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 Understanding Your Congregation as a System written by George Parsons and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 How Your 21st Century Church Family Works written by Peter L. Steinke and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-27 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first edition of How Your Church Family Works was written nearly thirty years ago, and the reach and velocity of change in the last three decades poses a new challenge for churches. Thirty years ago, churches functioned in a fairly stable environment and focused on growth an expansion. The tide has turned now, though, and supplanted increase with decline. Bowen family systems theory—on which How Your Church Family Works is based—has not changed, but its application has to be revised for the twenty-first century. How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works, the second edition of Peter Steinke’s landmark book, addresses the radically altered landscape of church sustainability with new introductory and concluding chapters bookending updates throughout the now-classic text. Core chapters of the book feature fresh examples of emotional process that are more exemplary of the current scene. One key addition is a new trigger of anxiety for churches—the change process. Change threatens the familiar and stable and suffers from negative connotations of endangering tradition. Where gradual change has been the norm for so long, churches now see a blistering pace of disruptions, some of which have forced change too early or too late, or sometimes in unproductive directions. How Your 21st-Century Church family works embraces the anxiety caused by change, transforming it from a source of anguish to a font of opportunity.
Download or read book Creating a Healthier Church written by Ronald W. Richardson and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 1995-12-01 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the Bowen Family Systems Theory and its applications both to church life and to the role of leadership in creating a healthier church, this book explains the complexities of congregational emotional life in understandable language.
Download or read book Family Systems and Congregational Life written by R. Robert Creech and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experienced pastor and seminary teacher R. Robert Creech helps pastoral leaders increase their effectiveness by applying family systems theory to congregational life and ministry. Creech introduces readers to the basic concepts of Bowen Family Systems Theory, applies family theory to the work of ministry in church settings, and connects systems thinking to the everyday aspects of congregational ministry, such as preaching, pastoral care, leadership, spiritual formation, and interpreting biblical texts. Each chapter contains discussion questions, and there are five helpful appendixes with supplemental information about Bowen theory.
Download or read book Understanding Your Congregation as a System The manual written by George Parsons and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Generation to Generation written by Edwin Friedman and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed, influential work now available in paper for the first time, this bestselling book applies the concepts of systemic family therapy to the emotional life of congregations. Edwin H. Friedman shows how the same understanding of family process that can aid clergy in their pastoral role also has important ramifications for negotiating congregational dynamics and functioning as an effective leader. Clergy from diverse denominations, as well as family therapists and counselors, have found that this book directly addresses the dilemmas and crises they encounter daily. It is widely used as a text in courses on pastoral care, leadership, and family systems.
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 Understanding the Congregation s Authority written by Jonathan Leeman and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congregational authority is less about the meetings and more about the mission. Congregationalism has a bad rap for well-known reasons: inefficient meetings, upstart members, browbeaten ministers. But biblical congregationalism isn’t so much about the meetings. It’s about empowering the whole church to promote and protect the gospel. Pastors lead and equip. Members get to work strengthening one another and pursuing Christ’s mission in the world.
Download or read book Who Runs the Church written by Zondervan, and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Churches have split and denominations have formed over the issue of church government. While many Christians can explain their church's form of rule or defend it because of its "tried and true" traditions, few people understand their church's administrative customs from a biblical perspective. Who Runs the Church? explores questions such as: What model for governing the church does the Bible provide, and is such a model given for practical or spiritual reasons? Is there room for different methods within Christianity? Or is there a right way of "doing church"? And, finally, how (and by whom) should the church be governed? Four predominant approaches to church government are presented by respected proponents: Episcopalianism - represented by Peter Toon Presbyterianism - represented by L. Roy Taylor Single-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Paige Patterson Plural-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Samuel E. Waldron As in other Counterpoints books, each view is followed by critiques from the other contributors, and its advocate then responds.
Download or read book Completing the Circle written by David R. McMahill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On his second day as association minister for the United Church of Christ, David McMahill received three phone calls from lay leaders who were looking for resources on "how to evaluate our minister." He knew of several churches in which a poorly constructed process for evaluating the ministers had spun out of control, however, and had gradually come to believe it is probably better for a church not to attempt an evaluation process at all than to do one carelessly or to naively use a design intended for a secular organization. Based on the needs he saw, McMahill began to work with numerous congregations looking for ways to review both leaders and ministries and developed the feedback/reflection process he lays out in this book. Based on sound principles of effective communication, this simple system of asking for descriptive feedback about various aspects of a congregation's life together takes into account the specific setting and the unique relationship between minister and congregation.
Download or read book The Hidden Lives of Congregations written by Israel Galindo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with crisis, lack of direction, or just plain "stuckness," many congregations and their leaders are content to deal only with surface issues and symptoms—only to discover that the same problems keep recurring, often in different, and more serious, ways. In The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Christian educator and consultant Israel Galindo takes leaders below the surface of congregational life to provide a comprehensive, holistic look at the corporate nature of church relationships and the invisible dynamics at play. Informed by family systems theory and grounded in a wide-ranging ecclesiological understanding, Galindo unpacks clearly the factors of congregational lifespan, size, spirituality, and identity and shows how these work together to form the congregation’s hidden life. He provides useful tools for diagnosing and understanding how one’s congregation fits into the various categories he names and suggests what leadership skills are necessary to get beyond the impasse of surface issues and help the congregation achieve its mission. The Hidden Lives of Congregations provides one of the most far-reaching looks into the invisible nature of faith communities written in recent years. For seminaries and divinity schools, it provides a standard text for getting a solid start in congregational practices; for experienced pastors, it provides support for renewing ministry; for lay leaders and committees, it offers insight to deepening mutual ministry. Israel Galindo has written an indispensable manual that leaders will return to repeatedly for new wisdom and guidance
Download or read book Healthy Congregations written by Peter L. Steinke and published by Alban Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sequel to How Your Church Family Works, Steinke takes readers into a deeper exploration of the congregation as an emotional system. Learn ten principles of health, how congregations can adopt new ways of dealing with stress and anxiety, how spiritually and emotionally healthy leaders influence the emotional system, factors that could put your congregation at risk, and more.
Download or read book Managing the Congregation written by Norman Shawchuck and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume on strategies for church leaders focuses on the relationships, structures, and processes common to the religious congregation. The emphasis is on transforming people through the identification and maximization of effective processes within.
Download or read book The Whole Church written by Kenneth Reeves and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-12 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Whole Church is an authoritative view of how clergy leadership can greatly benefit from understanding how systems theory is an essential learning tool to becoming an effective leader.
Download or read book Elders in Congregational Life Newton written by Phil A. Newton and published by Kregel Academic. This book was released on with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Foreword by Mark Dever) A biblically functioning church requires intentional devotion to the New Testament model of the church. In this practical book, Phil Newton gives a definitive and biblical study of elder-based leadership.
