The Center for Parish Development Resources

A Strategic Church Transformation Process

(The Center for Parish Development, 1989; rev. 2004)

Resource Type:  Workbook for church leaders

Main Audience: Church leaders serious about leading a significant and time-consuming process of reorienting their congregations to embrace a missional paradigm theologically and practically.

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Summary:

A key premise of the booklet is that if church leaders are to move their congregations to an effective and faithful witness as sign, foretaste, and instrument of the coming Kingdom of God, “they must learn how to transform not only what church bodies do, but the church bodies themselves.” The five-phase process involves:

One: Getting ready for the journey (building the case for the process of change and designing a roadmap for that process);

Two: Developing a common view of reality (developing consensus on the key issues facing the church);

Three: Discerning God’s call (defining the future direction of the church through prayer and scripture study; and crafting a missional strategy to guide the church);

Four: Designing congregational life and witness (composing the action plans, policies and structure that express the missional strategy);

Five: Living into a missional future (embedding the vision and missional strategy in concrete and practical ways).

The booklet describes the objectives and steps for each phase.

The booklet is in no way sufficient, alone, to guide church leaders: it was drafted to help them understand the process of change and would be used in accompaniment with coaching from the Center for Parish Development.