Congregational Vision-Setting
When this season of seeking the Lord comes to a close at Pentecost, congregations may decide that this is now a good time to engage in vision-casting. What is the Lord leading us to do next? How will we do it? This could begin in summer of 2022. If churches want to bring in outside expertise the EMC can help. We have connections to individuals trained in this kind of discernment who can come alongside congregations to help lead planning sessions.
Congregational Planning Resources
These are resources that churches may use if they are interested in having conversations about planning for the future. Planning happens as the Holy Spirit infuses the church with a call to certain kinds of ministry. Churches learn to follow the Spirit by engaging in prayerful conversations about what gifts the church has been given, and what needs in the world come to the attention of the church. There are people and resources in the wider body of Christ that can come alongside the church to help this work well. Here are a few of them.
People
Here is a list of consultants who have been trained to help congregational processes. They can be brought alongside your congregation or church board to give you guidance and direction as you work on planning. No one person will work in every setting, so conversations with several of these is wise.
Many of these consultants do this for a living and so there will be an expectation of payment. Fees will be quite different for different consultants. The best is to ask straightforwardly what the consultant’s expectations are.
Darryl Kehler, SCOPE Leadership Development. Darryl has taken most of the EMMC churches through a planning process that involved partnership with conference leadership. He has worked in Canada, Mexico and Belize.
Eric Friesen. Lead Freely A New Beginning – Lead Freely. Eric does a lot of leadership coaching, team building and consulting. He is specialized in Myers Briggs personality test work and in using that to build strong teams.
Rick Hill is a consultant and coach from Winnipeg who is available to meet with leadership teams and pastors to help them navigate through difficult issues. He has much experience in helping churches through the transition between pastors. He is also a trained spiritual director. richardhill247@gmail.com
Jay Mowchenko is a seminary professor of leadership and management at Briercrest Seminary. jmowchenko@briercrest.ca (705) 346-0820
Ellen Duffield is the Briercrest Seminary Coordinator of the Centre for Leadership Studies. ellenduffield@briercrest.ca
Paul Magnus is a retired professor who enjoys doing consulting work. He has vast amounts of experience. Briercrest Seminary distinguished professor of Leadership and Management. pmagnus@briercrest.ca
Richard Huisman, author of The Leader’s List is a Christian leadership consultant in southern Ontario who works with organizations of all kinds, including churches. rich@jentconsulting.com (647) 990-7978
Books to help lead churches through change:
It is often helpful for the church board or ministerial team to do some self-education on congregational planning before leading the church through this process. Here are some key books that have been recommended by EMC pastors on the topic of leading congregations through change.
Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations by Gil Rendle and Alice Mann. If any book could be called the basic “Bible” of congregational planning this would be it. The authors condense a lot of strategic planning wisdom and develop a thorough guide for the leading the intentional conversations a congregation needs to have in order to effect healthy change. This is the place to start.
Canoeing the Mountains, by Todd Bolsinger. This is a good book to help you think through the hazards of a process of change in a congregation, and to avoid mistakes and assumptions that will sabotage the whole process. It is based on the belief that leading a congregation in today’s secular world requires going “off the map”, that is, struggling with questions that no one has yet found the answer for, but which need to be addressed.
Growing Young by Kara Powell et al. This is a great book for churches that have aged, and are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to young people and families. There is lots of wisdom here for how churches that relate to both young people and older people think and live.
Helping churches through conflict
In congregational planning there will always be an aspect of conflict. In fact, at its very heart, congregational planning involves bringing different ideas, visions and perspectives into constructive dialog. But how do we help conflict to forge new direction and unity rather than polarization and the sense that some have “lost” the argument at the end of the process?
Lets Talk: Communication Skills and Conflict Transformation by Barry C. Bartel is a good basic book about how to think about conflict within groups and how to work through it. Congregational planning will always have some aspect of conflict!
How the Body of Christ Talks by C. Christopher Smith. In this book Smith wonders at how we might foster a culture of conversation in our congregations. Using stories from his own congregation as well as other churches, Smith shows how the revival of healthy conversations in our churches is both a means to an end (combating increased polarization in society, coming to some form of consensus on internal church conflicts) and an end in itself (we are made to reflect the image of the Triune God in perfect conversation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Throughout, he draws on the Apostle Paul’s metaphor of the church as the body of Christ. He also provides an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, a method of planning that many churches and organizations use to get beyond merely fixing problems. In appreciative inquiry you,
Choose the positive as the focus of inquiry
Inquire into stories of life giving forces
Locate themes that appear in the stories and select topics for further inquiry
Create shared images for a preferred future
Find innovative ways to create that future
Christian books to help leaders with their own habits and attitudes:
These are books to nurture the soul and heart of the leader during a time of planning and change in the congregation. It's important that we as leaders develop and maintain the right posture toward God and our church as discussions happen.
Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, by Peter Scazzero. Peter Scazzero has developed several resources that seek to deepen the spiritual life of leaders in such a way that churches become fruitful in the work of creating emotionally mature disciples.
Wisdom from Babylon, and The Voice of Jesus by Gordon Smith. Smith is from Calgary and was the speaker at the SBC Leadership Conference last March. These are more “posture” books than “how-to” books, but they both come highly recommended from some of our leaders in terms of leading the church to really track with Jesus. How is congregational planning going to truly be the act of listening to God, rather than just pooling everyone’s best ideas?
The Servant Leader: Transforming Your Heart, Head, Hands and Habits. Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. The book is focused on the motives and person of the leader. As the title indicates, the authors take a wholistic approach talking about spirit, knowledge, and skills. The model leader is Jesus himself. This book can be used for personal self-evaluation or a spring board for further study of how Jesus led people.
Books from secular authors that help leaders of organizations:
While we can’t recommend these authors from a theological perspective, they do present wisdom about conflict and change processes that applies well to congregations.
Leadership without Easy Answers. This book by Ronald Heifetz formed the basis for Canoeing the Mountains listed above. The premise of this book is that everyone institution has a few daunting challenges that it needs to face, challenges that it does not presently have the solution for, and that it needs to address if it is going to thrive. Leadership is the art of empowering an institution to face and grapple with those challenges. A very wise book that presents a fruitful way of imagining our role as leaders.
Books by Simon Sinek including The Infinite Game and Start with Why. These are inspirational books that have given church leaders basic principles of healthy organizations that embrace complexity, creativity and adaptation.