Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change

Questioning Forward: A Case Study for Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change

I’ve enjoyed posting about the assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry. In this video, I explain how I utilized this method at the Old Hickory Church of Christ. During the time of my research, we were looking for a way to connect with a younger generation. With a lot of tension in the area at the time between generations over things like worship styles, I was concerned with how we could find an innovative method that would not be met with some resistance.

Appreciative Inquiry helped me to discern what changes I could implement, and how to do this in a way that I knew everyone would support. If you’d like to learn about how the method works, this is from some of my personal experience. In the video I share:

  • Some background about the context where I was doing research.
  • The way I went about using Appreciative Inquiry among some of the members to discern what areas were safe for innovation.
  • How I created anticipation about the new Faith Village Program.
  • How in my absence the congregation took ownership of the vision and grew the program into an excellent community-focused ministry.

Here is the primary book from which I learned about this method and how it can lead to positive changes and renewed missional efforts at churches. Though I used the first edition (Well worth the price for which you can purchase it used), this second edition has a lot of exciting updates, especially in terms of case studies and missional components:

Other posts about Appreciative Inquiry you may enjoy:

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