The listening tour was a significant objective for the first year of our institute. This tour focused on doing as much listening as we could about the challenges African American pastors and churches are facing, resources that could be incorporated into the curriculum, and learning all we could about African American emerging and young adults.

Qualitative methods were used such as focus groups and individual interviews with open-ended, well-crafted, and culturally informed questions. Focus groups will be conducted with senior pastors, churched emerging adults, and unchurched emerging adults. Based on what we learned, we have initiated the start of a significant curriculum revision, as well as wrote a final report that will be helpful to us and hopefully to many others as we move ahead.