by Jill Crainshaw, Ph.D., Blackburn Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Wake Forest University School of Divinity Note: This post is the first in an Eastertide series being offered by a joint task force composed of members from the Church Growth and...
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Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry Webinar
The conventional approach to problem-solving in business or church is to discover the root cause of a problem and to fix it. Appreciative Inquiry takes a radically different approach: Discover the root of cause of success and improve it. Problems are acknowledged in...
Lenten Journey–Pray and Reflect
By Beth Kennett Over the past few weeks, I have been in settings that have been preparing me for my Lenten journey—teaching a class on Ministry Leadership and Coaching Skills, participating in a Coach Training Program, working alongside of a congregational renewal...
Vital Merger: A New Church Start Approach that Joins Church Families Together
By Dirk Elliott DownRiver Church celebrated its first worship service as a new church start on July 7, 2013, with 186 people in attendance. DownRiver is a Vital Merger of four churches in the Detroit area. In December, 2012, each of these four churches voted, with...
More Looking
by Les Robinson Recently, Chris Gambill, Director of the Center, wrote a blog (A new year, a new look at congregations) about the Faith Communities Today 2015 national survey of American congregations. He was referring to their most recent survey. Since 2000, this...
A new year, a new look at congregations
By Chris Gambill Faith Communities Today has just released its introductory report from the Faith Communities Today 2015 (FACT 2015) national survey of American congregations. This is their most recent survey that originally began in 2000. The entire FACT survey...
The power of a glass half-full
By Chris Gambill It turns out that whether you view your filled-to-half-capacity glass as half-full or half-empty is much more than just a rhetorical question. It says a lot about how you tend to interpret situations and may indicate a tendency toward pessimism or...
The Who, What, How, and Why of Congregational Consulting
By Rev. Christopher R. Gambill, PhD One of the original drivers for the founding of the Center for Congregational Health in the early 1990s was the emerging need for congregational consultants. Congregational consulting quickly became a core part of the ministry of...
Irrelevant? Really?
I have a wooden desk. Actually it was an unfinished table that I stained and then put a piece of glass on top of in order to protect it from scratches and pen marks and such. It has held up nicely 25+ years, so it turned out to be a pretty good investment – although...