Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Alban Books
Pages: 184
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-56699-776-8 • Hardback • June 2017 • $74.00 • (£57.00)
978-1-56699-744-7 • Paperback • June 2017 • $34.00 • (£25.00)
978-1-56699-745-4 • eBook • June 2017 • $32.00 • (£25.00)
Tim Shapiro is president of the Indianapolis Center for Congregations. He is a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister who has served congregations in Indiana and Ohio. He is the co-author of Holy Places: Matching Sacred Space with Mission and Message.
Introduction: The Congregation as a Learning Community
Chapter 1: The Journey: Patterns and Behaviors
Chapter 2: Getting the Help You Deserve: Resources and Ingenuity
Chapter 3: Challenge: Articulating What You Need to Learn
Chapter 4: Exploration: Searching for Solutions
Chapter 5: Disappointment: Learning from Inevitable Setbacks
Chapter 6: Discovery: Discerning the Best Solution
Chapter 7: Taking On and Letting Go: The Tasks of Implementation
Chapter 8: Validation: Celebrating Your Accomplishments
Chapter 9: The Next Challenge: The Journey Continues
Conclusion: Life is for Learning
If you are looking for a way to engage your congregation in living its mission and addressing ever-increasing demands, then How Your Congregation Learns is the resource you need. Tim Shapiro provides a unique and much-needed understanding of how to transform the congregation into a learning community ready to take on new initiatives. How Your Congregation Learns provides a practical process—with lots of congregational examples—that will give you the knowledge and confidence to facilitate change and create innovation.
— John Roberto, president, LifelongFaith Associates
In many congregations, the best ideas die on the vine or fizzle after the first try, because they exceed current capacity. But what if the daunting goal is to actually generate new capacity for effective mission, today and tomorrow? “Learning to learn” is the key to unlocking new strengths in congregations—even the smallest ones—and this book reveals how this powerful and sacred process actually works.
— Alice Mann, Congregational Consulting Group