





































Ecclesial Futures
2023 – Volume 4 – Issue 2

A R T I C L E

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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef17337

DOI: 10.54195/ef17337

Bending the Light: A Methodological 
Structure for Collaborative Theological 
Inquiry

Dustin D. Benac, Hannah Coe, Juli Kalbaugh, Tatum Miller and Erin Moniz

Abstract
The shifting structure of religious life requires new research methodologies that can 
attend to the dynamic nature of faith and resource ongoing scholarship and religious 
practice. Rather than approaching research and resourcing as separate and iterative 
movements, a contextually-centred approach can engage and support religious schol-
arship and practice in dynamic religious climates. While existing methodologies have 
advanced research and practice in considerable ways, these developments now make 
possible an integrative approach that combines research, resourcing and collaborative 
inquiry into a dynamic movement. This paper advances an argument through theo-
logical fieldnotes from a year of collaborative research and resourcing completed by 
the Program for the Future Church (PFFC). Established in 2021, the PFFC is a research, 
resource and relational hub that pilots solutions for emerging and pressing challenges 
before the Church. The methodology, “Bending the Light,” pursues collaborative action 
research by constituting three sites of inquiry: a Celebration, a Collaboratory and a 
Contextual Research Hub. Nine practices guide individual and collective investiga-
tion(s): 1) identifying present gifts; 2) creating connections; 3) identifying commonalities; 
4) clarifying presenting crises; 5) developing shared language; 6) elevating individual 
and collective imagination; 7) complexifying anchoring concepts; 8) exploring shared 
practice; and 9) piloting research and resources. Combining reflections from conveners 
and participants, this methodological structure enhances attention to the lived theol-
ogies that ground the life of faith and the forms of practice that can resource future 
research and Christian practice.

Keywords: Action research, Collaborative inquiry, Future church, Methodology, 
Organizational innovation, Theological education



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1  Introduction: Bending the Light1

Mid-morning light shaped the site of the first Contextual Research Hub gathering 
convened by the Program for the Future Church (PFFC)2 as a means to collectively 
explore the crisis of social disconnection and the realities of what that looks like in 
each participant’s own ministry and personal context. As we crossed the threshold 
and entered a chapel in Waco, Texas, the space was illuminated from multiple points 
through lofted windows, stained glass, and the exterior light that followed us in 
through the door. The group of thirteen was met with silence upon entering, but 
the movement of light in the room transformed any reservation into resonance, 
welcoming us and beckoning us forward together.

The space was at once familiar, a chapel with pews organized to orient an audi-
ence toward the stage. “I know how this space works,” reflected one participant. 
But amidst the recognizable elements, it also felt foreign. The pulpit, typically center 
stage, was relocated well off to the left. In its place were the participants, sitting 
on the stage rather than in the pews. Some were reminded as they looked up at 
the white Jesus gazing down from above, “This is not my space.” The chapel context 
and physical structure of the environment was already forming and bending our 
thoughts, feelings, and time together.

This gathering and broader methodology engages in a practice described as 
“bending the light,” drawn from Robinson’s reflections on the practice of leadership 
(2009: 59–78). Robinson shares the story of a German professor who carried a found 
piece of glass in his pocket and began using it as a mirror to reflect light into dark 
spaces. “It became a game for [the professor] to get light into the most inaccessible 
places [he] could find.” What began as a game grew to become a rule of life: the 
professor realized other sources of light – truth, understanding and knowledge – will 
only shine in dark places “if I reflect it.” In a similar way, the work of the PFFC as a 
research, resource, and relational hub that pilots solutions for emerging and pressing 
challenges before the Church, seeks to reflect and refract possibility through the 
practice of gathering and collective engagement around shared crises. The struc-
ture and praxis within the “Bending the Light” (BTL) methodology consider how the 
combination of the convening practices of the PFFC and contextual engagement in 
a particular location with attention to participants’ specific ministry circumstances 

1 The Future Church Project grant from Lilly Endowment (Grant No. 2021 1146) supported this research. 
Co-authors are either personnel who oversee the project and activities or participants in the grant-
funded programs. 

2 The PFFC’s co-founder, Angela Gorrell, played a significant role in establishing the initial organizational 
structure for this methodology.



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impacts thoughts and actions. Through these fieldnotes from a year of collaborative 
research and resourcing completed by the PFFC, we aim to give an account of new 
ways of life that can emerge out of crisis and collaboratively bend the light of our 
individual and collective imagination toward hope.

The methodology expressed and embedded in this scene of gathering combines 
research, resourcing, and relationships into a single movement of collaborative 
inquiry. Following this introduction that purposefully starts media res (“from the 
middle”), we introduce this process of individual and collective inquiry as a method-
ological structure. Part II proceeds to describe the BTL methodology, identifying nine 
practices of discovery that guide individual and collective investigation across three 
sites of collaborative and contextual inquiry. Part III includes reflections from partici-
pants and co-authors in their own voice, grounding the theoretical framework within 
the lived experience of individuals who engaged in this collective inquiry over the 
course of one year. Finally, we conclude by exploring the theological significance of 
this particular mode of collaborative research, noting the importance of belonging, 
place and worship.

2  A methodological structure
The complexities of communities of faith require integrating theories, methods, and 
disciplines in order to give an account of the realities and possibilities of life together. 
While theology and theological education emerge from reflection on and in service 
of people of faith, it is often criticized for being disconnected from real world applica-
tion. When theology and theological education remain abstract and theoretical, the 
lack of application can leave individuals and communities with limited guidance on 
how to address contemporary social, ethical, and moral challenges. There is a need, 
as Smith (2023) argues, for new forms to guide theological education and theological 
inquiry.

Methodology alone, however, cannot yield the encounter and formation that many 
of these communities, and theological education more broadly, desire. Structure is 
also required. Amid calls for new forms, the turn to structure provides a way to iden-
tify the properties, practices, and processes that can orient the methods and inte-
grate the methodology in and for particular communities. Centering structure, or the 
particular physical, social, emotional, and spiritual conditions that surround gath-
erings, provides a way to combine insights from local communities and empirical 
research with theological reflection. This fieldnote demonstrates how social environ-
ments support the conditions for new ideas to form, and how these environments are, 
in turn, nourished by the ideas and values that infuse them with meaning. Like light 



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and a prism, theory and practice are inseparable from the structures they embody 
and make possible. Reframing the importance of structure acknowledges the trans-
formative capacity of the relationship between theory and action by inviting atten-
tion to the conditions that enable individual and collective transformation, including 
the conditions for thriving as well as those that diminish life. It describes how organ-
izations – and especially those endowed with sacred stewardship – are “living reali-
ties,” as Jennings (2020) observes, built on individuals’ affections, joys and desires for 
belonging. In its simplest form, thinking in terms of structure is like picking up the 
pieces of our lives and communities and creating space where enlivened imagina-
tion, birthed out of a sense of belonging, can form new structures where communi-
ties and individuals can flourish.

The BTL methodology builds upon and incorporates various insights and contextual-
ly-centered sensibilities that emerge from previous attempts to provide a theological 
account of the crises and responses that confront individuals and communities (e.g., 
Browning 1991; Osmer 2008; Bass et al. 2016; Scharen, 2015; Swinton and Mowat 
2016; Cameron et al. 2010). Even as it incorporates some of the rhythm and style of 
existing methods, it also has a distinct manner that cannot be reduced to the logic 
of inquiry that the current modes of theological inquiry provide. Further, through 
the sustained practice of convening, it reconstitutes the forms of connection and 
belonging that are required for ministerial and ecclesial imagination to form and 
flourish. Hence, “Bending the Light” offers a methodological structure, an integrated 
theological research method, that can support the forms of discernment and collec-
tive action that cross silos within an ecclesial ecology (Benac 2022). The method-
ology purposefully includes and engages participants who inhabit different types of 
ecclesial institutions (e.g., congregations, theological schools, nonprofits), and the 
outcomes return to the local level, rather than remaining sequestered in academic 
institutions or the research community. As a result, as individuals and communities 
across this ecology discern how best to respond to a shifting organization landscape, 
the process and practices that ground this methodological structure can enrich the 
living theological imagination that animates theological education, local congrega-
tions, Church-related ministries and ecclesial entrepreneurship.

3  Outline of the methodology
Practical theology as a discipline explores the relationship between the conceptual 
learning of theology and doctrine and the actual lived experience of Christians on the 
ground. It offers an opportunity for individuals and communities to “see in depth” 
(Dykstra 2008: 48), drawn forth by the reality and possibilities of God. Neverthe-
less, the contextually-rooted and collaborative nature of this process resists linear 



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progression. Practical theology “is not linear but iterative,” Cahalan and Nieman 
note. “In its very methodology, practical theology must remain open to God’s future 
(Cahalan and Nieman 2008: 84). Similarly, through an iterative and imaginative 
process, BTL invites individuals and communities to see and name reality, as well as 
envision new possibilities for the future, again and again.

In this way, the methodology is one that not only connects the three aspects of the 
theological enterprise – action research, theological investigation and collaborative 
inquiry – but it also creates a collective imagination that is able to embrace new 
possibilities that shape the future of the Church. It not only attends to method but 
seeks to draw out the necessary structural conditions that form an alternative social 
structure where research, resourcing, and relationships can combine within an inte-
grated and contextually-rooted theological research hub.

This methodology proceeds much like a light wave and a prism, rather than a singular, 
straight path. The research process moves like a wave, and the reconstituted sites 
of collaborative inquiry function like prisms. When light travels in the form of a wave 
and encounters a different medium, the spectral properties are affected; each wave-
length is bent by a slightly different amount as they pass through the prism. This 
bending effect separates the incoming white light into its individual colors, creating a 
spectrum. In the same way, the “Bending the Light” methodological structure passes 
the “light” of collaborative inquiry through several different “prisms” to understand 
the substance and properties of the crises we encounter.

BTL works to create a new structure that illuminates and transforms communities 
through three grounding Properties: belonging, place, and worship. The combination 
of these Properties animates every aspect of the theological structure and the sites 
of collaborative inquiry are purposefully structured to include these three elements. 
When removed, the practices and processes described below lose coherence.

Figure 1 Properties of Bending the Light (commissioned by the Program for 
the Future Church)



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Three sites organize the methodological structure: a Celebration, a Collaboratory 
and a Contextual Research Hub. These gatherings reflect an understanding of 
convening as a performative, practical theological inquiry (Benac, forthcoming a). 
As visualized below, the research process moves like an oscillating wave, elevating 
and anchoring the properties, practices, and people along the wavelength. Purpose-
fully constituting new “situations” (Fulkerson 2007), these three sites of convening, 
grounded in the BTL Properties, act as a prism and become spaces that refract and 
redirect ideas, theory building, shared practices, and actions that follow. Just as the 
prism slows light waves and causes a refraction that illuminates the broad spectrum 
of colors, the prismatic gathering sites of the methodology are places where people 
slow down and consider their own contextually rooted gifts, challenges, and oppor-
tunities. This time of clarification and complexifying allows the different aspects, or 
colors, of the presenting issue to be reflected in a way that reveals new forms; theo-
logical imagination bends to open up new possibilities where hope emerges.

The methodological structure, grounded in the BTL Properties, is ordered by BTL 
Practices that guide the collective community. Across the three prismatic gathering 
points, nine practices guide the investigation: 1) naming present gifts; 2) creating 
connections; 3) identifying commonalities; 4) clarifying presenting crises; 5) devel-
oping shared language; 6) elevating individual and collective imagination; 7) complex-
ifying anchoring concepts; 8) exploring shared practice; and 9) piloting research and 
resources. Together, this leads to a holistic exploration of theology and lived expe-
riences.

Figure 2 Practices for Bending the Light (commissioned by the Program for the 
Future Church)



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From one prismatic gathering point, the process of inquiry continues along the wave, 
elevating or anchoring, until it meets another prismatic gathering site where it expe-
riences another illumination, and so on. These new situations, which are at once 
theological and social, combine to create a method, a mode of convening, and a 
process for discovery that motivates and guides the work of transformation.

3.1  Celebration
The BTL methodology starts with celebration which orients individuals toward joy 
and toward God from the start. The anchoring practices of this prismatic point 
are naming present gifts, creating connections, and identifying commonalities to 
deepen the BTL Properties (belonging, place and worship). Celebration draws atten-
tion to the present and to the ways in which God has been and is at work by naming 
the gifts we have already received. At the same time, celebration is relational. Cele-
brations serve as vital moments of creating connection that affirm and build a sense 
of community. Just as the practice of marking seasons through the liturgical calendar 
orders movement through time, celebration marks these times in a way that illu-
mines the holy-and-ordinary grounding for this work.

For example, this methodological work began with a Ministry Partner Gathering.3 
The purpose was to bring people together to make connections and share and cele-
brate the ways in which God was at work in our surrounding community. This inten-
tional time together involved creative exercises, conversation prompts and time for 
reflection and sharing. Here, people were introduced to other organizations and 
existing resources that began to provide a framework for future collaborative work.

Even as joys and hopes that anchored our time together, individuals also found 
commonality in current challenges being faced. By engaging with the concrete expe-
riences of those gathered, the collective community was able to listen to stories, 
empathize with struggles, and share in the joys and the pains. As a prismatic point 
of Celebration, this gathering space immersed the community in the lived realities 
of the people and surfaced the collaborative connections present in the available 
networks as well bring to light shared hopes and challenges. Figures 3 and 4 repre-
sent participants’ responses.

3 See “Program for the Future Church: Gathered,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZBFv1kRfk. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZBFv1kRfk


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Figure 3 Ministry Partner Gathering “Hopes” (created by the Program for the 
Future Church) 

Figure 4 Ministry Partner Gathering “Challenges” (created by the Program for 
the Future Church)

Along with expanding networks, methodologically, this intentional gathering space 
invites opportunities to explore who resonates with your work. Starting with a 
collaborative convening of Celebration creates a shared story and allows people to 
connect not only with each other but also with the broader ethos of the community. 
By making connections and offering a vision for collective work, organizers aimed 
to create a hub of people who would be available to continue exploring together. 
This new collective energy, collaborative connections, and the information collected 
about current experiences is carried forward along the wave and directly informs the 
next gathering site: the Collaboratory.

3.2  Collaboratory
After identifying specific places of strength and encouragement, collaborative 
partners and communal challenges in our Celebration gathering, we brought 
these insights forward into the next convening point. The Collaboratory serves as 
a space for collective reflection, interdisciplinary and community connection, and 
the exchange of ideas around a particular challenge brought forth to investigate 
and illuminate. A Collaboratory can be thought of as a collaborative laboratory; a 
curated environment where church, community, and thought leaders are brought 



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together to work jointly on a particular presenting crisis or pressing challenge. Much 
as Osmer describes the work practical theology as starting, “where you are brought 
up short,” (Osmer 2008: 21), this work centers the crisis/es that bring individuals and 
communities up short and demand an account. For example, the first Collaboratory 
centered the crisis of social isolation and need for belonging, and our second Collab-
oratory will center the crisis of leading alone. In a Collaboratory, participants share 
resources, knowledge, and expertise to address complex problems and find inno-
vative solutions. It is a catalytic gathering meant to help clarify presenting crises, 
develop shared language, and elevate individual and collective imagination.4

Participatory and inclusive, a Collaboratory embraces active engagement with all 
participants from various disciplines, sectors, denominations and organizations. The 
diversity of voices and perspectives enriches the collaborative process. Neverthe-
less, the second practice, developing shared language, is essential for collaborative 
inquiry. In a Collaboratory, participants are not a spectator; each person is a mean-
ingful participant and contributor. The work being done is happening in and through 
the people in the room. Participants’ presence, ideas and experience have direct 
impact on the outcome. As collaboration unfolds, the participants develop shared 
language and concepts that facilitate clear communication and mutual under-
standing. Further, with the necessary research ethics approvals, the Collaboratory 
also doubles as a research site, providing a series of focus groups with participants.

And third, the Collaboratory elevates individual and collective imagination to envi-
sion innovative solutions and approaches that address the presenting crises. 
Accordingly, our work up to this point has purposefully curated environments where 
participants know at least two other people in the room, which allows them to have 
the relational support to imagine alternative futures. By facilitating collaborative 
partnerships and nurturing an environment of innovation and creativity, Collabo-
ratories empower participants to drive meaningful and transformative change in 
their respective domains. The Collaboratory is an activator and generator, meant for 
dreaming and implementation, creation, and cultivation, designed to activate cata-
lytic agents of change.

4 The language of “Collaboratory” was inspired by Kenda Dean’s work at Princeton Theological Seminary. 



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3.3  Contextual Research Hub
BTL proceeds to the Contextual Research Hub, which takes a deeper dive into the 
presenting issue and seeks to develop a more comprehensive and sustainable 
response. At this point, the three practices of discovery are complexifying anchoring 
concepts, exploring shared practices, and piloting research and resources.

In the Contextual Research Hub, participants delve into the anchoring concepts that 
underlie the presenting crisis. This involves exploring the root causes, underlying 
beliefs, and historical context that contribute to the challenges at hand. Second, the 
participants examine shared practices, traditions and community norms to better 
understand how they relate to the presenting crises. This exploration helps uncover 
potential leverage points for positive change. Third, the Contextual Research Hub 
pilots research initiatives, experiments, and interventions aimed at addressing the 
live issue. This includes testing potential solutions, evaluating their effectiveness, 
and refining strategies based on feedback. Guided by the insight of theological action 
research, this point of the methodology intends to stage and invite meaningful inter-
ventions in the communities the PFFC serves and the contexts participants inhabit.

Our Contextual Research Hub included faculty, students, local pastors, nonprofit 
leaders, and Baylor administrators, each of whom brought a unique perspective on 
the topic at hand. Being purposeful to think about the space, place, imagination and 
culture of belonging (Dykstra, 2008; Fulkerson, 2007; Benac, 2022), each week we 
met in a space that held meaning to one or more of the participants. The Contex-
tual Research Hub gathered in four different places, each rooted in Waco, Texas: 
a community worshipping space, a 125-year-old chapel, a congregation turned 
nonprofit space, and a local startup accelerator. Participant feedback identified the 
formative function of these places. “We were able to move to different locations that 
allowed for us to refresh and concentrate on things we had not previously consid-
ered,” one participant shared. Another reflected: “I enjoyed being in different spaces 
and thinking through how that impacts our conversations.”

The interplay between shared texts and a shared context grounded our collective 
reflection. Three books guided our conversation during this Contextual Research 
Hub: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together (1995), Cohen’s Belonging (2022), and Birmingham and 
Simard’s Creating Cultures of Belonging (2022) provided prompts for our conversation. 
Centered in places and gathering around shared texts, we began each meeting by 
asking: What does belonging look like and feel like in this space? Our work together 
over this period aimed to develop shared resources (e.g. open access reading guides, 
edited volumes, new language for preaching, published articles, and toolkits) and 
pilot ideas that address the challenge of belonging in our own contexts.



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3.4  Back to Celebration
The progression from a Celebration to Collaboratory to Contextual Research Hub and 
then back through Celebration reflects an integrated and participatory approach. 
Within this methodological structure, celebration is both a condition and an outcome. 
As Figure 5 represents, this methodological structure provides a pathway for inter-
active and ongoing individual and collective discovery.

Figure 5 Bending the Light as process (commissioned by Program for the 
Future Church)

When pursued over time, BTL yields a dynamic and iterative feedback loop where 
each convening point symbiotically forms and transforms the individual and their 
organizations moving forward. Intentionally grounded in gatherings, this form of 
inquiry centers relationship and is rooted in the idea that gathering is a space of 
encounter, an act of resistance, and a place of creative possibility. When we come 
together, we encounter each other, and we encounter God. BTL reminds us that, 
after the ascension, the “locus of God’s presence” is found in the people of God 
(Coloe, 2021: 518). God is to be found in each of us; the more we come together, the 
fuller picture of God we see. Gathering is also an act of resistance; in a time when 
our lives and communities are being set by algorithms and divided by polarization, it 
involves inviting others from the outside to come in, and to be in spaces with people 
we would not normally gather with. Proceeding from each site of gathering, partici-
pants carry what they have experienced and continue to move along the wave. Each 
arc builds on the previous movement, and the cycle builds from one year to the next.



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4  Collective Discovery: Participant Reflections
Following this introduction and description of the “Bending the Light” methodolog-
ical structure, three individuals who have participated in portions of the method-
ology share their experience in their own voice. Their personal narration relationally 
grounds the movement of theory and praxis and elevates the embodied and contex-
tually rooted reflection that grounds this collaborative work. The inclusion of 
participants as co-authors who are invited to write in their own voice reflects the 
methodological commitments of action research and the performative outcomes 
this approach to collaborative theological inquiry pursues.

4.1  Hannah Coe, Pastor
One of the more striking points of reflection for me as a participant in the PFFC 
Collaboratory and Contextual Research Hub is how much of my daily life as a pastor 
is oriented around the crisis of isolation and the PFFC’s chosen theme of belonging. 
Belonging is the common thread woven through most of my pastoral interactions. 
What started as a conversation that surfaced deeper questions and a desire to 
explore the realities of belonging progressed as the year continued. The concept of 
belonging, rather than becoming more clear, became increasingly complex in ways 
that felt deeply sacred and meaningful. I came to more deeply cherish celebrations 
of belonging. But, as the year progressed, I became attentive to the frequency of 
conversations in which people described painful experiences of broken belonging, 
and I became more attentive to my own experiences of broken belonging and how 
profoundly those experiences shaped me.

Recently, a member of my congregation and I worked together on an advocacy 
opportunity. She has experienced significant rejection and betrayal by the denomi-
nation of her youth because she is an advocate. As she reflected on the pain of rejec-
tion for doing what she felt was the right thing, I said, “I’m realizing that belonging 
is maybe more powerful than being right.” We sat in silence, the weight of this truth 
landing in a deep place. Even decades after the hurt, even when we know we’ve done 
the just and faithful thing, the longing to belong is a persistent ache; the absence of 
belonging, a painful void.

The experience of broken belonging has a way of making people feel as if the fabric 
of their lives is unraveling. The last few years of pandemic and crisis have felt like 
the Great Unraveling. Over the course of our Contextual Research Hub, when I 
stepped into the pulpit to preach and looked at the faces looking back at me, I began 
to think, “I wish you all could see that your experiences of broken belonging are 
perhaps the most powerful common thread you share.” I lamented my faith tradi-
tion’s emphasis on measures of belonging, too thin and shallow for the living of these 



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days. I wondered how gathering together our common threads of brokenness might 
mend our belonging.

Inspired by the Contextual Research Hub reading and conversation, I arranged for 
a small group Bible study of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Galatians through the 
lens of belonging. We realized most of us were taught to read the epistles as system-
atic theology, not with the question, “How did early believers navigate questions 
of belonging?” We wondered how reading the Scriptures and interpreting our lives 
through the lens of belonging might be a source of healing and spiritual renewal.

Through my experience with the PFFC I had the opportunity to hear and learn about 
others’ experiences of belonging and not belonging. This experience sprouted seeds 
of hopeful curiosity for me that common threads of belonging, especially the frayed 
and broken ones, are a source of healing and spiritual renewal for us all.

4.2  Tatum Miller, graduate student
The Contextual Research Hub centered on belonging allowed me to experience the 
nuances of different backgrounds and stories. To understand needs, I’ve learned 
that we must first understand people. How do we do that? Live life with one another. 
Carry each other’s burdens. Then, we will learn what our communities truly need. 
Our methodology must start with people and not answers. Our communities are 
speaking but not many people are keeping their ear to the ground. When done right, 
relationships inform research, allowing for proper resourcing to occur. Research and 
resourcing must go hand in hand when working within the context of marginalized 
communities.

At the same time, it caused me to reflect on my own story of belonging. Even 
though our Contextual Research Hub was grounded in Waco, my belonging is largely 
wrapped up in my hometown. Louisville, Kentucky is one of the most segregated 
cities in America. The Eastside is populated mainly by white residents. Consequently, 
the West and Southside is made up of majority black residents. One in five black resi-
dents live in a place that is more than 75% black. Nearly half of the white residents 
live in a place that is at least 75% white. Drive through the West End and you will 
see soul food restaurants, entire families sitting on a neighbor’s porch, and people 
smiling. You will hear the sound of 80s hip hop coming from the old timer’s car and 
the occasional ambulance on its route. You will witness struggles, but also joys. Drive 
through the East End and you will find freshly cut grass, an abundance of electric 
vehicles, and Whole Foods. Louisville is also that place that I call home. These two 
communities are often at odds with each other due to distribution of resources. 
The East End has better policing, food access, infrastructure, and school systems. 



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The West End has failing schools, police brutality cases that make international news, 
and food deserts. A developed sense of home is required from belonging in the 
space between placement and displacement.

In the Contextual Research Hub, we explored different ways belonging can create 
spaces for opportunity. As a seminary student, my work in the Research Hub, organ-
izing, writing and creating, directly impacted the way my education deepens my 
sense of belonging. Instead of looking inward, I turned outward to see that belonging 
can happen everywhere. When people feel like they can belong, communities begin 
to thrive. Resources and research are important but meaningless without the feeling 
of belonging. To those who feel rejected by the world around them, there will always 
be a gap that healthy grocery stores cannot fill. We need to start at the beginning, 
creating a space for everyone to find their place in this world of ours. The Contex-
tual Research Hub helped me recognize that belonging starts in the grass roots. It’s 
not the big moves, but the small moments that foster a feeling of belonging within 
our communities. From Waco to Louisville, displacement exists in an abundance. 
Fostering a sense of home can be the people we love and those who love us. Rela-
tionships are key to fostering belonging and must be made an ultimate priority. 
Celebration, collaboration, and contextual research have combined to provide an 
environment of flourishing and creative hunger. For me, educational belonging seeks 
to push me to new heights and take new risks. the Program for the Future Church 
has challenged many to dream big, while keeping our minds focused on the commu-
nities we serve.

4.3  Erin Moniz, College Chaplain
My entryway to this methodology was a Ministry Partner Gathering Celebration at 
a local community arts establishment. I had no expectations for the gathering and 
was curious about the existence of this venue that I was unaware of even though 
it was basically in my backyard. But I came to realize that bringing people together 
in intentional spaces that are connected to the local community was all part of the 
design for this project. The Ministry Partner Gathering situated me with friends and 
strangers. But through some accessible, collaborative, reflective activities, the gath-
ering created a beautiful mosaic of ideas, hopes and challenges. This purposeful 
piece of art prompted open discussion and sharing, and was a glimpse of things to 
come, and the space, voices, diversity, creativity and candor were hallmarks of the 
entire experience.

There is a tendency in research methodology to rush towards outcomes and objec-
tives. Being a part of the PFFC’s BTL was a wholly different experience from other 
projects and research teams I have been a part of. While there were parameters 



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and expectations, this approach would prioritize embodiment and an invitation to 
an organic process. There was an integration of space and story. The objectives of 
celebration, collaboration and contextual engagement rang as more than a moniker 
slapped on conventional methods as it wove setting, stories, people, and posture 
into a tapestry of research on the topic of Belonging.

For the sake of productivity, it is easy to take for granted the synergy created in 
convening. This intentional hub of people was able to gradually complexify the 
anchoring concepts of Belonging by embracing the simplicity of abiding and engaging. 
For me, the concepts of Belonging moved from the abstract to the concrete as they 
were materializing in the very moments we shared as a research hub. This resulted, 
for me, in a series of reflections on my own ministry context. As a college chaplain 
and Director for Chapel, much of my work is to curate chapel experiences that orient 
and enrich the students’ faith journey. Belonging is a metric that my team was already 
entrenched in as we created the new chapel model we were tasked to create for the 
University. We know that if, early on in their undergraduate experience, a student 
gains a sense of belonging, it greatly increases their chances of academic success 
and overall wellbeing at the University. But belonging is a difficult metric to create 
and track, and there are challenges in implementation. Belonging can be reduced to 
homogeny. We do not wish for chapels to become echo chambers. The question I 
brought to each Contextual Research Hub gathering was, “How can I create an envi-
ronment for student belonging without silo-ing demographics?”

One significant way this methodology has informed my own ministry is by demon-
strating an embodied framework for group discovery. Our Hub allowed for diverse 
people and opinions to sharpen each other because the model, the invitation, and 
the very spaces we occupied, invited us to bring ourselves to the discussion while 
also welcoming how difference enhances our goals. As a result, I brought back an 
ecological framework for my team to consider with chapels. Belonging, spiritual 
formation and maturation are all difficult objectives to ensure. Instead of creating 
learning outcomes in an effort to synthesize these goals, we now approach our 
chapel model and the student experience as though we were gardeners instead of 
mechanics. We work to create environments that promote the best possibility for 
spiritual flourishing.



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5  Theological Reflection: Bending Imagination 
Toward Hope

We purposefully describe the broader frame as a methodological structure for 
theological inquiry. Indeed, as described and embodied above, it is a process that 
guides individual and collective discovery, leading to research and resources that 
intend to support the current and next generation of faith leaders. The structure 
and process, however, offer more than rote production: it cultivates collective imagi-
nation that moves into the future with hope. Hope cannot always be quantified, and 
the enduring hope that nourishes a theological imagination extends beyond a single 
year of engagement together. Nonetheless, in this final section we want to expand 
on the three Properties of this methodological structure, and theological formation 
more broadly, that allow imagination to bend toward hope: belonging, place and 
worship.

Belonging is an essential condition for the formation of hope and imagination this 
methodological structure provides. While the English word “belonging” is not widely 
found in Scripture, the concept is. Our work over the course of this inaugural meth-
odological cycle purposefully centered belonging because without it the relational 
connections that are required to nourish creativity, a common life, and imagina-
tion cannot form and flourish (Cohen 2022). Moreover, recent theological reflection 
about belonging (e.g., Jennings 2020; Barreto 2021) demonstrates the timeliness 
and relevance of translating the science of belonging into constructive social and 
theological proposal about the (re)ordering of a common life. The ongoing work of 
this methodological structure to bend imagination toward hope requires beginning 
with, building from, and working together in light of a structure of belonging. Repre-
senting a central property, subject of contextual reflection, and a theological condi-
tion, belonging is essential for and emanates from the BTL methodological structure.

The participant reflections and the broader community that gathered around this 
collective inquiry are animated both by a sense of and search for belonging. While 
individuals certainly experienced a sense of belonging through this work together, 
many of us also came to this conversation precisely because who did not always know 
who, where, or how to belong. “The longing to belong is a persistent ache,” Coe notes 
above. To put it differently, we each brought a people, but we were also in search of a 
people. We began our work together by noting how collaborative theological inquiry 
requires taking the risk of belonging, and over time we came to realize how theolog-
ical imagination can neither form nor flourish without the risk of belonging. Theolog-
ical imagination emerges from a sense of feeling safe, seen, and carried in the hands 
of others, but it also requires the ability to “see in depth” (Dykstra 2008: 48) in a way 



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that draws our common work together. And even as we seek to build structures of 
belonging, that longing for belonging may never fully abate.

Place is a second essential condition to bend imagination toward hope in and 
through this methodological structure. Much as with belonging, “place” is a category 
that provides an opportunity for contextual and interdisciplinary engagement. For 
example, Jennings (2010) notes how theological imagination forms in and through a 
relationship to place and land, and Fulkerson (2007) details how our contemporary 
constructions often render place as a commodity, rather than as a site of encounter. 
The work of this methodological structure similarly seeks to ground – quite literally – 
theological reflection within the particularities and complexities of place. It seeks to 
make familiar places feel slightly less familiar, and it aims to make unfamiliar places 
feel a little more like home. Moreover, the practice of convening performs an alter-
native social imaginary about what is possible through gathering and being gathered 
by God. As such, the three sites of convening, collaboration and collective discovery 
are reconstituted places that bend the light of imagination toward hope.

Our turn to place allowed our work to be grounded in the particularity of our local 
geography, while also drawing wisdom from our broader embodied experience. As 
Miller noted above, one of the outcomes of this contextually-centered collaborative 
inquiry was it brought to mind how people and communities in other places shape 
our theological imagination. Similarly, bending imagination toward hope requires 
seeing and acknowledging the realities of place and displacement. Place is more than 
a pragmatic consideration in the work of collaborative theological inquiry; it is an 
acknowledgement of our creatureliness as well as the reality that every place and 
community has structures that cultivate and inhibit belonging.

Finally, worship describes how the individual and collective work of this method-
ological structure are a doxological expression of lives lived in light of the reality 
and possibilities of God. God’s presence in time is the prime condition of possibility 
for theological inquiry and imagination about the future of theological education, 
the future of the Church, and Church-related ministries. As such, this individual and 
collective work begins and ends in celebration, or worship, seeking to discern and 
support the way of life that invites us to live as people of God and in the company 
of those God calls us to. The methodological structure that grounds and guides this 
work draws others into space of encounter through the alternative social reality of 
worship. Insofar as this process participates in God’s gathering, it seeks to draw indi-
viduals and communities into a doxological life of worship and service.



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Worship is also a practice of celebration and anticipation. Accordingly, our work 
together was ordered by simple and ordinary practices: eating, naming gifts, and 
sending people out into the world. These times together also purposefully include 
rest. We gathered in traditional spaces of worship, such as chapels and congrega-
tions, but we also met in non-religious spaces, gathering in nonprofits, startup accel-
erators, classrooms, art galleries and public event spaces. And in a manner that was 
entirely unscripted, individuals who gathered began to incorporate belonging into 
the patterns of worship that order their lives and communities. “We do not wish for 
chapels to become echo chambers,” Moniz reflects above. This movement from cele-
bration to anticipation emerges from a fabric of belonging and draws us forward, 
with hope, into the ways in which belonging may emerge more fully.

6  Conclusion
Several months after this initial gathering, one of the thirteen participants in this 
inaugural “Bending the Light” methodological structure shared a poem from Jan 
Richardson entitled “What the Night is For.” The poem begins by describing sorrow as 
“shattered glass.” It then wonders what account we give of these fragmented pieces 
of our lives and communities. As our work together noted, the longing for belonging 
is not something that can ever be entirely remade. And yet, Richardson suggests 
there is another way: scattering these fragmented pieces “into the soil, into the sky.” 
Rather than trying to pick them back up, we take the fractures and fragments – the 
very longings for belonging that make life together difficult to bear – and allow them 
to form a luminous witness in the dark. This is what the night is for, the poem notes: 
“it takes the broken things and sets them shining to light our way from here.”

The proposed methodological structure for theological inquiry, “Bending the Light,” 
bears similar witness. Just as the three participants described how they picked up 
and incorporated aspects of this methodology into their work, the combined meth-
odological structures bends the light into individual lives and into local communi-
ties. It begins in the space of crisis, which often looks and feels like broken glass or 
shattered mirror, and follows a pathway to bend the light in order to give an account 
(Benac, forthcoming b). This structure consists of three Properties: belonging, place 
and worship that constitute three sites of inquiry: a Celebration, a Collaboratory, and 
a Contextual Research Hub with nine practices of individual and collective inquiry: 
1) naming present gifts; 2) creating connections; 3) identifying commonalities; 4) clar-
ifying presenting crises; 5) developing shared language; 6) elevating individual and 
collective imagination; 7) complexifying anchoring concepts; 8) exploring shared 
practice; and 9) piloting research and resources. When pursued over time and in 



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the company of others, it creates space for people and communities to imagine and 
pursue a hopeful future for the Church.

About the authors
Dustin D. Benac (ThD, Duke University) is an educator, practical theologian and 
organizational strategist. He teaches at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theo-
logical Seminary, where he serves as Director and co-founder for the Program for 
the Future Church. He is the author of Adaptive Church: Collaboration and Community 
in a Changing World. Contact: Dustin_Benac@baylor.edu

Hannah Coe is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. Before serving with 
Calvary, Hannah served on church staff in Jefferson City, Missouri (2015–21) and 
Athens, Georgia (2008–15). Hannah earned an MS in Integrative Creative Therapy at 
Berry College and an MDiv at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University.

Juli Kalbaugh is the Project Manager for the Program for the Future Church at Baylor 
University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is a breast cancer survivor, 
community cultivator and creative strategist. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana with 
her husband, Corey, and two daughters, Novella and Evia.

Tatum Miller is a third-year student at George W. Truett Theological Seminary and 
completed his undergraduate work at Georgetown College. Upon graduation, he 
aims passionately to pursue community development, racial education and the 
intersection of faith.

Rev. Dr. Moniz is an Associate Chaplain and the Director for Chapel at Baylor Univer-
sity. Dr. Moniz is ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church of North America. She 
received her academic and ministerial training at Berry College (BS), Liberty Baptist 
Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Trinity School for Ministry (DMin).

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