Leadership Summit: Brainstorming for 2006

Responding to Anastasia (AKA The Feminarian), I just wanted to say that I agree that any agenda set by the summit shouldn't be too narrow. I do think it's important to address hot-button issues -- we saw during the Kerry/Edwards '04 campaign that it does not benefit progressive Christians involved in politics and social justice to just not address these issues, because the Right won't give up on turning them into wedge issues. But I think we need to address these issues in such a way that we do not also turn them into wedge issues; we should try to address them sensitively, working to come up with solutions to complex problems by respecting our universal values as Americans.

Take, for instance, the thorny subject of abortion. While we may disagree on the specifics of abortion, I think it's safe to say that most if not all progressive Christians would prefer a decline in the abortion rate. What separates us from the Christian Right is not so much that we like abortion, but that many of us believe it's in the best interest of women to keep abortion safe and legal, rather than driving it underground by overturning Roe v. Wade. So what if the summit approached the issue not by demanding agreement from everyone on very specific sub-issues, but by coming together to shape concrete social, economic, and political goals to make a positive change in our society and culture which would facilitate an atmosphere in which women don't feel like they have to have abortions?

These goals could include, but wouldn't necessarily have to include, things like: the restoration of sex education to prevent unplanned pregnancies; a moral budget which would do more to help families expecting children, not less; etc.

Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think difficult issues can be addressed without making anyone feel as if they're excluded from the progressive Christian movement. It is very important to preserve our diversity, but I think it's equally important to be able to approach these complex issues from some kind of common perspective. I agree that the best way to deal with issues is through common action; it is through common action that our bonds of unity are strengthened, so that diversity is looked upon as a gift rather than a problem.

So I guess I just wanted to say that I agree with what Anastasia is saying, but I also wanted to stress again how important I think it is to develop an agenda.

God Bless,
Nathan Nelson
Contributing Editor - Sollicitudo Rei Socialis

First and foremost, I want to thank Jo for putting together this thread of discussion. I hope everyone who will be participating in the Progressive Christian Leadership summit will engage and post their thoughts on this thread. Moreover, I hope that those of you who can not participate but who are interested in contributing please take advantage of our open invitation and post your thoughts as well. I am a firm believer in the power of our collective intellgience and believe that for the summit to succeed it needs all of your help.

That being said, in order to share my thoughts on the summit, I feel like I first have to take a few steps back to share a bit of context.

In the fall of 2005, the CrossLeft team decided that we were going to help to put together a Progressive Christian Leadership summit. This idea was borne from the realization that while there were many conferences and lectures and a strong interfaith movement, there was a vaccum in so far as a co-ordinated Progressive Christian campaign among the various Progressive Christian players.

We, as one of the organizations committed to working in the field of progressive Christianity were hungry for something like this to happen and not seeing anyone else organize it, decided to put it together ourselves and hope and pray that other progressive Christians would come and play with us and help to build a collective strategy for 2006.

We did not know what the response would be. In fact, there were several nay sayers who believed that something like this was unnecessary and superfluous. We did not agree. So, we pressed forward. Our thoughts were:

Worse case scenario we would plan out what our agenda would be as CrossLeft for 2006. & Best case scenario we would have a chance to work with others to create something bigger than any of our organizations could do individually. By pooling our resources and strengths & seeing where we might find areas of overlap & synergy we could move forward together, as a progressive Christian movement.

A few months into this, I must say that I am incredibly excited by the tremendous response we have received!

A few quotes from some of the participants:

"Thank you for this invitation to what sounds like a very exciting event in early February."

"Your efforts to bring people on the left together are much appreciated."

"Thank you so much for organizing this."

"I am a progressive Christian and am very excited about there being a summit..."

"Glad you are doing this!"

"I applaud you and your team for creating this vitally important forum for discussing and disseminating progressive Christian ideas."

So now that we have the support and the buy in from other Progressive Christian leaders, we must deliver. Everyone is excited about this happening. Now we need to make sure that we are able to harness this energy in a way that is sustainable and condusive to building a movement. We are committed that the summit be a working meeting and that from it we produce a strategy for a progressive Chrisitan movement that we can all embrace. I'm in the process of developing the agenda for this working meeting and would like to thank all of you who have contributed your thoughts to date. For those of you haven't yet, but are reading this blog post now, please contribute by posting your thoughts on this thread. Progresssive Christians raise your voice- share your vision- dare to dream and let's figure out a way to execute so that we can make it happen. On earth as it is heaven.

Thank you for who you are in the world and for all that you do on behalf of your faith. It's a priviledge to be on this journey with you.

SUMMIT GRPI
I am a recovering corporate exec, who has done a boatload of consulting - hence the default to 3-point lists and acronyms. One acronym that I find useful in group dynamics is GRPI (goals, roles, process & interpersonal). As progressives, we tend to place a great deal of emphasis on interpersonal and consensus, which can be a bit challenging in trying to stitch together a coalition.

With that as a frame of reference, here's my 7 cents:

Goals
From the invite, it seems that you've set the following objective:

Objective: define who we are and what we stand for.
Upon first glance, the objective may need a second run - defining the "who" and the "what" with some clarity, as well defining distinction or collaboration with others in the realm.

Goals
Develop a vision for progressive social change for 2006 and beyond.
Plan future conferences and media events.
Discuss collaboration towards long-term strategies.
Develop an agenda for progressive social change for 2006 and beyond.
Assign roles for participating member organizations.

This set of goals is ambitious for 2 days, with a wide variety of progress likely to be made on these goals. It may help to get some precision on priorities, decision-making and how to evaluate trade-offs and deadends. I've suggestions on how to make progress on each goal - if I can help, let me know.

Scope of Summit Concerns: Elections, 2008 and after. Media representation of the church. Social networking and new technology. Cultural change and the social gospel. A nationwide progressive Christian movement.

These set to be less of a defined scope - it may help to spend a few more cycles on these.

Roles
It may be helpful to do a "hats & heads" brainstorming before the summit, to gain a clear sense of all the likely roles necessary to support this objective and gain clarity and traction on goals. Ironically, faith-based orgs tend to really muck up roles, reeling between hero models and a utopian egalitarian model.

Process
It seems like you've got 3 choices: a unified agenda, a conference or an unconference. The first two are what most folks are used to - the unified agenda has some pros (shared experience, definition format) and some cons (side talk, unwieldy size). The conference format may be the most satisfying, but I wonder about its utility given the nascent stage of these conversation.

The riskiest is an unconference - that is, a conference where the content of the meeting is driven and created by the attendees rather than by a single organizer. The term was coined by Lenn Pryor when discussing BloggerCon but popularized by Dave Winer, the organizer of BloggerCon (http://www.bloggercon.org/2004/04/21), in an April 2004 writeup. If you inclined towards this model, I'd suggest OpenSpace (http://www.openspaceworld.org/) as a facilitation approach.

I believe that one thing we as Progressive Christians can utilize in the new year is the power of Prayer Vigils. Prayer is greatest weapon a Christian can wield. Prayer is more powerful than any nuclear, biolgical, and/or chemical weapon ever created or conceived. Prayer is a petition to God that His people desire change of hearts and change of minds for all people in all levels of power. Through prayer, God challenges us to take a stand and work towards the changes we are asking for.

We can make a change for peace through prayer. We can stand up against injustice through prayer. We can overcome the apathy and indifference of others towards poverty through prayer. In this new year, let's organize several peace vigils in all regions of the nation. If we truly want change, it begins with you and me. Let's allow prayer to become a powerful tool for us in our outreach and responses by posting and holding prayer vigils for events (like the unknown future of the Christian Peacemaker Team-members being held hostage in Iraq). I believe this will give us vision and focus for what our next move as Progressive Christians will be on issues that effect our world.

I agree with Nathan, but would add that it is important to remember the diversity within our ranks despite our shared desire for progression. The hot-button issues suggested in the comment worry me a bit - if this org takes a firm stand on one of them that I don't agree with, am I no longer progressive or part of the Christian Left?

I think one of the reasons we seem scattered on agenda is not because we don't KNOW what we believe, but because we don't all AGREE - and we are okay with that. What I love about the Christian Left (so far) is everyone's tolerance. I'd be sad to lose that in favor of a rigid agenda that speaks to Washington and the Religious Right in their chosen language.

I would advocate for clear action opportunities. The majority of progressive Christians I know (self included) are dying for some way to get out there and make a difference. It would be really great to come up with tangible action items we could then take back to our churches/schools/friends. I for one hope to get some practical do-able assignments from the conference, to truly know that I am making a difference, and I'll bet others feel the same way.

Perhaps this could assist in the setting of an agenda of sorts: our agenda could be action-oriented, done on a case-by-case basis when advocacy is called for. Then we become less a politicized group and more a community of people who understand the complexities of every issue and respond with personal attention to situations of need. That seems more Christian to me than playing politics. Let's not let others define what we are supposed to care about.

Let's tell the country what our issues are and why, but let's acknowledge the diversity in our ranks (and why we allow it!) and let's make it a point to actually DO something rather than just posturing.

Those are my many cents.
Anastasia McAteer
the Feminarian

I think the most important thing for the progressive Christian movement to do right now is to focus on agenda. Media and online strategies are important, but useless if we have no agenda to put out there in the media or on the internet. I think one of our problems has been that people see us as not really standing for anything in particular, and that's just not the case; we feel very passionately about a number of important issues affecting our nation and our world today, and we need to show that passion rather than being afraid of it.In setting an agenda, I think it will be important to focus on two areas: 1) the things we'll be attacked over by the Christian Right, such as abortion, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, - it's important for us to develop a coherent explanation for why we feel the way that we do about these issues; 2) other important issues that the Christian Right just doesn't seem to care about, like a moral budget, peace and nonviolence, equal rights and equal justice, etc. I think we need to be good on defense, but we'll still lose the game if we don't have anything to offer on offense. Just my two cents.God Bless,Nathan NelsonEditor - Sacramentum MinimumContributing Editor - Sollicitudo Rei Socialis