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Reimagining Church: Adaptive Leadership

Visioning a future church for the now; creating communities centered on Christ, cosmic good, and conscientious living.

Books

Abundant Lives | A Progressive Christian Ethic of Flourishing (Udis-Kessler)     All the Way In: A Story of Activism, Incarceration, and Organic Farming     Cover for The Art of Gathering     Ask Me for a Blessing (You Know You Need One)     Amazon.com: A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into  Advantages, and Why It's Everyone's Business eBook : Barden, Mark, Morgan,  Adam: Kindle Store     bell hooks' Spiritual Vision: Buddhist, Christian, and Feminist     Beyond Welcome     A Brown Girl's Epiphany: Reclaim Your Intuition and Step into Your Power     Building Up a New World | Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact     Front Cover - Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory     Chingona: Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice     Cover Image     Courageous Faith | How to Rise and Resist in a Time of Fear (Heath)     meenadchi: Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication – ooga booga     Picture of Digital Ministry and Leadership in Today's Church     Digital Overwhelm     Dirt Road Revival     Don't Burn Out, Burn Bright: Young, Jason: 9781540902955: Amazon.com: Books     Do the Work     The Enneagram for Black Liberation: Return to Who You Are Beneath the Armor You Carry     The Everyday Advocate: Living Out Your Calling to Social Justice     Finding Our Way to the Truth: Seven Lies Leaders Believe and How to Let Go of Them     Francis of Assisi, Movement Maker: The Unconventional Leadership of a Simple Saint     The Genius of Justice     Holding Change     How We Live Is How We Die     In Good Time: 8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and  Practicing Peace: Michel, Jen Pollock: 9781540900548: Amazon.com: Books     BL_JesusAndTheAbolitionists_Cover_9798889830818c     Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future     Leading While Black: The Intersectionality of Race, Leadership, and God          Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice     Management in a Changing World     The New Science of Social Change     Only Work Sundays | A Laidback Guide to Doing Less while Helping Your Church Thrive (Miller)          People Throw Rocks At Things That Shine: A Clergy Whistleblower's Journey:  Caulfield, Rev. Beth: 9798986103211: Amazon.com: Books     The Perpetual Pivot     Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership after Empire     Purposeful Empathy: Tapping Our Hidden Superpower for Personal, Organizational, and Social Change     Reclaiming Power in Congregational and Community Ministry     The Resilient Pastor  -     By: Glenn Packiam     Cover Image     Social Change Now     Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: How to Change the World in Quiet Ways     The Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a  Church Alone - Kindle edition by McIntosh, Gary L.. Religion & Spirituality  Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.     Stuck Together     Sustaining While Disrupting book cover          Trusting Change     Unraveling Religious Leadership: Power, Authority, and Decoloniality     Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day's Radical Vision and Its Challenge for Our Times          Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter     We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence     We Need to Build     We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope     We Will Not Cancel Us     When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer     You are Changing the World: Whether You Like it or Not     Your New Now - Finding Strength and Wisdom When Yo | Cokesbury

Cohorts & Support

Lab Cohorts

Faithful innovation requires more than just a great idea. You need a structured process, a guide, and a community of support on the journey with you. Innovation Lab's Lab Cohort is an 18-month, guided experience to develop, test, and launch an innovative ministry.

Lab Cohorts

ecoAmerica logoecoAmerica expands climate leadership beyond traditional environmental circles. They are building a diverse network of major institutions and thought leaders in five sectors — faith, health, communities, higher education, and business — who have the power to inspire tens of millions of Americans on climate change, in counties and communities nationwide including the heartland. Watch this video to learn more about their programs and hear leaders speak.

Mindful Leaders Lounge is a supportive conversation space for leaders who are working on themselves so that they can be creative, mindful, adaptive and resilient through change. Part of her Defy the Trend Community, it is moderated by Nicole Havelka of Nicole Havelka Consulting. Learn more at defythetrend.com.

Trainings

Fresh ExpressionsFresh Expressions is a movement; a band of misfits, visionaries, prophets, evangelists and creative entrepreneurs from across all church traditions who can see what isn’t there and have the grit and faith to go out, listen, love, serve, tell people about Jesus and work with new communities to create a new and authentic expression of church that makes sense to its participants.

Visit the website to learn what a Fresh Expression Church is, and to get equipped, connected, and inspired.

Danger Boat ProductionsThe skills improvisers use to create compelling stories are valuable off-stage too. In their workshops, Danger Boat facilitators guide groups through exercises to enhance listening, collaboration, and creativity. Participants will gain skills in: adaptive leadership, navigating different perspectives, creative brainstorming, deep listening, and comfort in the unknown. Workshops can be tailored for any group size and duration, from 55 minutes to multi-day retreats. Discover new approaches, bring your group closer, and build a “yes, and...” culture all while having fun.

The Art of Difficult Conversations Tane DangerThe Art of Difficult Conversations with Tane Danger of DangerBoat Productions/Theater of Public Policy

School for Lay Ministry Email Banner (1)-1This year-long learning community will grow together, developing the confidence to lead with a solid foundation in church history, theology, and essential leadership skills like conflict resolution. This program offers a flexible learning environment that accommodates busy adult learners through a blend of self-paced lessons and interactive live meetings.

Innovative Solutions

Successful innovation is never a solo endeavor. Whether you serve a denomination, church, or other organization, Innovation Lab can help you break out of the traditional molds of ministry. They offer customized training, workshops, coaching, and resources that can meet your unique needs.

Innovative Solutions

new banner-1The Church can and should be an agent of justice in this world, and you can be a part of that story. “Faith, Lies & Spies: Bonhoeffer and You” is an immersive experience led by renowned theologian Dr. Andy Root and designed to deepen your sense of purpose, strengthen your awareness of divine guidance in your life, and prepare you to take deliberate action in the face of so much division and uncertainty.

Multimedia

Wordpress-2Based on their discussion with Clara King about lay-led ministry Faith+Lead decided to dedicate an entire Q&A episode to address them.

In this listener-inspired episode, Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile, Rev. Dr. Terri Elton, and Dr. Alicia Granholm dive into the shift from clergy-led to lay-led ministry models, tackling audience questions head-on and exploring the implications of this change for churches like yours.

The Art of Difficult Conversations Tane DangerThe Art of Difficult Conversations with Tane Danger of DangerBoat Productions/Theater of Public Policy

Departure: Why I Left the Church by Alexander Lang

  • Sep 2, 2023 / Updated: Dec 21, 2023 - 12 min read
  • Explores:
  • The Great Pastor Resignation
  • 1000 Bosses
  • Unrealistic Expectations
  • Unseen Damage
  • Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
  • The Final Service

A Conversation with Gretta Vosper: “Falling in Love with Being Together: 
The Church’s Role Beyond Being Church”

Gretta Vosper is passionate about the work of capturing the “off-label benefits” of religion for individuals and communities for which religious belief or practice is no longer meaningful. She has served West Hill United Church for over twenty-five years, supporting its transition to a theologically non-exclusive community, the first of its kind within traditional Christianity.

A best-selling author, Gretta has written three books: With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe, Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief, and Time or Too Late: Chasing the Dream of a Progressive Christian Faith. Gretta’s blog, A Whole Lot of Broken, is on Substack.

WATCH NOW

Lab Resources

No matter where you are in the process of reimagining ministry, Innovation Lab offers resources and tools that will catalyze innovation in your context. Their resources are designed with busy leaders in mind and can fit within the demands of any ministry setting’s schedule and budget.

Lab Resources

People waiting for a job interview7 Suggestions for Outsourcing Your Church’s Staffing Needs

How can outsourcing fill church staffing needs? Greg Rogers shares seven suggestions for outsourcing staff drawing from Oakmont Baptist Church’s response to unexpected yet urgent staffing needs.

Pueblo Matriarch_PRIMARY.jpg5 Indigenous Women Asserting the Modern Matriarchy

They’re reclaiming the tradition of female leadership and turning the old, white, male-dominated perspective of history on its head.

BY CHELSEY LUGER / Yes! Magazine

MAR 30, 2018

Image: A Sisterhood Is Sacred. Left to Right: April Chavez (Kewa), Talavai Denipah-Cook (Ohkay Owingeh/ Hopi), Jazmin Arquero (Cochiti/Zuni), Dina DeVore (Jemez/Kewa/Laguna), Alexis Wade (Laguna), Marquel Musgrave (Nanbe' Owingeh), and Kim Smith (Diné). Photo by Cara Romero

Agile Church | Technology Agile Church: Committed to the Future Success of Mainline Churches

Agile Church was founded to help church leaders and congregations navigate the tidal wave of change affecting growth and threatening the survival of mainline churches. Agile Church is a proven system that combines decades of church leadership experience; a diverse range of consulting services; innovative technology; and a library of proven resources into a single church growth system.

LogoThe Ministry Collaborative (nice name!) is committed to 'creating a national support system for pastors, ministries, and congregations". The provide cohort and immersive programs 'to improve community engagement'; their Christian podcast is a supplemental tool covering topics such as 'preaching, racial justice, community, and the cultural attitude toward congregations'. Find the podcast here.

The Soul of Transformation: Exploring Vocations in Social Justice is a podcast and resource for future leaders who not only see and name the realities of injustice in the world but can start imagining new and better solutions. This is for change agents, people who want to work towards achieving authentic racial justice, mitigating the dire impacts of climate change, facing the challenges of immigrants and refugees, and ensuring equality for people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. Learn more. Contact Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis and Rev. Dr. Gary F. Green II for more info

Person covering their face with a piece of paper with a drawn-on smiley faceThe Risk of Trying to Please Everyone

Mike Bonem says a process of meaningful change can be slowed, interrupted, or completely stopped if a leader insists on trying to please everyone. What is critical is building enough genuine support so that the effort can move forward. Read more.

Krista Tippett interviews Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering, in Remaking Gathering: Entering the Mess, Crossing the Thresholds

In Our Library

Front Cover Preview Image - 1 of 9 - The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age           Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes (TED Books): Heffernan,  Margaret: 9781476784908: Books - Amazon               Book - Paperback          Church in the Inventive Age  -     By: Doug Pagitt     CHURCH ON PURPOSE     Church Refugees: Sociologists Reveal Why People Are Done with Church but Not Their Faith  -     By: Josh Packard Ph.D., Ashleigh Hope     9781558963788: Churchworks: A well-body book for congregations     The Circle Way     Book - Paperback     Cover Image     The Courage Way     Did God Abandon Us? Helping Small Churches Heal (Maddox)     Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters:  Phyllis Tickle: 9780801013553 - Christianbook.com     Faith of Leap, The: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage -  eBook: Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch: 9781441234247 - Christianbook.com          A Field Guide for the Missional Congregation: Embarking on a Journey of Transformation     Get Off Your Donkey! | Baker Publishing Group     The Gift to Listen, the Courage to Hear          The Great Spiritual Migration by Brian D. Mclaren     Leading a Life with God     Liberating Hope | Daring to Renew the Mainline Church (Piazza & Trimble)     Amazon.com: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die:  8601410083830: Chip Heath, Dan Heath: Books     The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network #17) Cover Image     Spade_mutual_aid     Book - Paperback     Book - Paperback     New Growth in God's Garden     Picture of Our Strangely Warmed Hearts     Part-Time Pastor, Full-Time Church   -     By: Robert Larochelle          Book - Paperback          Salsa, Soul, and Spirit     9780827234680: Spirited Leadership: Empowering People to Do What Matters     Structured for Mission          Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To     9781414308937: Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to Great     Vital: Churches Changing Communities and the World: Acevedo, Mr Jorge:  9781426767555: Books - Amazon     Cover Image          Women, Spirituality and Transformative Leadership - SkyLight Paths  Publishing

Studies - In Our Library

Book - Paperback     Book - Paperback