Carl Dudley and Nancy Ammerman, Congregations in Transition: A Guide for Analyzing, Assessing, and Adapting in Changing Communities. Jossey-Bass, 2002.
Companion volumes:
Referenced in: Social Ministry Strategies
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Often the awakening which leads a congregation into more intentional social ministry is a shift in the demographics of the surrounding community. Some models of congregational development would suggest the church move its location to follow the middle-and upper-middle income population migration to the suburbs. A more incarnational model would encourage churches to assess the new realities of their mission environments and craft fresh and sustainable ministry models. This book helps congregations toward that end.
The authors, Dudley and Ammerman, are seminary-based congregational researchers, and the book clearly reflects that background, but it was not written in an ivory tower. It reflects the authors’ participation in the Congregations in Changing Communities Project, and the input from more than twenty congregations (Presbyterian USA) from San Francisco who were part of the National Planning Committee of Urban Ministry Office. Also, this is not a complicated book. It is an easy-to-use , step-by-step guide for task-forces to map out who and where a congregation is, assess a congregation’s readiness to face the challenges of the changing mission context, measure and mobilize a church’s energies, and craft new and exciting futures. The opening chapter describes exactly how to use the book, and how each chapter and sub-chapter contributes to local needs. Not every church will need this text, but even those who do not use it is a primary resource should keep it available for reference. Also, while clearly written to mainline denominational concerns, and highly ecumenical in scope, the insights translate quite well into more evangelically conservative churches.
In the introduction, the authors recommend two companion resources. One is Carl Dudley’s Community Ministry which tells the stories of several congregations in transition, and presents a parallel process for urban ministry planning. Also, they suggest frequent interfacing with the standard congregational research text edited by Ammerman, Studying Congregations: A New Handbook.
Publisher’s Product Description
This hands-on guide helps congregations meet the reality and challenges of today’s constantly changing urban and suburban church communities. Congregations in Transition, written in an easy-to-follow workbook format, is designed to help communities of faith focus on the changing needs of their members and explore the opportunities and options open to them.
About the Authors
Carl S. Dudley and Nancy T. Ammerman are faculty members at Hartford Seminary and researchers at the Hartford Institute for Religious Research. They are authorities on congregational studies and the relationship between congregations and their communities.
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Related Areas
See Other Resource Guides on Christian Social Ministry:
- Social Ministry, Introduction
- Theological and Philosophical Foundations of Social Ministry
- Spirituality for Ministry of Social Compassion and Justice
- Strategies For Christian Social Ministry
- Perspectives and Strategies For Social Ministry Among the Urban Poor, Urban Ministry
- Christian Perspectives on Political Theory and Church-State Relations
- Christian Perspectives on Economics and Public Policy
- Leading Change and Transition
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