Bøger udgivet af Alban Institute, Inc

Discover how to assist parishioners in their prayer and spiritual life. Learn how individual spiritual growth can flow back into the congregation's growth as a community. Explore new ideas and practical approaches to using Christian education, worship, retreats, devotional guides, and church meetings as tools to achieve spiritual growth. Learn about spirituality gender differences; the importance of your own spiritual life; spiritually grounding lay leaders; encouraging spiritual friendships and study groups.

What's working and not working in your congregation? You'll explore the factors that inspired and motivated changes to reverse decline as other congregations wrestled with the same issues you're facing: ministry to current members, ministry to the unchurched, worship, changing neighborhoods, and more.

Dudley and a research team go back to 24 ministries still in existence five years after the Church and Community Project's completion. They discovered how the myths and expectations of funding, lay/clergy leadership, and church/society partnerships were shattered by what is doable; how the often Herculean efforts frustrated and tired participants, who were then uplifted and sustained by making a difference; and how faith was the foundation for action, and how, through action, the poor, the homeless, and others in need became real people and not statistics.

Each congregation must evaluate itself in light of its own mix of gifts, backgrounds, talents, and opportunities. Presenting the best of evaluation theory past and present, Woods shows clergy and lay leaders how to engage in mutual evaluation-not judgment-of ministry, mission, and community as a shared responsibility. The goal is building up the congregation. A special chapter provides commentary from church evaluation experts Roy Oswald (Alban), Paul Light (ABUSA denominational staff), and Jill Hudson (PCUSA judicatory executive) on dilemmas congregations face in evaluation.

Discover inspiring, practical ways your board can make its meetings become opportunities for deepening faith, developing leadership, and church renewal. Research included interviews with lay leaders; clergy; and seminary, judicatory, and denominational staff from mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Evangelical Christian faith traditions.

Clergy, worship or music committees, organists, and choir or music directors will find this a practical and invaluable guide to the role and power of music to express and form faith. Clark researched twenty-four Episcopal and United Methodist congregations to discover how churchgoers express their faith through music. Discover how music can either enhance or detract from tradition and faith experience. Explore how it can shape your congregation's character.

Parsons and Leas have created an important tool for congregational leaders in this application of systems theory to evaluating a congregation's life and readiness for change. Church leaders can explore the forces at work and examine the systemic implications in seven key areas: strategy, process, pastoral and lay leadership, authority, relatedness, and learning. The Manual provides an overview of systems theory, complete instructions for administering and scoring the Congregational Systems Inventory (CSI), and guidance for interpreting and explaining the inventory results using sample scores. The Congregational Systems Inventory is a survey designed to sample the perspectives of church staff, governing board, and key lay leaders. Be sure to order some packs of the CSI along with this valuable resource.

A practical guidebook for the inquiring layperson seeking a holistic, intelligent look at the spiritual life, and for the pastor or religious professional seeking a systematic framework and spiritual practices to re-ignite the flame of faith. Groff explains what it means to believe and what to do after you say you believe-through a unique integration of spirituality and service, heart and mind, and various faith traditions. Explore five spiritual disciplines: community, solitude, learning, service, and vocation. Great for study groups.

Mead explores what church growth and evangelism really mean in a time when it is mathematically impossible for every congregation to achieve significant numerical growth. He argues provocatively that spiritual, organizational, and missional growth are just as important as numerical growth, and that all four are needed for a truly healthy and growing church. Case studies and discussion questions are included.

The authors draw on their combined experience to create an exciting model of congregational leadership that understands congregations as relational systems. Learn how relational processes can liberate members for ministry and mission in the world and release pastors for appropriate leadership.

The authors combine clinical psychology and spiritual direction to create a practical model of spirituality that integrates theology, psychology, and an understanding of individual frailties in a new way. Spiritual Wholeness draws on counseling experience with more than 400 clergy and pinpoints the human problems, traps, and temptations awaiting those who choose the clergy role. Clergy will learn to develop and maintain a psychologically healthy spirituality in relationships with others. Judicatory executives and therapists working with clergy will gain insight into addiction problems and how to help clergy move toward greater emotional and spiritual health.

Explore the concerns, needs, and fears of single adults and how your church may be ignoring them. Discover practical ways churches have opened their ministries, worship, and congregational life to include singles. An eye-opening discovery that a church growth model need not rely on family-oriented programs and structures.

Grounding evaluation in the theological and organizational context of mission (everyone a minister), Hudson describes case studies of four successful evaluation models that include the whole church. She suggests how "whole church" reviews might result in stronger pastoral ministry and new directions for mission. An important resource that will help clergy and laity explore mutual ministry, judicatory executives strengthen congregations, and new pastors get through their first congregational evaluation.

Leaving a pastorate is hard on both congregation and pastor. Learn how to make this transition a growth experience for all. Written for congregations and pastors, Saying Goodbye skillfully weaves accounts from clergy, laity, and educators of seven denominations with White's own insight as a former General Presbyter to create a resource for meaningful and healthy partings. Includes examples of a "farewell" worship service and litany for closure of a ministry.

Roy Oswald, who ministers to pastors with great compassion, perceptiveness, and skill, now brings eight more years of field experience to an updated edition of "New Beginnings." Important new material includes: More wisdom about how to take care of yourself in the midst of the stress of transition...how to get clear about your role in your new parish...how to get along with people you don't like (as well as people you DO like)...how to celebrate with the search committee. Getting off to a good start in your new pastorate is crucial. If you have moved or are about to move into a new parish ministry, this workbook will help you take advantage of the special opportunities and avoid the pitfalls in the first 18 months of a pastorate.

Ever wonder why some people never return after their first visit? Why some join but you rarely see them? Or why others become active participants in your church family's life and worship? Discover how your congregation can meet growth challenges. Based on Alban Institute research, The Inviting Church includes a self-study design for assessing assimilation processes and analyzing visitors' perceptions.

Can how you leave a church affect your feelings about leaving or create baggage you take to your new congregation? Gain insight into termination styles and how they affect both you and your parishioners. Using real-life illustrations, Oswald guides you through Alban Institute research findings to help you prepare for a departure.

No church is immune to the problems that can arise when parishioners behave in difficult ways. Responding to such situations with self-awareness and in a manner true to one's faith tradition makes the difference between peace and disaster. In this must-read book, Boers shows how a better understanding of difficult behavior can help congregational leaders avoid the trap of labeling such parishioners and exercise self-care when the going gets rough.

Pastors and others who want to develop their skills as teachers of prayer and spiritual practices will find in this book not only wisdom for themselves but easily accessible lesson plans, enabling them to share Vennard's insights with others while infusing the activities with their own spirit and creative ideas. Through this book, readers' hearts are made ready to explore the wonder of strengthening their relationship with God through prayer.

This planning and leader training handbook offers a distinctive broad-based, small-group approach to building community. From the Jewish havurot to Christian koinonia, you will gain a thorough understanding of community, learn how to plan an effective small-group ministry, how to select and train leaders for all kinds of small groups, and how to start small groups that are a part of and not apart from their congregations. Appendices provide an overview of the sociological, psychological, and biblical theological literature on community and a wealth of presentation and leader training resources.

Becoming the Pastor You Hope to Be unapologetically urges clergy readers to develop practices that will help them become more excellent ministers. A long-time field educator, now serving as a denominational staff person responsible for ministerial formation, Barbara Blodgett believes excellence is a matter of doing simple things with care and consistency. Ministers who commit themselves to excellence will grow and flourish, and even become happier in ministry. Blodgett urges ministers to resist praise and instead to ask for feedback, to seek the company of mentors who are better than the reader is at what he or she does, to be vulnerable before their peers in order to learn from them, and to define themselves as a leader who does not merely take activist stances but risks entering into deep, transformative relationships. Improvement in ministry, Blodgett argues, comes about not through extraordinary leaps and bounds but rather through adoptingsimple habits and carrying through on small but thoughtfully made choices. Addressed to ministers, ecoming the Pastor You Hope to Be is also a valuable resource for discernment committees, Christian educators, leaders of continuing education and lay education programs, and all those who partner with theological schools to help form ministers, both lay and ordained.

In this book, the authors have taken the best of human resource practices and immersed them in a congregational context, providing a comprehensive manual for supervising, motivating, and coordinating staff teams. Rendle and Beaumont give both detailed and big picture guidance on hiring, job descriptions, supervision, performance evaluation, staff-team design, difficult staff behavior, and more. Their combined experience in consulting and training with staff and leaders of large congregations proves invaluable in this manual for today's leadership demands.

Nationally known for his work and teaching on clergy development, Oswald integrates research and experience into a liberating perspective on the pastoral calling. Discover how imbalances in your physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual lives can destroy the very ministry you seek to carry out. Learn what you can do to restore that balance. Packed with self-assessment tools, real-life experiences, and specific self-care strategies.

Drawing on the work of Bowen, Friedman, and his own many years'' counseling experience, Peter Steinke shows how to recognize and deal with the emotional roots of such issues as church conflict, leadership roles, congregational change, irresponsible behavior, and the effect of family of origin on current relationships. Discover why working relationships may be "stuck" in certain behaviors. Psychologically sound, theologically grounded, and practically illustrated with case studies, How Your Church Family Works will help you better understand how your congregation works and how to keep it healthy. Featuring a new preface and a fresh redesign, the book is a classic work by one of the most respected names in congregational consulting.

Many people long for a deeper relationship with God, yearning for silence in a noisy world and a respite from busyness. Written for lay and ordained leaders who wish to bring the gift of space and silence to members who feel called to the contemplative journey, the book introduces the purpose of retreats, provides a theological and biblical understanding of the model, and offers guidance for designing and leading these gatherings. Sample retreats, a design for home retreats, and suggested resources are included.

In this era of "faith-based initiatives," congregations increasingly find themselves in the business of establishing and supporting community ministries-daycare for infants and toddlers, respite care for elders, and programs for housing rehab and home repair, tutoring, and social justice advocacy. In this volume, Carl S. Dudley revises and updates his earlier book, Basic Steps toward Community Ministry, which Loren Mead called "the most valuable book on parish ministry I've seen in a decade."

If you've read the book or viewed the course, now lead your church in study with this workbook approach to Alban's Inviting Church materials. Its fifteen sessions are designed to help clergy or lay leaders guide committees or study groups through a dynamic exploration of their congregation's IQ (invitation quotient). Discover how well you invite, welcome, and incorporate new members. As participants uncover the inviting elements of your church, they develop a personal witness style that emerges comfortably from their individual gifts.