UPCOMING EVENTS

Susquehanna Valley Presbytery is seeking to partner with Albany Presbytery in the Healthy Congregation’s Project (HCP). The goal of HCP is to train 4 to 6 leaders in each presbytery to become experts on maintaining and improving congregational health.

Through a series of workshops HCP enables its participants to:

  • Gain a renewed sense of purpose and mission
  • Cultivate strong leadership capacities to challenge the congregation
  • Learn how to develop healthy patterns of living together in community
  • Learn to focus on strengths, resources, and options for the future
  • Boost confidence in responding to challenges and opportunities
  • Learn how to lead calmly and with thoughtfulness
  • Reflect theologically about relationships
  • Move the congregation toward healthy functioning

If you are interested in the HCP leadership process contact Tim Coombs.

A book worth a look…

Welcoming Resistance, by William Hobgood, Alban Institute, 2001

Nearly every pastor or congregational leader that has sought to introduce a new program or make their church function better has encountered some degree of resistance. William Hobgood posits that such expressions of resistance are not necessarily a bad thing. At the very least, they communicate that people value and cherish your church’s current ministry.

Of course, we congregation’s do and need to change. The reality is that 1) change is always occurring; 2) change is essential to the growth and development of the congregation, its leaders, and its congregants; and 3) the leader must manage difference so that it neither descends into discord nor destroys mission, leadership, or growth.

Welcoming Resistance offers non-reactive strategies and principles to make the change process not only possible, but a rewarding experience for all.