Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

1. What do you imagine when you think of “witness” or “witnessing?” How is it different than and/or similar to the kind of witnessing described in the video?

2. What are some examples of organizing that you’ve seen in your church?

3. Do you think Jesus was an organizer? Why or why not?

Module 1: When did the Church “Start” Organizing?

As important as Saul Alinsky might be to the history of broad-based organizing, Alinsky didn’t “invent” the practice of organizing in the 1930s and 1940s in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Certain traditions of Christianity, most often those traditions that identify Jesus’ message with the poor and oppressed, have always felt that they have had something to say about broader social injustices. What is unique about broad-based organizing is that it links up this tradition of the church with a particular theory of how social, political, and economic change happens.

This module explores the question: “When did the Church “start” organizing? and provides a overview of how organizing can be more broadly understood as beginning when Christians understand the Gospel as calling them to build economic and political power. Broad-based organizing is one successful methodology of organizing that extends this particular legacy of the church’s work.

Further Resources:

• Cooperatives and Religious Communities an Interventions forum featuring

  • Joerg Rieger, “For the Transformation of the World: Worker Cooperatives and Faith Communities”

  • Gilda Haas, “Transforming Capital into a Servant of Justice”

  • Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, “Economic Justice as a necessary component of Racial Justice”

  • Nathan Schneider, “‘We need to reinvent the co-op’”

  • Aaron Stauffer, “Democratic Time in Worker Cooperatives & the Church”

• See Joerg Rieger (2021) Mobilizing, Organizing, and Religion: On the Relevance and Irrelevance of Christianity, Political Theology (Link to PDF)

• Aaron Stauffer (2021) The Relational Meeting as a Political and Religious Practice, Political Theology (link to PDF)

• Be sure to check out Aaron’s complete interviews with three organizers that are featured in this training:

  • Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews - Faith in Action

  • Cynthia Jarrold - Gamaliel Foundation

  • Angela James - Gamaliel Foundation

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

1. Consider a situation where you felt powerless. How did that make you feel? What did you do about it?

2. Where do you see relational power in the Bible? How does your own understanding of God (both now and in the past) reflect unilateral and/or relational power?

3. Where do you see unilateral and relational power in the church?

Module 2: What’s the Church Got to do With Organizing?

In this module, we explore the basic claim that Christianity is about power—economic and political democratic power—and so the task of being a Christians requires that we work for deeper democratic relationships with others. Understanding this means that we grasp basic religious practices as inherently political and economic.

Further Resources:

• Here’s a collection of pieces from Interventions on the relationship between churches and organizing. It expands beyond the limit of BBCO.

  • Francisco Garcia, “Faith Needs Labor to Respond to this Moment.”

  • Joshua Davis, “Faith Means Solidarity.”

  • Sarah Ngu, “How Can Christian Socialists Build Deeper Solidarities?”

  • Aaron Stauffer, “Racial Capitalism, Organizing, and Religious Practices: the Work of Conjuring a New World.”

• Be sure to check out Aaron’s complete interviews with three organizers that are featured in this training:

  • Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews - Faith in Action

  • Cynthia Jarrold - Gamaliel Foundation

  • Angela James - Gamaliel Foundation

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

1. Who were the leaders in the churches in which you grew up, and what were they like- what differentiated them?

2. What are the ways that your church does leadership development right now (if at all)?

3. What kind of leader is Jesus? What are the qualities that he embodies/practices?

Module 3: Living our Faith

In this third module we continue to tease out the implications from the claim that the work of church brings it into the work of organizing. Here, we narrow down a bit and take up the thorny question of leadership in the church and organizing. We argue that Church leaders are those individuals who have earned the entitlement and authority from their peers to propose solutions to solving problems, and are not, as might be typically imagined, individuals who exercise domination over others like bullies or strong men—popular images of leaders today.

Further Resources:

• The question of leadership often obscures people’s movements that give rise to high profile leaders. Check out these pieces that—like the video—counter that “lone-wolf” approach to leadership.

  • Allyn Maxfield-Steele, “We can Choose What to Remember.”

  • Robert Korstad, “‘God and a Union’: Tobacco Workers Organizing in Winston-Salem, NC, 1943.”

• Be sure to check out Aaron’s complete interviews with three organizers that are featured in this training:

  • Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews - Faith in Action

  • Cynthia Jarrold - Gamaliel Foundation

  • Angela James - Gamaliel Foundation

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

1. How have you defined “church”?

2. What legacy do you want your church to have in the future?

3. In what ways is your church already involved in politics? How do you think it should be involved?

Module 4: Organizing the Church

The conversation so far has led us to the interesting point that the church exists where its work is being done by individual Christians—it is not defined by a building, or even by beliefs, but by its task. Wherever the work of the church is being done; the work of individual Christians, led by the Spirit—that is a more accurate way of identifying the church. This claim leads us to the work of broad-based organizing as the work of the church. Here we’ll consider a few examples that bring these admittedly abstract claims down into the real, embodied, flesh-and-blood lives of Christians organizing to protect and fight for the things and people they hold sacred.

Further Resources:

• For those churches who want to get involved in organizing and working to build economic and political power here are some great places to start:

  • Cooperatives and Churches Toolkit

• Be sure to check out Aaron’s complete interviews with three organizers that are featured in this training:

  • Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews - Faith in Action

  • Cynthia Jarrold - Gamaliel Foundation

  • Angela James - Gamaliel Foundation