Naming Our Values

Purpose and Description

This exercise helps a congregation’s leadership team move toward a working set of values — a list of guiding principles specific enough that a real decision, including decisions about AI, can be run through this list as a “filter” to help the community move toward purposeful and faithful action.

Choose Your Format

Format A — Single Session (90 minutes)

Format B — Day Retreat or Multi-Session Experience (4-5 hour retreat, or 3–4 sessions over several weeks)

Both formats use the same four moves — they differ only in pacing and depth.

What You’ll Need, for either session:

A room, whiteboard or large paper, markers, sticky notes or index cards.

This guide, including the appendices and the practice cases linked in Appendix C.

A designated notetaker to capture values, behaviors, and gaps as they surface.

Case scenarios for Move 3 (drawn from the 22-case bank — see note under Move 3).

The Four Steps

Step 1 — Harvest values from stories

Ask each participant to bring, or tell live, a short story: a moment when this congregation was at its best. After each story, ask the group: what value or values were operating here? Let the group name them in their own words. Resist the urge to reach for a pre-made list; if someone is genuinely stuck, offer Appendix A to stimulate thinking.

Step 2 — Cluster and define

Examine the values you’ve identified thus far. Cluster them into groups; eliminate any redundant ones. Narrow the list to five to seven values.

Explore each of the values on your list by discussing:

Supporting behaviors — what did people in the story do to live this value out? Share other stories in which this value was expressed.

“Shadow” versions of the value — Every value has its shadow, which occurs when our gifts get turned against ourselves or others. A shadow often looks like a virtue, which makes it hard to see.

Example: the value is Presence. A pastor never misses a hospital visit, takes calls during family dinner, and cuts a vacation short to respond to a parishioner. From outside, this looks like devoted presence. But it may be the shadow at work: hustling for worthiness rather than responding out of love, unable to be present to their own family or their own needs, using the value as a shield against ever examining why they can’t say no.

Step 3 — Test the values against real cases

A values statement that has never been tested against a hard case is just a hope. Use scenarios from your own context to pressure-test your values filter. Then engage some of the practice cases in this toolkit. For each case, discuss: given our stated values, what would we actually do here — and does that answer feel right? Capture any findings.

Step 4 — The gap check

When the group’s honest answer to a case doesn’t trace back cleanly to any named value, stop and ask:

Do we need to add a new value or values to our list? Or to expand an existing value to be broader?

Are any shadow versions of a value showing up in our responses to these cases?

A gap that shows up on one unusual case may just be a judgment call. A gap that keeps showing up is a sign the filter is incomplete.

Format A: Single Session (90 minutes)

Format B: Day Retreat, or Multi-Session Experience

Session 1 (60–75 min) — Harvest and Cluster

Complete Step 1 and Step 2. End with a drafted 5-7 value list, each with supporting and shadow behaviors. Homework: participants notice these values (or their shadows) in the coming week.

Session 2 (60–75 min) — Test Against Life, Then AI

Open with what participants noticed since Session 1. Then complete Step 3, testing the filter against 1-2 non-AI cases first (to make sure the filter works in general before adding the AI layer), then one AI case. Complete the gap check (Step 4).

Session 3 (60–75 min) — Deepen the AI Layer

Test the filter against 2–3 more AI practice cases, chosen to examine different types of harm (spiritual, relational, institutional, financial). Repeat the gap check each time a case doesn’t resolve cleanly.

Session 4 (optional, 45–60 min) — Consolidate

Finalize your values filter. Decide how this filter will be used going forward (e.g., feeding into a Congregational Technology Covenant) and who’s responsible for revisiting it.

Appendix A — Values (Plain List)

Incarnation · Grace · Mercy · Justice · Truth · Discernment · Hospitality · Humility · Dignity · Vocation · Formation · Transparency · Accountability · Stewardship · Sabbath · Covenant · Reconciliation · Lament · Hope · Community

Appendix B — Values with Commentary Related to AI

Incarnation — bodily presence is not optional; some things cannot be delegated to a screen.

Grace — extending patience and generosity to people navigating this new world awkwardly and imperfectly, including ourselves.

Mercy — responding to shame and fear without judgment.

Justice — attending to who is made vulnerable, displaced, or excluded by AI tools.

Truth — a commitment to what is actually so, resisting both AI hallucination and comforting fictions.

Discernment — pausing to ask “to what end?” before defaulting to convenience or fear.

Hospitality — receiving the person’s experience before offering a verdict on the technology.

Humility — naming what we don’t yet know, including our own reactions and biases toward AI.

Dignity — every person’s worth assured regardless of their productivity, expertise, or “usefulness.”

Vocation — work and calling are about more than output; formation and identity are at stake.

Formation — the slow, sometimes boring practices that AI can quietly erode if engaged unexamined.

Transparency — disclosing how and when AI is used, so trust isn’t built on hidden assumptions.

Accountability — a human remains answerable for AI-assisted words and decisions.

Stewardship — care for data, privacy, and the trust congregants place in organizations and leaders when they disclose something in confidence.

Sabbath — protecting unhurried, unmediated time and presence rather than optimizing every hour.

Covenant — commitments made and kept between people aren’t substitutable by a responsive interface.

Reconciliation — tending relationships fractured by disinformation or disputed “facts” rather than just litigating who’s right.

Lament — making room for real grief without rushing to fix or minimize it.

Hope — engaging the future with curiosity rather than panic or uncritical embrace.

Community — belonging and mutual accompaniment that AI can supplement but not replace.

Appendix C — Practice Cases

Use these three cases from the toolkit to pressure-test your values. Each opens in its own page, where the complete scenario, knowns and unknowns, response questions, and practice notes are kept up to date.

The downloadable facilitator guide includes the full text of all three cases for offline use.