Many of the people who participate in Alban’s national seminar on strategic planning would like to do planning in their congregation but somehow feel stuck, explains Dan Hotchkiss, Alban senior consultant and leader of the upcoming Shaping Holy Conversations: Pathways…

When I speak at seminaries about leadership and management in congregations, professors usually need to be somewhere else, and students tend to doze. To wake them up, I mention a favorite topic, “ministerial authority.” Seminarians love to talk about the…

In the first week of my first call, I received a letter from a beloved seminary professor and friend. He wrote, “You will be good news to the people in those two churches.” It was the first time that I…

Over the course of its 2,500 mile trek, CrossWalk America has met with over 11,000 Christians, been hosted by nearly 150 churches, and stayed in over 200 homes. We have listened to literally thousands of faith stories. What we’ve discovered…

Since the Spring of 2000, the Alban Institute has been creating new resources for churches struggling with the transition between pastoral and program size. We are clearer than ever that life in the zone between 150 and 250 (average Sunday…

The ministry of encouragement is the primary way a pastor and lay leaders help a congregation discover and fulfill its call from Christ to make disciples. One of the advantages of evaluating ministry through the lens of encouragement is that…

In working with groups around the issue of lay ministry—or what I’ve come to call the “ministry of all”—I’ve developed a guided meditation based on Paul’s struggles to be accepted as a minister. The meditation invites participants to imagine the…

Health-care practitioners have just “discovered” the impact of spirituality on health. Healers have always known the power of belief and the mystery of the human body. As medicine has become a field of scientific study and health care has become…