Jim Herrington, Mike Bonnem, and James H. Furr, Leading Congregational Change: A Practical Guide for the Transformational Journey. Jossey-Bass / Leadership Network, 2000.
Referenced in: Leading Change and Transition
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
The authors adopt the term transformational leadership from renowned author, James McGregor Burns (1978), which suggests leaders should help followers embrace a vision of a preferred future. Toward that end, they present congregational change as a transformational journey, emphasizing it is not simply an issue of the right technique and strategy. Instead, alongside strategy must be a set of ongoing disciplines which create an environment that welcomes and sustains deep change over the long haul. For strategy, they suggest an eight stage process:
- Making personal preparation
- Creating urgency
- Establishing the vision community
- Discerning the vision and determining the vision path
- Communicating the vision
- Empowering change leaders
- Implementing the vision
- Reinforcing momentum through alignment.
This is similar to Kotter’s Leading Change. For the ongoing disciplines, the authors glean from writers such as Peter Senge to designate four dynamic learning disciplines that are always present in churches that execute change successfully:
- Generating and sustaining creative tension
- Harnessing the power of mental models
- Enabling team learning
- Practicing systems thinking.
One of the more refreshing contributions is their repeated emphasis on the leader’s deep change (cf. Quinn) and personal spiritual vitality as part of the necessary groundwork for change. Many recognize this volume as the standard on the subject of congregational change. Also available in the workbook format, A Practical Guide for the Transformational Journey.
From the Publisher
With this much-needed handbook, the authors brilliantly combine their experience guiding dozens of churches through the change process with both the study of Christian disciplines and the sophisticated understanding of such important business thinkers as John Kotter on leading change and Peter Senge on learning organizations. In this eminently readable book the authors have distilled their insights and practices into simple but powerful concepts for leading congregations, whether long established or recently formed, through profound change.
Leaders using this guide will also be interested in the companion Leading Congregational Change Workbook, which offers assessment questions, planning worksheets, activities, and case examples for each stage of the process.
About the Author
JIM HERRINGTON is executive director of Mission Houston, an interdenominational, multicultural pastoral effort to transform the city of Houston. MIKE BONEM is president and cofounder of Kingdom Transformation Partners, a church consulting and training firm based in Houston. JAMES H. FURR is senior church consultant with Union Baptist Association and adjunct professor of sociology at Houston Baptist University.
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Related Areas
See Other Resources on Change and Transition in Churches:
- Change and Transition in Churches, Intro
- Change Concepts and Theories
- Overcoming Change Resistance, Creating Change Receptiveness
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