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Congregational Life: Leaders & Outreach: Discernment/Vocation

tools for empowering leadership, developing joyful, informed volunteers and supporting effective teams which strengthen outreach and hospitality

Books

In On Purpose: Finding God’s Voice in Your Passion, authors Magrey deVega, Sam McGlothlin, Jevon Caldwell-Gross, and Susan Robb help us see God's purpose for our lives, how to open ourselves to God's voice, and how to take the first or next step to follow God's call. Reading this book and exploring life choices alongside others, individuals will learn how to channel their passions, hear God’s voice, and live the life they were meant to live.

To support reading in a group, resources include a full leader’s guide and DVD with four teaching sessions.

Watch this promo to learn more about this study. Additional components include: 

Call to Allyship: Preparing Your Congregation for Leaders of Color     Go Your Own Way          Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood     Searching for Agabus: Embracing Authenticity and Finding Your Way to You               You are Changing the World: Whether You Like it or Not     Your Heart Was Made for This

In Our Library

Discerning Life Transitions: Listening Together In Spiritual Direction - By: Dwight H. Judy                         Cover Image

Coaching & Other Support

The Remarkable Life Deck: A Ten-Year Plan for Achieving Your Dreams by Debbie Millman, Other Format | Barnes & Noble®Discover the Ten Year Plan in this interview between Tim Ferriss and Debbie Millman. (The Ten Year Plan exercise is from 1:30-1:40.) Traci Smith highly recommends the interview and the author's cards and a step-by-step GUIDE.

Congregational Discernment

three women talking at a tableLessons from pastors who have left parish ministry

By Journalist and UCC minister in Duke Divinity's Faith & Leadership

Though the number of pastors leaving parish ministry hasn’t amounted to a “great resignation,” those who have left still offer insight into the current state of the American church.

CDP Sticker (1) (1)Start with listening.

Avoid making assumptions about your community's needs, and instead, listen with intention to the people inside your faith community and in your surrounding area to understand what assets already exist and where the needs truly are. 

Over the course of approximately one month, the Community Discovery Package will guide your group through three activities and two gatherings. You'll listen deeply to the people in your community, cultivate curiosity about why your community is the way it is, ask through-provoking questions, and experience your surroundings through new lenses. 

This resource is for you if:

  • You're curious about how your context has changed in the last few years.
  • Your faith community is ready to try something new but you need a tool to guide you.
  • You've ever developed a new ministry, only to have it flop.
  • You want to see lives transformed by ministries that truly matter to the people they're designed to serve.

Pricing for the Community Discovery Package is based on your faith community's size, starting at just $100.

Learn more.

Order the Community Discovery Package.