This may fall under what NPR's Car Guys call the "shameless commerce division." As I get ready to head for the PC(USA) summer conference in Salt Lake City, I'm wanting to be sure my new book continues to have a presence on the Internet.
Hope in Conflict: Discovering Wisdom in Congregational Turmoil (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2007, http://www.thepilgrimpress.org/) offers a new approach to church conflict. Instead of a problem to be solved or managed, i urge leaders to look deeper into conflict and see how conflict calls our attention to changes God desires for the church and ways the congregation either resists the changes or is rocked by them. The book is both practically and theologically grounded with plenty of real case studies (fictionalized to protect the identity of the congregations and their leaders) for clarity. In contrast to many current writers and consultants, I have drawn from the structural and strategic family systems theory to focus on structures, stories and symptoms as ways to look beneath the surface for the inner wisdom of the conflict. The leader and the consultant need to find loving, positive and hopeful frames (hypotheses) for the conflict before trying to challenge the accepted realities of the congregation.
This approach works well for judicatories to "train" conflict teams in helping congregations utilize conflict. Contact me if you'd like me to come to your area and work with your team. I would also like to continue to consult with congregations along with judicatory teams to keep proving and improving this approach.
For two opportunities to study with me using my book see the LPTS website, http://www.lpts.edu/ . The first is an online seminar this September with the Wayne E. Oates Institute (http://www.oates.org/), and the other is a seminary class offered this Spring every other weekend, Friday evening and Saturday morning, Feb. 8-April 26: "Church Conflict Utilization." Register through the Registrar's Office at LPTS.
Hope in Conflict: Discovering Wisdom in Congregational Turmoil (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2007, http://www.thepilgrimpress.org/) offers a new approach to church conflict. Instead of a problem to be solved or managed, i urge leaders to look deeper into conflict and see how conflict calls our attention to changes God desires for the church and ways the congregation either resists the changes or is rocked by them. The book is both practically and theologically grounded with plenty of real case studies (fictionalized to protect the identity of the congregations and their leaders) for clarity. In contrast to many current writers and consultants, I have drawn from the structural and strategic family systems theory to focus on structures, stories and symptoms as ways to look beneath the surface for the inner wisdom of the conflict. The leader and the consultant need to find loving, positive and hopeful frames (hypotheses) for the conflict before trying to challenge the accepted realities of the congregation.
This approach works well for judicatories to "train" conflict teams in helping congregations utilize conflict. Contact me if you'd like me to come to your area and work with your team. I would also like to continue to consult with congregations along with judicatory teams to keep proving and improving this approach.
For two opportunities to study with me using my book see the LPTS website, http://www.lpts.edu/ . The first is an online seminar this September with the Wayne E. Oates Institute (http://www.oates.org/), and the other is a seminary class offered this Spring every other weekend, Friday evening and Saturday morning, Feb. 8-April 26: "Church Conflict Utilization." Register through the Registrar's Office at LPTS.
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