A second edition of Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is now available! With helpful updates throughout, the new edition features five new chapters on Appreciative Inquiry applied in real congregations. When First Presbyterian Church in Altadena, California, was asked to provide a mission study report for its pastor nominating committee, the congregation was afraid they would find themselves engaging in busy work and producing a report that would wind up in a file gathering dust. They then asked professor Mark Lau Branson to consult with them on writing this report. He invited them to join in a process of Appreciative Inquiry--a transformational organization change process--which resulted in a major shift in congregational conversations and a new sense of hope. Memories, Hopes, and Conversations recounts the experience of First Presbyterian and outlines a process that any congregation can utilize to harness the energies of the congregation at all levels of its common life. Branson first leads readers through the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry and bracingly explores biblical texts for understanding the practice in a faith context. He then outlines and illustrates a four-step process--Initiate, Inquire, Imagine, Innovate--that creatively employs constructive conversations and questions to evoke storytelling and spur imaginations. Branson persuasively demonstrates how concentrating on needs and problems can mire a congregation in discouragement and distract it from noticing innate strengths. By focusing on memories of the congregation at its best, members are able to construct "provocative proposals" to help shape the church’s future. Grounded in solid theory and real-life practice, Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is a groundbreaking work of narrative leadership and the first book to apply the principles of Appreciative Inquiry to the lives of congregations.

This book tackles the core problem of how painful historical memories between diverse religious communities continue to impact—even poison—present-day relations. Its operative notion is the healing of memory, developed by John Paul II. Chapters explore how painful memories of yesteryear can be healed and so address some of the root causes. Strategies from six different faith traditions are brought together in what is, in some ways, a cross-religious brainstorming session that identifies tools to improve present-day relations. At the other pole of the conceptual axis of this book is the notion of hope. If memory informs our past, hope sets the horizon for our future. How does the healing of memory open new horizons for the future? And what is the notion of hope in each of our traditions that could lead to a common vision of good? Between memory and hope, this book seeks to offer a vision of healing that can serve as a resource in contemporary interfaith relations. Contributors: Rahuldeep Singh Gill, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Maria Reis Habito, Flora A. Keshgegian, Anantanand Rambachan, Meir Sendor, Muhammad Suheyl Umar, and Michael von Brück

In a world that is more culturally diverse than ever, pastors and lay leaders need skills and competencies to serve in multicultural contexts. This rich blend of astute analysis and practical guidance offers a praxis of paying attention, study, and discernment that leads to genuine reconciliation and shared life empowered by the gospel.

“Time to reflect. Time. This is what clergy renewal is about. To continue in ‘the heat of work’ our whole career is to rob ourselves and our congregations of the time we and they need to reflect on our lives and our call. Here is where change begins.” - Melisa Bane Sevier “Melissa Bane Sevier – fresh from (and refreshed by) a much-needed sabbatical – offers personal testimony, practical advice, and an array of helpful resources that will inspire and empower pastors to seek and then to drink deeply of a time apart. This is a moving statement from and on behalf of our hard-working clergy, written for them but also for those who care about their well-being and that of the congregations they serve.” - Dorothy C. Bass - Author, Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time “Vital congregational ministry depends on the leadership of pastors, priests, and rabbis whose hearts sing with vision, creativity, faith, competence, and passion. In Journeying toward Renewal Melissa Sevier uses her pastoral sensitivity to tell her own renewal story and the stories of those who have been lead in the planning and practice of renewal leave by the question “What will make my heart sing – again?” Whether you’re planning an extended time of renewal leave, or just trying to bring regular sabbath time back into your days and weeks, this book will be a trustworthy guide.” - Richard Bruesehoff - Director for Leadership Support, ELCA - Co-author of Clergy Renewal: The Alban Guide to Pastoral Sabbaticals

Cultural Writing. African American Studies. Biography and Memoir. Former Clinton diarist, Janis F. Kearney, pens a biography that is part historical narrative and part oral history. In 2001, Kearney began a journey, in search of black American's stories about the south that shaped a man and a leader such as William Jefferson Clinton; and memories about this southern enigma, from those who knew him. Over a two year span she collected conversations, memories, and stories from men and women from across the country. These conversations, and a carefully painted abstract of the pre-civil rights Arkansas that Bill Clinton called home; are the centerpieces of this biography. CONVERSATIONS includes rare and unheard voices of black Americans speaking candidly about America's 42nd President. Their memories, stories and thoughts on William J. Clinton, the man, the president and the enigma offer unique and rare pictures of Bill Clinton and his role in American and presidential history. The book include narratives from former President William J. Clinton; former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, U.S. Congressman John Lewis; Civil Rights leader, and NFPW Founder Dorothy Height; Baseball Great Hank Aaron; Pulitizer Prize winning biographer David Levering Lewis, and Harvard Sociologist, professor, William Julius Wilson, and many more.

Reflecting on the challenging issues & events of his times, Pope John Paul II reveals his personal thoughts in a truly historic document. The world's greatest communicator offers a moving insight into his intellectual, spiritual, & pastoral experience.

Leaders in congregations and Christian organizations wrestle with an unraveling of the world in which they have little experience and training. While they are offered unending resources by experts on leadership, some with claims to biblical blueprints, the challenges seem mismatched to those methods. Branson and Roxburgh frame the situation as one in which "modernity's wager"--the conviction that God is not necessary for life and wisdom and meaning--has defined the Western imagination. Because churches and leaders are colonized by this ethos, even when God is named and beliefs are claimed, approaches to leadership are blind to God's agency. Branson and Roxburgh approach this challenge as a work in practical theology, attending to our cultural context, narratives of God's disruptive initiatives in Scripture, and a reshaping of leadership theories with a priority on God's agency. With years of experience as teachers, consultants, and guides, they name practices which lead to more faithful participation. Leadership, God's Agency, and Disruption is wide-ranging in cultural and biblical scholarship, challenging in its engagement with numerous leadership studies, and practical with its focus toward the on-the-ground life of churches and organizations.