❖ Name/Identify one thing that excited you about today. Reflection on the Gathering (20 minutes): In pairs or peer groups, ask participants to discuss the following questions: ❖ During today’s session, what did I discover? What new connections or insights emerged for me? ❖ How do I intend to act on what new ideas I may have developed or heard? ❖ What is my next, most faithful step once I return home? Group Discussion (30 minutes): Call the group back together and ask them to share some of the highlights from their conversations. Ask them what their most significant take-away from this gathering will be. Journaling (5 minutes): In the remaining time, ask participants to take out their journals and write down some of the key themes, ideas, learning, and questions that have come up for them over the course of the whole Forum. Closing (2 minutes): As time allows, close the session with silence, prayer, or another spiritual practice.

2022 CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP FORUM SCHEDULE 6

Theme: Awaken What’s Possible Wednesday June 1st

Thursday June 2nd

Friday June 3rd

Saturday June 4th

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY4

Breakfast 7:00-8:00 a.m. (for May 31 arrivals only)

Breakfast 7:00-8:15 a.m.

Chapel open 7 a.m.-9 p.m.

Chapel open 7 a.m.-8 p.m.

Community Worship 8:30-8:50 a.m.

Morning Session 9:00-10:30 a.m. Plenary: Design for & Cultivate Belonging

Morning Session 9:00 am -12:00 p.m. Plenary: Meaning Making: Sound of the Genuine and Reflections with Elders

Community of Practice (private meeting) 9:00 a.m.- 3 p.m.

FORUM REGISTRATION

Possibility Labs Round 1 11:00 am -12:30 p.m. Lunch 12:00-2:00 p.m. (May 31 arrivals and FTE staff only)

Check-Out 7:00-8:45 a.m. Morning Session 9:00-10::30 a.m. Plenary: Bearing Witness to Our Intentions Closing Worship 11:00 am -12:00 p.m.

Lunch 12:30-2:30 p.m. All Attendees

Lunch 12:00-2:30 p.m. All Attendees

Lunch 12:00-1:30 p.m. All Attendees

Registration 12:00-7 p.m.

Possibility Labs Round 2 2:30-4:00 p.m.

Opening & Welcome Awaken Possibilities 4:00-5:30 p.m.

Yoga (optional) 4-5:15 p.m.

Afternoon Session: 2:30-4:00 p.m. Plenary:Imagine Possibilities

DEPARTURE

Small Group Meeting 5:45-6:45 p.m.

Small Group Meeting 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Dinner 7:00-8:30 p.m. All Attendees

Dinner 6:30-8:30 p.m. All Attendees

Dinner 6:30-8:00 p.m. All Attendees

Free Time *possibility Lab Selection Closes 9 p.m.

Free Time

Free Time Networking and fun 7-9 p.m.

Chapel open 4-9 p.m.

Networking/ Community Building/ Rest 4-5:15 p.m. Small Group Meeting 5:30-6:30 p.m.

CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP FORUM | LEADERSHIP GUIDELINES Thank you for being part of the Leadership Team for the 2022 Christian Leadership Forum. Leaders at FTE gatherings, along with FTE staff function in a position of power relative to the constituents we serve. In order to provide a fruitful experience to the participants of this Forum, we have developed a list of guidelines that we ask you to review and abide by throughout our time together. 1. Given the presence of participants under the age of 21, and our value to maintain healthy professional boundaries and standards, FTE discourages members of its leadership team and staff from the consumption of alcohol with young adult participants either on or off-site.

2. If members of the Leadership Team travel to the event site, you are expected to be fully present for event proceedings, unless alternate arrangements have been made. Your presence is vital to creating a rich environment and providing feedback for future gatherings.

3. Do not meet individually with young adult participants in lodging rooms. If you need to speak with a young adult one-on-one, meet in an open public area.

4. Maintain professional boundaries. Be sure to make FTE staff aware of any concerns or issues with participants.

5. If you witness or become aware of any behavior that you feel is strange or detrimental to anyone attending the event, immediately refer it to a member of the FTE staff.

6. FTE seeks to provide a physically and emotionally safe environment for all participants. Any type of discrimination or disrespect should be addressed immediately and professionally when possible at the time of the occurrence and then reported as soon as possible to FTE staff.