"Different Together: A Leader’s Guide” Addressing Toxic Polarization

Different Together:  A Leader’s Guide”  Addressing Toxic Polarization

October 24, 2025 9:00 am to 3:00 pm; In Person at the Garden Level Conference Room at the Weber Center in Adrian, MI

This year’s Synod assembly will offer you real help in a time of real need. Christian leadership is hard in any era; but the increasing toxic political polarization in our land raises the degree of difficulty exponentially. We could all use a little help with this, and the Rev. Dr. Allen Hilton has been offering pastors and leaders around the U.S. precisely this sort of help for more than a decade. To chart a way toward one another across our lines of difference, Allen will help us identify the difficulties of division, build skills to navigate it, and imagine the church becoming ONE as Jesus prayed we would be. Our time together will offer hope that the church can be a beacon in this dreary American moment

Session One – The Work of the Church in the Church (9 AM to Noon)

 Opening – Jeremiah 29, the Shalom of Our Cities, and Identifying Our Cities’ Need

Move One – The State of Our Disunion

Presentation – The State of the (National) Disunion

Breakout for Table Discussions of Recent Experience

Presentation – The Distance Between Church and ONE (John 17)

Historical Cause - Orthodoxy over Community

Historical Damage – Crusades, Inquisitions, Holy Wars, Culture Wars

Whole-Group Reflection on the History of Church Division

Personal Reflection on Individual Experience (Journal)

Move Two – Leadership and Skill-Building Toward ONE Church

Presentation on Practicing Humility (The Damaging Luxury of Rightness)

Group Discussion of Rabbi Sax’s “Humility is the orphaned virtue of our age.”

  Presentation on Humble Listening (Otto Scharmer’s Four Levels)

  Exercise: One-on-One Practice of Humble Listening – “Life Swap Exercise”

  Difference as an Asset – A Presentation on Courageous Conversations

  Group Discussion of Courageous Conversations in Our Settings

Closing – A Counter-Cultural Opportunity for the Church

Session Two – Missional Unity – The Work of the Church in the World (1-3 PM)

Move Three

 Opening – Envisioning God’s Future: the Contagion of Oneness (John 17.20-23)

  Group Discussion – Identifying the Needs of Our Neighbors (Jeremiah 29)

Loneliness Epidemic

Breakdown in Neighborhoods

Increasing Substitution of Politics for Religion

  Forming a Missional Orientation to the World

Church’s Tendency toward One-Sided Advocacy

Unity as a Response to the Isolation and Fragmentation in Our Land

Group Reflection on Inward vs Outward Focus of Home Churches

Examples of Churches Seeking the Shalom of Their Cities

Group Discussion – What would this look like in my church and neighborhood?

Group Discussion on Leadership Challenges – Let’s Get Real!

A Final Call to Courage and Trust in God

Closing – “Watch This!”

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Rev. Dr. Allen Hilton helps build robust, viewpoint-diverse cultures in churches, schools, families, and corporate teams. To accomplish this, he trains groups toward practices and habits that help their people connect and understand one another across lines of political, theological, racial, and other lines of difference. His book, A House United: How the Church Can Save the World, is a manifesto for this work in its Christian application. Allen has an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary and a Ph.D. from Yale University where he served for years as a professor of New Testament at the Yale Divinity School. Dr. Hilton has served on the pastoral teams of large mainline churches in CT, WA, MN, AZ, and (currently) Covenant Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX, where he lives with his beloved wife Liz and two college-aged sons.