Download or read book How Your Congregation Learns written by Tim Shapiro and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-06-09 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Change isn’t always easy or intuitive. How Your Congregation Learns introduces churches and leaders—both lay and ordained—to the process of the learning journey. By understanding learning dynamics and working to become a learning community, the congregation will be able to move more purposefully to achieve its goals. Congregations face many kinds of challenges. Some are mundane: the roof leaks; the parking lot needs repaving; the microphones don’t work well. Some tests are transcendent: How should lives be honored? What is God calling the congregation to do and be? How can generosity be taught? Throughout life people face challenges for which they are not prepared—the death of a parent, a new job offer, making a decision about where to live. So it goes that congregational leaders face challenges that are just beyond the grasp of their abilities. This book addresses the just-beyond-the-grasp challenges and shows how real congregations can learn from them.

Download or read book Discerning Your Congregation s Future written by Roy M. Oswald and published by Alban Institute. This book was released on 1996 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Understanding Your Congregation as a System written by George D. Parsons and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1994-02-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parsons and Leas have created an important tool for congregational leaders in this application of systems theory to evaluating a congregation’s life and readiness for change. Church leaders can explore the forces at work and examine the systemic implications in seven key areas: strategy, process, pastoral and lay leadership, authority, relatedness, and learning. The Manual provides an overview of systems theory, complete instructions for administering and scoring the Congregational Systems Inventory (CSI), and guidance for interpreting and explaining the inventory results using sample scores. The Congregational Systems Inventory is a survey designed to sample the perspectives of church staff, governing board, and key lay leaders. Be sure to order some packs of the CSI along with this valuable resource.

Download or read book Renovation of the Church written by Kent Carlson and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity Today Book Award winner Leadership Journal Top Book of the Year Copastors Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken tell the story of how God took their thriving, consumer-oriented church and transformed it into a modest congregation of unformed believers committed to the growth of the spirit--even when it meant a decline in numbers. As Kent and Mike found out, a decade of major change is not easy on a church. Oak Hills Church, from the pastoral staff to the congregation, had to confront addiction to personal ambition, resist consumerism and reorient their lives around the teachings of Jesus. Their renewed focus on spiritual formation over numerical growth triggered major changes in the content of their sermons, the tenor of their worship services, and the reason for their outreach. They lost members. But the health and spiritual depth of their church today is a testimony of God's transforming work and enduring faithfulness to the people he loves. Honest and humble, this is Kent and Mike's story of a church they love, written to inspire and challenge other churches to let God rewrite their stories as well. Read it for the church you love.

Download or read book Living Lutheran written by Dave Daubert and published by Augsburg Books. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kelly Fryer's book Reclaiming the L Word introduced one congregation's journey through renewal. Now Dave Daubert provides a practical how-to guide that will enable church leaders to help individual congregations walk through the process for themselves. Creative and informative, the book provides a straightforward approach that helps congregations reclaim Lutheran tradition for the 21st century. Includes questions for individual or group reflection and an additional resources section.

Download or read book How Your Church Family Works written by Peter L. Steinke and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-11-20 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the work of Bowen and Friedman, and on his own many years of counseling experience, Peter Steinke shows how to recognize and deal with the emotional roots of such issues as church conflict, leadership roles, congregational change, irresponsible behavior, and the effects of family of origin on current relationships.

Download or read book Renovate Or Die written by Bob Farr and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bob Farr asserts that to change the world, we must first change the Church. Rearranging the pews, painting the fellowship hall, or paving the parking lot are just not enough. With clear language and practical tips, this book will inspire and help you organize your church for new life. Learn how to grow your church and discover the commitments that leaders must make to guarantee the fruitfulness of local congregations. --Book Jacket.

Download or read book Congregations as Learning Communities written by Dennis G. Campbell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000-12-31 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our rapidly evolving religious scene, congregations that are open to continuous learning and willing to respond to external and internal change, will be the ones that achieve new vitality and health. Dennis Campbell describes what those congregations will look like and provides four tools to help a congregation shape its community into what God would have it be. Systems thinking, congregational culture, appreciative inquiry, and scenario planning are explained and illustrated, and readers will be shown how to apply the principles to their setting.

Download or read book The Learning Congregation written by Thomas R. Hawkins and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congregations today face an adaptive challenge of immense proportions. Many respond with classic signs of work avoidance: holding to past assumptions and blaming authority. Thomas Hawkins's new vision of church leadership can provide a way to break through these defensive routines. The Learning Congregation is a must read for all pastors and church leaders.

Download or read book Divergent Church written by Tim Shapiro and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New faith communities are appearing across the U.S.. Many of them bear little resemblance—on the surface—to ‘church’ in its conventional form. But when we look a little deeper we see striking continuity with the most deeply rooted practices of the Christian faith in community. What are those practices? What do these unconventional, alternative faith communities look like? How are they, perhaps, indicators of a hopeful new future for the church? And what can we learn from them? Authors Kara Brinkerhoff and Tim Shapiro spent more than a year researching and exploring these questions, closely examining the life of a dozen alternative faith communities across the country. They include new monastic communities, food-oriented communities, affinity group communities, house churches, hybrid churches and others. They are creative, ingenious, innovative, clever, dynamic and transformative. But they represent human expressions of activities that have always been part of human religious congregations: hospitality, learning, storytelling, care, leadership, worship and honoring place. This fascinating book goes beyond simply analyzing current trends. It reveals how innovative Christians are engaging in time-honored practices, creating new types of communities, which will shape the church to come. Further, it shows us how we too might innovate while holding true to the essential practices of our gathered faith. This is an instructive picture of Christian community, past, present and future.

Download or read book Deep Discipleship written by J.T. English and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone is being discipled. The question is: what is discipling us? The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. Therefore, as church leaders, it is our primary responsibility to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples. There are three indispensable elements of discipleship: Learning to participate in the biblical story (the Bible) Growing in our confession of who God is and who we are (theology) Regularly participating in private and corporate intentional action (spiritual disciplines) Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.

Download or read book The Invisible Church written by Steve Aisthorpe and published by Saint Andrew Press. This book was released on 2016-04-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For anyone who is concerned about Church decline, the contents of this book offer an essential blueprint for building God’s whole community in the coming years. This unique set of resources offers practical help and insight for all who want to grow, enrich and develop their congregational life. The Church of Scotland has drawn on the findings of extensive new research that it has commissioned in order to put together this set of carefully crafted and informed resources aimed at helping every congregation to understand why people leave the Church, how to avoid unnecessary departures and, above all, to develop an enriching, vital Christian fellowship with the large numbers of Churchless Christians in every community across the country. This ground-breaking book, illustrated by Dave Walker, offers information, hope, insight, prayerful reflection and practical ideas for bringing together in fellowship all Christians, whether they are members of an institutional Church or not.

Download or read book Transforming Congregations through Community written by Boyung Lee and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2013-11-04 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this helpful book, Boyung Lee offers an encouraging vision of the mainline church’s future. Lee grapples with some of the greatest challenges facing the mainline church, offering compelling responses to recurring questions: What does faithfulness to the gospel look like in this changing world? What is our distinctive voice in the larger society? How does theological education have to change if it is to serve the needs of a new century? Lee argues that the church’s future is a promising one if the church can offer a richer and deeper definition of community—one that moves beyond the excessive individualism of western culture and that helps mainline Christians understand their solidarity with one another and with all of God’s people. Lee further explores the crucial role of faith formation at the congregational and seminary levels. More than mere schooling, theological education must engage all aspects of educators’ and students’ lives to prepare seminarians for the challenges that lie ahead. While not dismissing the mainline church’s challenges, Lee offers congregational leaders and seminary educators a vision of a church transformed for the 21st century.

Download or read book Becoming a Congregation of Learners written by Isa Aron and published by Jewish Lights Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide presents an overview of successful congregations, explains when and how to bring about cha nge, and helps you create a Task Force in your congregation to help transform Jewish learning.

Download or read book 44 Ways to Expand the Financial Base of Your Congregation written by Lyle E. Schaller and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a treasury of 44 proven-effective stewardship ideas by the man Leadership magazine calls "America's foremost authority on the dynamics of church life." "When all is said and done," says Lyle E. Schaller, "there are only two good reasons why anyone should be asked to contribute money to the church. The first is to help promote the giver's spiritual growth... The second reason is even simpler. Christian discipleship is Christian stewardship. How could it be anything else? How else do God's people grow in grace?" In the tradition of Schaller's many other top-selling books, 44 Ways to Expand the Financial Base of Your Congregation contains strategies tested and proven in scores of local congregations across the U.S. and Canada. The 44 strategies are humorously illustrated by Edward Lee Tucker's "Friar Tuck" cartoon characters.

Download or read book Learning God s Stories Together written by Dorothy Henderson and published by Wood Lake Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2007-08-25 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this valuable resource, Dorothy Henderson explains, encourages and enables all-ages learning. People looking for help in developing an all-ages learning program will be heartened by the wealth of practical advice LearningGod's Stories Together provides. The first part of the book explains the theory and practice of all ages learning. Dorothy opens our eyes to its myriad benefits: It's fun! It builds community. It lets us hear points of view from groups we might not normally have a chance to mingle with. Dorothy presents her ideas in an easily accessible style that will fit with almost any congregation, large or small. There is a section describing the five generations that might form an all ages learning group which is interesting and useful - and not only for church-group use! We also learn about the advantages of all ages learning, which are many. Dorothy provides step-by-step insructions for setting up all ages learning and ideas to use for our first gatherings. The information is complete and inspires us to go ahead and try this if we haven't done it before; it will provide depth and insight and new ideas for those who already have all ages learning happening in their church. The second part of the book consists of 20 story sessions, each of which contains suggestions for gathering, for telling and talking about the story, and for exploring the story and making it part of your life. Again, lots of practical suggestions that will appeal to both children and adults. Dorothy presents her information in a friendly tone that encourages educators to be enthusiastic about embracing this rewarding style of learning. "What other institution do you know where five generations come together every week . . . worshipping, drinkg juice and coffee, talking, eating, doing important mission work and learning together what it means to love God and love a neighbour as oneself. The church provides a natural environment for all-ages gatherings. But, as Edward Loper reminds us, 'There was a time, not all that long ago, when we did not need to intentionally talk about the relationships between generations. The relationships were plain for all to see. Most of us lived in the context of an extended family. Members of several generations lived in a close proximity to one another, kenw each other, and supported each other. This is no longer the case.' It is time, once again, to become intentional in building connections among the generations."

Download or read book Leading the Congregation written by Roger Heuser and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete and definitive guide to the practice of church leadership--newly revised