Creating the Future Together: Methods to Inspire Your Whole Faith Community
Loren B. Mead, Billie T. Alban
Congregations today face a multitude of challenges in trying to adapt to a quickly changing world. Balancing new concerns with core values is a complicated process that can leave too many members feeling that their voices and needs are not being met. Loren B. Mead and Billie T. Alban have developed Creating the Future Together to share their knowledge of how congregations can use large group methods to navigate these new waters.
Large group methods involve getting all the stakeholders together to work on major issues of common concern. Mead and Alban outline four such methods—two for identifying a preferred future and two designed to create community and discover common interests. This book is not meant to be a how-to volume; its primary purpose is rather to familiarize leaders with these whole-system approaches and to provide a conceptual framework for evaluating their potential usefulness against any given challenge. The authors also share stories from a variety of Christian and Jewish faith communities where ordinary religious leaders, lay and clergy together, have faced issues related to change using large group methods. Combining their wealth of experience in leading religious and secular bodies through times of change, Mead and Alban bring hope to faith communities as they work to embrace, and even thrive through, the need for change.
See Table of Contents for Checklists 1 and 2 of Appendix A.
Praise for the Book
“Planners often say, ‘If you want people in for the landing, you better have them on board for the takeoff.’ Drawing on the important work of recent decades in the field of whole-systems design, Mead and Alban give us methods and examples for getting the entire congregational system on board in facing significant challenges.” —Anthony B. Robinson
“Loren Mead and Billie Alban have crafted a ‘playbook’ for those who lead organizations in times of transition. Key leaders will understand the art of preparing their community for the transformative process of planning.” —Richard Bruesehoff
“This book demystifies large-group methodologies, showing through well-told stories the variety of purposes for which they might be used and the multiple ways they can be implemented. The book provides real hope for congregations facing very difficult problems.” —Jean M. Bartunek
“If your faith community is ready for a miracle, the cases in this book will inspire you to lay the groundwork and let it happen. Pay attention to a few basic principles, and prepare to be pleasantly surprised!” —Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff
About the Authors
Loren B. Mead is president emeritus of the Alban Institute and author of numerous books including The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation
for a New Mission Frontier (Alban, 1991).
Billie T. Alban is president of Alban and Williams, Ltd., an internationally known management consultant firm. She is the coauthor, along with Barbara Bunker, of The Handbook of Large Group Methods: Creating Systematic Change in Organizations and Communities.
ISBN# 978-1-56699-364-7
Alban No. AL364
paper, 150 pages
2008
In stock
$18.00
($14.40 for members)
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