Discerning Your Congregation’s Future: A Strategic and Spiritual Approach

Roy M. Oswald, Robert E. Friedrich

Drawing on extensive consulting experience with congregations, the authors provide a step-by-step guide to congregational planning that grounds strategic planning techniques in a process of spiritual discernment. The result: members will own the vision and be eager to participate in the congregation’s calling, life, and ministry. You and your planning committee learn the theory behind the techniques, along with receiving help for addressing specific situations.

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Praise for the Book

“This is a rare book—combining practical tools for parish planning with equally practical help for the spiritual dimension of what parishes are all about. It can be a revolutionary book for congregational leaders who are serious about wanting to become an effective religious force in the future of their communities. Although extraordinarily practical, this book includes big thinking and opens significant doors. This is not 'just another planning handbook.'” —Loren Mead

“There is a little something for everybody in this wonderful new resource from the minds of Oswald and Friedrich—creative model for strategic 'visioning,' ways of incorporating spiritual practices into the planning environment, practical assistance in managing congregational 'polities,' and exploration of church norms and myths—with a dash of systems thinking to round it off! It is packed in a user-friendly style geared for the pastor, members, and lay leaders to do together. The authors do not present strategic planning as an easy process, instead, they acknowledge that all change has a cost and provide assistance in preparing for it. This book is a must for leading church faithfully into the twenty-first century.” —Jill Hudson

About the Authors

Oswald,Roy Roy M. Oswald has provided leadership for hundreds of conferences and training events in the United States and Canada. A variety of denominations have called on him to focus on the pastoral role and the dynamics of parish leadership. He also frequently consults with local congregations and judicatories, where his planning model utilizes norms, myths, and meaning statements from a church's past. Roy Oswald is identified with research into the transitions clergy make when they enter parishes for the first time and for clergy in longer pastorates. More recently he has headed studies of the candidacy process, leadership needs of small congregations, and new methodology for assessing ministries using clergy/lay teams.

Friedrich,Robert The Rev. Dr. Bob Friedrich is president of the Ekklesia Institute. His broad personal, interim, and business experience helps him serve congregations of many sizes and denominations with discernment, conflict management, stewardship, leadership development, and strategic planning. He has earned a D.Min., specializing in family systems, particularly as it applies to congregational planning. Ekklesia maintains offices at 35 Gifford Road, West Hartford, CT.

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ISBN# 1-56699-174-9
Alban No. AL176
paper, 174 pages
1996

In stock

$19.00 ($15.20 for members)

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