Taking It Home, Workshop 10: Understanding Systems In Your Congregation, in the Harvest the Power Program
The call to acts of leadership, which can be practiced from wherever we sit, is also an invitation to reclaim the creative capacity within every human being — especially those who are willing to engage the complex, adaptive challenges of our time. — Sharon Daloz Parks, contemporary educator and author
Make plans with other members of the congregation's leadership team to follow up on ideas that emerged from examining the congregation's challenges from a system point of view.
Find Out More
Resources that informed this workshop may enhance your congregation's leadership library; read the works of Barry Oshry and Peter L. Steinke to explore organizational system theory in more depth:
Congregational Handbook , Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005
Friedman, Edwin H., A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix ( New York : Seabury Books, 2007)
Oshry, Barry, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life ( San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publications, 2007)
Steinke, Peter L., Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1996)
Steinke, Peter L., How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1996).
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Last updated on Saturday, October 29, 2011.
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