Assignment | L4 Reflective Question - Sustaining While Disrupting I

VOgundipe - Igniting Vibrant Ventures - Week 4

• What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

The core value that must remain central for my work to be faithful and effective is the pursuit of collective liberation, omitting none. For me, this is an impossible task as a human being, but this is exactly why this must be the task. There is no true liberation until all are liberated.

• How will your purpose evolve over time?

My purpose will evolve over time because as I live into this purpose, it will become more humbling. In some ways it will become more difficult. I will understand the nuances of it more clearly. In the pursuit of this purpose I will more clearly understand the depth of the grace of God.

• What existing structures are you trying to disrupt—and which ones do you need to sustain?

My focus is not so much to disrupt structures as it is to work towards the Kingdom of God, as evidenced in the life of Jesus. Any structures that are not in alignment may be disrupted, they may be transformed, they may experience a natural attrition. Any structures that do work towards the Kingdom will be sustained and grow in abundance. There is much that I can not see clearly and much that I don’t understand. My knowledge alone is insufficient. While I am responsible in the sense of doing my due diligence to understand the existing and emergent structures to the best of my abilities, at the end of the day my responsibility is to look at God and not the structures. Through guided steps the structures that need to be disrupted will be disrupted and the ones that need to be sustained will be sustained. In Jesus name 🙏



• What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion?

Submission to the will of God. What other source could provide me with the spine to lead and the fortitude to do so with courage, clarity, and compassion?

M. Cross

Igniting Vibrant Ventures

Rev. Heesung Hwang

Lesson 4, Assignment

Reflection

1.      What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

Maintenance of the basic tenants of the gospel must be at the root of all we do.  We must not only remember the word of the gospel but we must remember the ways of Jesus expressed through the principles of His Word.  He and His word are the same. Love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, charity, etc. must prevail and be reflected through all the legs of the stool.

2.  How will your purpose evolve over time?

I believe the key to this evolution rests in a continued consciousness of why we’re doing what we’re doing.  My friend, Rusty Watson, coined the phrase, “What is your hope in this?  That’s the question we should continually ask ourselves as we do the work.  

That purpose will evolve as we perceive, evaluate, and re-evaluate not only the plan but the purpose for the plan.  We must continually ask why we’re doing what we’re doing?  

3.  What existing structures are you trying to disrupt - and which ones do you need to sustain?

I honestly believe most of our structures should be disrupted not in purpose or need for but in approach.  Because of our membership’s demographic, most of our members are over 50, heading toward 60 and above.  That includes of Board and Ecclesia.  We must remain open and not glued to what we used to do back in the day.  It won’t work now.  So, the infrastructure must be examined, replaced, honed, etc.  And it must be intentional not accidental.

4.  What will it take to lead with courage, clarity and compassion?

Constant attention remaining focused on the goal.  That may mean having to continually go back to step one, the purpose.  Also, communication to all leadership and especially to the congregation keeping them aware and informed.  It may take declaring and re-declaring the what and why of what is happening in the ministry.

What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

The key is “faithful and effective.” They are like links in a chain. If one is weak, the other one is too. The values that I believe must remain central are curiosity, courage, kindness, and humility. Why? Sustaining what already exists is straightforward. We balance inputs and outputs, optimize functions, monitor results, and maintain things. Disrupting is similarly straightforward. We destabilize, exploit weaknesses, and, in most cases, offer an alternative to replace what is being disrupted. But sustaining while disruptive? That is like a delicate surgery; we want the patient to live, heal, and thrive. We need to be clear on what parts to disrupt and what parts to sustain. The values of curiosity, courage, kindness, and humility provide a framework for understanding, curiosity to know what should change, the courage to act, the humility to listen, and the kindness to serve others.

How will your purpose evolve over time?

My purpose evolves with my capabilities, insight, energy and how I am perceiving the world around me. This is how my purpose has evolved so far at least. Also, I’m playing a short game compared to younger people. Now I co-create with people who may have more energy and stamina but need more experience and guidance. They have the former and I have the latter. Some say this is wisdom, but I think its more about having lots of data points.

What existing structures are you trying to disrupt—and which ones do you need to sustain?

This is a very broad question. In the context of the congregational renewal, I am trying to disrupt the comfortable status quo, the nostalgic “because we’ve always done it that way,” habit. I’m trying to sustain and grow action born from inspiration around justice, beauty, and co-creation in community. I believe we can be more spiritually grounded so that we will be more courageously creative and confident. I what to disrupt the sense that God imposes things upon us and sustain the knowledge that God is within us.

What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion?

Just that: courage, clarity, and compassion!

What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

For me, meeting people where they are without asking them to choose one tradition or explain their journey – spiritually, historically, and in their bodies. Learning to hold space without imposing my story onto another’s experience.

How will my purpose evolve over time?

Over time, I see myself no longer being required in the physical space but empowering others to lead. Through training and documentation towards building a practice that is sustainable and doesn’t require me to be in every room. Teaching others to hold that kind of space through training practitioners, building community around ritual and healing. Expanding the purpose without diminishing the original intent.

What existing structures are you trying to disrupt — and which ones do you need to sustain?

I am disrupting the assumption that spiritual care belongs only inside institutional religion. Many people left the church due to harm. I want to meet them where they are in hospitals, community centers, or group settings and bring the work into those spaces. What to sustain, the relational accountability of covenant community. What to disrupt, the gatekeeping of who gets to be seen as a spiritual care practitioner and in which spaces.

What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion?

Courage means saying out loud what you already know. Clarity means keeping the work oriented toward the person in front of me, leaving my own story on the side. Leading with compassion is not about warmth. It is about naming harm when it's present. De La Torre – Genuine care sometimes requires saying the uncomfortable thing

Compassion is not warmth. It includes naming harm when it's present. That's where Traci West and De La Torre are useful — genuine care sometimes requires saying the uncomfortable thing.

It will also include continuing to listen, then move or follow as directed by God.

One of the biggest things I am taking away from this course is that renewal is not simply about creating new programs or attracting more people. Renewal is about building structures that actually reflect the values we claim to believe. Throughout this semester, I have spent a lot of time thinking about listening, belonging, participation, accountability, and psychological safety within ministry spaces. What I continue to realize is that faithful leadership requires more than identifying problems. It requires creating systems that can sustain healing, inclusion, trust, and long-term transformation.¹

The values that must remain central to my work are compassion, listening, accountability, inclusion, relational care, and honesty. These values are not abstract ideas to me. They come directly from my lived ministry experience at City of Refuge and through my work in the Tenderloin community. Over the years, I have encountered many people carrying hidden burdens while still trying to stay connected to church and community life. Some were struggling with grief, mental health concerns, trauma, chronic illness, instability, loneliness, or feelings of invisibility. Others simply wanted to know if their voice mattered. What I continue to see is that people often do not lack purpose or desire to participate. More often, they lack environments where they feel genuinely safe, heard, respected, and valued.²

That understanding became even clearer during our Congregational Renewal Project listening sessions. Our cohort originally entered the process focused on questions about generational decline and participation. However, through the listening process, we realized that the deeper issues involved structures of belonging, leadership access, communication, accountability, and psychological safety. Listening itself became both a spiritual practice and an organizational practice.³

This connects directly to Dr. Hwang’s discussion of sustaining while disrupting. I do not believe the church remains faithful by preserving every existing structure without examining whether those structures are still serving people well. At the same time, I also do not believe disruption alone creates healthy ministry. Some things absolutely need to remain central, including compassion, spiritual grounding, worship, prayer, intergenerational care, justice, community, and authentic relationship.⁴

What I believe needs disruption are the structures that unintentionally communicate exclusion, invisibility, hierarchy without accountability, or participation without voice. In many churches, people may be welcomed emotionally while still remaining excluded structurally. Leadership pathways can become tied to longevity, familiarity, or informal relationships rather than intentional development and participation. During our listening sessions, some younger adults described feeling unseen or categorized rather than genuinely known. Those conversations stayed with me because they reflected patterns I had also witnessed personally in ministry.³

At the same time, I do not believe disruption means abandoning tradition, theology, or community identity. Dr. Hwang’s discussion of the “Three-Legged Stool” helped me think more clearly about the balance between spiritual, social, and financial sustainability.⁵ Churches cannot remain healthy if they focus only on worship experiences while becoming disconnected from the realities people are carrying outside the church walls. Likewise, ministries cannot survive long-term operating only in constant crisis response without sustainable systems, partnerships, and support structures.⁶

I also know that my purpose will continue evolving over time. Earlier in this course, I focused mostly on emotional realities such as belonging, hidden burdens, trust, and participation. Now I find myself asking more structural questions. How does listening become policy? How does belonging become practice? How do churches build systems where people are not only welcomed emotionally, but also supported relationally and organizationally over time?⁷

I think my purpose is evolving from simply offering care and presence toward helping create sustainable structures that allow care, participation, and accountability to continue beyond individual relationships. That shift feels important to me because churches are also navigating major transitions, including generational shifts, pastoral transitions, changing patterns of participation, and growing distrust toward institutions. Sustainable renewal cannot depend entirely on one charismatic leader or one generation carrying the weight of ministry. It requires collaboration, adaptability, shared leadership, and systems that can outlast individual personalities.³

What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion? Honestly, I think it requires the willingness to tell the truth while still remaining relational. One thing I appreciated about our project was that we did not pretend to have solved every problem. Instead, we created space for difficult realities to be voiced honestly. We acknowledged tensions around communication gaps, leadership access, institutional trust, and generational disconnect while still remaining deeply committed to the ministry itself. That balance matters to me. I do not want leadership rooted only in criticism, but I also do not want leadership so focused on preserving comfort that it becomes unwilling to reflect honestly or change when necessary.³

Dr. Hwang’s lectures repeatedly emphasized that ministry today must become adaptive, community-embedded, relational, and structurally sustainable.⁴⁵ That resonates deeply with me because I believe the future of ministry will depend less on performance and more on credibility, integrity, trust, and authentic care. Churches will need to demonstrate not only what they preach, but how they embody those values organizationally.

I was especially struck by the idea that churches should no longer measure success primarily through numbers, buildings, or finances, but through diversity, community impact, and transformational presence.⁵ That reframed ministry for me. Some of the most important ministry work is often invisible. It happens through listening, trust-building, healing conversations, shared ownership, and creating spaces where people feel humanized rather than managed.

Ultimately, I believe sustaining while disrupting means protecting the heart of the gospel while courageously reimagining the systems surrounding it. It means honoring spiritual tradition while also responding honestly to the emotional, social, and structural realities people are carrying today. It means recognizing that listening itself can become a form of ministry, accountability, justice, and renewal.

References

1. Rev. Dr. Heesung Hwang, Igniting Vibrant Ventures Introduction Transcript.
2. Patrick B. Reyes, The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive.
3. Congregational Renewal Project presentation reflections and listening-session analysis, City of Refuge UCC cohort project.
4. Rev. Dr. Heesung Hwang, Sustaining While Disrupting I Lecture, Pacific School of Religion.
5. Rev. Dr. Heesung Hwang, How Do We Disrupt for Good? Lecture Transcript, Pacific School of Religion.
6. Mark DeYmaz, Disruptive Innovation and the Repurposing of the Local Church.
7. Week 1–3 Igniting Vibrant Ventures reflections and Passion Project development notes.

 Rev. CJ Dunford

Igniting Vibrant Ventures – Week 4 – Sustaining While Disrupting

• What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

Interbeing must be the light to guide our work at all times. This teaching—pratityasamutpada—is the Primal Vow of Bodhisattva Dharmākara: “if all beings cannot experience liberation may I not become Buddha.” Interbeing is also expressed in the Bodhisattva vow. We share a common destiny, and nobody gets left behind. When difficult situations arise, we must return to interbeing.

• How will your purpose evolve over time?

I envision this work of Kaihōji “the Temple of Open Dharma” as constantly centering the voices of the marginalized, especially with regards to capitalism and empire: who is most drastically affected? What do they have to say? What is our role in changing these circumstances?

• What existing structures are you trying to disrupt—and which ones do you need to sustain?

Narrow views and black-and-white binaries of what is and is not Buddhism, Mahayana, Pure Land, Jōdo Shinshū are unhelpful and go against the teaching of interbeing. I wish to see those views cracked, broken, dissolved, composted into something new. We have many beautiful forms of liturgy and varied ways of appreciating and participating in them, we can hold onto their spirit while allowing them to grow, evolve, and adapt.

• What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion?

Dedication and deep love, nurtured daily, will help with burnout. Connection, discussion, and analysis will help us to identify opportunities to change and edges of growth. This personal practice of nourishment need not be universal, and we each can find what works best with us and share with one another. Practicing in this way encourages courage and honesty. Receiving difficult truths with compassion and understanding will bring about clarity.

To lead with courage, clarity, and compassion requires several things:

• Courage to make decisions that may not always be popular.
• Clarity about mission, boundaries, and priorities.
• Compassion that remains human-centered instead of ego-centered.
• Emotional discipline under pressure.
• A willingness to learn continuously.
• Strong collaborators and advisors who bring wisdom where leadership may have blind spots.
• Faithfulness to the people being served, not only to public recognition.

Connection, discussion, and analysis are also essential, especially because they turn isolation into shared understanding. When people reflect together, they’re able to see patterns they might miss alone—where systems are strained, where roles are unclear, or where growth is possible. That kind of collective reflection helps transform frustration into insight instead of exhaustion.

At the same time, identifying “edges of growth” is only helpful if it also leads to adjustment, not just awareness. Otherwise, people can become more informed about problems without being supported in changing the conditions that create strain.

So what you’re pointing to is a strong foundation: meaning (dedication and love) plus reflection (connection and analysis). The missing layer that often determines burnout or sustainability is implementation—what actually changes in workload, structure, expectations, or support systems once those insights are named.

Leonard Bailey

Reflective Question - Sustaining While Disrupting I

5/20

One thing I think has to stay central in my work is people actually feeling seen, valued, and supported. I think it’s easy for organizations or ministries to get caught up in numbers, image, or performance and lose the human side of the work. For me, faithfulness looks like serving people with honesty, compassion, and consistency, especially people who are usually overlooked. The spiritual, social, and financial parts all matter, but none of it means much if people do not genuinely feel cared for.

I also think my purpose will keep evolving over time. Right now I feel called toward creating spaces where Black and Brown communities can grow spiritually, creatively, and economically, but I know the way that shows up may shift as I grow and learn more. I’m realizing purpose is less about chasing one fixed destination and more about responding to what people need in different seasons.

Some of the structures I want to disrupt are performative leadership, exclusivity in church spaces, and systems that make people feel like they have to “earn” dignity or belonging. I also want to challenge the idea that ministry only happens inside church buildings. At the same time, there are things worth sustaining too, like authentic community, mentorship, spiritual grounding, and traditions that keep people connected and hopeful.

I think leading with courage, clarity, and compassion takes humility more than anything. You have to be willing to listen, keep learning, and stay connected to real people instead of just ideas. It also takes courage to challenge systems that are comfortable for some people but harmful to others. But I think compassion is what keeps leadership from becoming cold or performative. Without compassion, it’s easy to lose sight of why the work matters in the first place.

Our endeavor at Epworth is much more in the line of sustainable as opposed to disruptive innovation, despite Reymez’s clarion call that incremental change is not enough. I don’t think our congregation is ready for something entirely new. That said, church leadership is about to change the way it looks, with our pastor going part time and another part time pastor coming on board. So perhaps there will be opportunity in that disruption. I do think there are people in the congregation who are ready to start a reimagining process. And I believe this cohort is primed to facilitate that process.

We will have to hold on to the values we have been honing during these nine months: deep listening, compassion, loving kindness, empathy, honesty.

I’m not sure how our purpose will evolve over time. I think we’ve settled on a pretty solid purpose – to find ways to deepen our collective spiritual experience at Epworth. I imagine that what that looks like might change and evolve over time, and we will as a congregation adjust our strategies. But I’m not sure if the purpose will evolve, unless there is a clear signal that folks no longer want a deeper spiritual experience! Hopefully our purpose will be enough of a north star – like the Nature Company purpose statement – that we won’t have to change it much…but that it will help guide us toward ever deepening spiritual experience.

On the one hand, I’m feeling a disconnect between our conversation with Professor Neil, who counseled our group to “risk going small,” and the presentation in this last unit of disruption being the only way to go. It’s possible that because the leadership model is being disrupted, we may have an opportunity to shake things up a bit. So I’m not sure if we’re talking about disruption so much as incrementally changing things at church that will allow for a deeper spiritual experience.

In order for us to lead with courage, clarity and compassion it will take reflection and consultation with our original cohort, to check in to make sure our values and purpose are still aligned with the needs of the congregation. 

Amanda Weaver

What values must remain central for your work to be faithful and effective?

We must keep the values of inclusion, open communication, and community service central in our work.

How will your purpose evolve over time?

Over time, our purpose may evolve from structural change to true disruptive change as the ministry teams are able to reach beyond our church community to the Florence community at large.

What existing structures are you trying to disrupt—and which ones do you need to sustain?

Currently, we are looking more at structural change than disruptive change, although for some members of the congregation having the laity so deeply involved in the ministry of the church will feel radical. The way we are structured on paper and the fact that we are a half time appointment mean that not all of the work can fall to the pastor anymore, and our project provides a framework for that change to take place. This is an overdue change, but it will be difficult for members who are used to church being about attendance rather than involvement.

I am hopeful that as change is embraced, we can begin to look beyond just our church community. All three ministry teams have the potential to expand out into the community through chances for ecumenical worship, justice outreach, and interfaith projects (for example, what would it look like for churches to join together to visit housebound members?).

What will it take to lead with courage, clarity, and compassion?

Leading with courage, clarity, and compassion will require patience, tenacity, the ability to hold to our central values, and the capacity to meet and overcome setbacks. Change and transformation are never smooth processes, but we will get there in the end.