How to Engage Your Church in Conversations About a ‘Beyond Sunday’ Faith

During each episode of the Open to Wonder podcast, hosts Chris Schoon and yours truly explore with our guests all kinds of faith questions: big ones, small ones, weird ones, and hard-to-talk-about-in-church ones, and invite listeners to imagine what faith looks like in our day-to-day lives. The theme of Season One: Beyond Sunday: an exploration of how faith is formed during the hours we spend outside the church’s buildings. The conversations we had with four faith leaders about a beyond Sunday faith encouraged both us and our listeners to think more deeply about how faith is both formed and lived out in daily life. 

Interested in creating space for similar faith formation conversations within your congregation? Here are three ways to do so, choose whatever works best in your context:  

1. Post a link to the podcast on your church’s social media and website and invite people to check  out Season 1: Beyond Sunday. 

2. Weave the content of Season 1 into a four-week sermon series on “Beyond Sunday faith.” Post the appropriate episode link as a follow up to each sermon. In the final episode, Chris and Karen share their takeaways; make space (online or in person) for people to share their takeaways too.

3. Invite people into a more intentional listening experience by asking them to commit to listening to the podcast over a period of time. Offer options for people to engage more deeply with the content in small groups (online or in person), via social media, with a friend or those in their household, on their own, or in conversation with God. Some people may enjoy engaging in a series of conversations about each episode; some may find it works best to plan a discussion around all of the episodes at once, similar to the way a book club meets to discuss a book; others may simply prefer to listen and process the content on their own. 

Provide people with some or all of the Beyond Sunday episode specific questions we’ve provided below (along with your own!) to encourage them to think deeply.

General Listening Prompts: 

• Listen for stories about the power of intergenerational relationships. 

• Listen for examples of being attentive to or intentional about faith formation.

• Listen for how each guest meets God in their own daily life.

Episode-Specific Prompts:

• Episode 1 with Ruth Padilla-DeBorst: Listen for Ruth’s suggestions about how to live in community in your North American neighborhood.

• Episode 2 with Reggie Smith: Listen for the way in which Reggie begins and ends each day. 

• Episode 3 with Mary Hulst: Listen for what Mary is noticing as young adults attempt to live out what they were taught in Sunday school.

• Episode 4 with Mike Hogeterp: Listen for why Mike continues to be part of a church.

• Episode 5 Wrap-Up with Chris and Karen: Listen for their take-aways from Season One. What are yours? 

Questions to Continue the Conversation:

• Ruth, Reggie, Mary, and Mike all shared an example of how an intergenerational relationship impacted their life and their faith. Who has been that person or those people in your life? Who might you be that person to? 

• Intentionality and/or being attentive to God was a daily practice that rose to the top in the responses of each guest. What struck you about what they said? Was there a particular story or approach that resonated with you? 

• The theme for this season of the podcast is “Beyond Sunday.” What does your own faith look like in everyday life? What are the rhythms in your day or week that remind you of God’s presence? What helps your faith grow? What challenges your faith?

Let us know how it goes! We’d love to learn from your experience. Reach out to us at [email protected] or engage with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.