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:
- Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
- #1 – In every organization, some things work well
- #2 – What we focus on becomes our reality
- #3 – Asking questions influences the group being questioned
- #4 – People are more confident moving forward when they can bring along parts of the past
- #5 – When we bring parts of the past into the future, they should be the best parts
- #6 – It is important to value differences
- #7 – Organizations are like plants. They grow toward what gives them life
- #8 – The language we use creates our reality
- #9 – In a change process, outcomes should be useful
- #10 – In a change process, all steps should be collaborative
- Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change: A Case Study
- Dr. Jason Bybee’s use of Appreciative Inquiry in learning about how Discipleship works
Great ideas and suggestive methodologies. Old Hickory misses you!
Thanks so much, Cathy! We miss Old Hickory, too. Lots of great people there.
Appreciate the video, Mark, and your work with appreciative inquiry.
I genuinely appreciate it, Leonard. I have some more stuff coming soon in the way of videos that I am excited about.