Customer Reviews

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

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Oswald and Friedrich have given us a wonderful source book for doing congregational planning. But in addition, they have given strategic planning consultants and facilitators in many fields a concept that opens new horizons in strategic planning. The idea of discerning, rather than planning, future direction says that there is a way we ought to go and our job is to find it. This concept, when coupled with systems thinking and organizational learning (see for example Senge, _The Fifth Discipline_), provides a way of reframing the strategic planning process. The exercises, while generally unsuited to the board room, can be adapted to that environment with a little imagination, once the planning consultant creates a safe place for those invovled in planning to access the part of their mind capable of discernment.

This book lays out a most indepth, step-by-step guide to uncovering what God has in store for your church. If followed in it's entirety without skipping any of the process, it will be an experience of spiritual growth for your congregation as well as a tool for understanding the direction that Christ is moving your church. It is an easy to read, challenging prescription for growth.

Oswald has a process that is focused on the core of church life and beliefs to come up with a plan for how to move forward versus standing still.

We are calling a pastor and this was the most AWESOME resource and guide and I can go on and on. Every page supplies information on the nuts and bolts of building a church for the community and those outside the community. Seriously the church is the only institution that exists to meet the needs of both those who call it home and those that don't. I want to stress that it is also a spiritual approach. I do sincerely wish that is was available on kindle! It was so good that our church council wants to read it too!