Empathy Begins With Imagination
Preparation becomes Practice
Last week, we hosted a facilitator training for the Houses of Hope process.
Our goal was practical. We gathered leaders from five different judicatories to help them understand the Houses of Hope framework, experience its practices firsthand, and imagine how they might implement the process with congregations in their own contexts.
Over the course of four days, we walked through the four phases of the process:
Discernment
Core Capacities
Gratitude Pathway
Forgiveness Pathway
But as often happens in formation work, something deeper unfolded beneath the agenda. What began as training quickly first turned into community. Leaders from different denominations, traditions, and geographies found themselves sharing stories that resonated across institutional boundaries. They traded both the joys and sorrows of leadership. Friendships formed. Shared struggles surfaced. New possibilities for collaboration emerged.
And somewhere in the middle of the training, the process itself began doing what it was designed to do.
Room at the Table
One of the exercises we use in the discernment phase is called Room at the Table.
Participants are asked to draw the various “tables” they sit at in life like a dining room table: a PTA meeting, a golf group, a card night, or a workplace lunch table. They are instructed to think of any social setting where community gathers.
Then they map who sits at each table. As they do, patterns begin to emerge. They notice who occupies multiple spaces. They begin to see their social networks more clearly. They realize how interconnected, or isolated, their lives may actually be.
Then comes the deeper invitation. We ask them to identify one person at one of those tables who is not part of their church community. And then we ask them to wonder.
What brings this person joy?
What keeps them up at night?
Where do they find support and belonging?
Where might that support be lacking?
There are no right answers. That is not the point. The point is to practice imagination as empathy. Not to strategize how to get someone into church. Not to diagnose why they are absent from faith communities. Simply to ask what might it be like to be them?
When Empathy Expands
As we guided the judicatory leaders through this exercise, something unexpected happened. They began to realize this practice was not only helpful for congregations trying to understand their broader communities.
It was helping them understand the congregations they serve.
The same questions they had been asking about individuals suddenly became questions they could ask about churches:
What brings this congregation joy?
What fears shape their decisions?
Where do they feel supported?
Where are they carrying wounds or scarcity?
What assumptions have I made about them without curiosity?
One leader said it plainly, “I’m excited to go back and bring a new curiosity to the churches I work with.” That moment stayed with me. Because it revealed something essential that empathy is not only outward-facing. It reshapes every relationship.
The work of imagination does not simply help us understand “the community out there.” It also softens the way we show up to the people already entrusted to us.
The Process Is Already at Work
We came into the week thinking we were preparing leaders to facilitate the Houses of Hope process. What we discovered is that the process had already begun forming all of us.
Before they ever lead a congregation through it…
Before they ever coach a church through discernment…
Before they ever recruit a single participant…
The practices themselves were already opening hearts. That may be the deepest truth of formation work. We do not simply teach practices. The practices teach us. They slow us down.
They build trust. They help us tell the truth about where we have been. They help us acknowledge where we are. They help us imagine where God may be inviting us next.
And sometimes, before we ever bring the work to others, the work has already begun in us.