Are you thinking about your church’s vision for 2022? How does it compare to your vision for 2021? One critical tool influences the success of every vision. That tool is a good strategy. Without strategic leadership, we frustrate ourselves and lead a…
Read More
Congregations make critical decisions about things that really matter – budgets, starting new programs, eliminating programs, personnel. In so many of the decision-making meetings I attend, we spend tons of energy promoting a decision we reached before the meeting even…
Read More
The process of deciding a budget sets priorities for the year. Yet the process can be routine and boring. How can the conversations be livelier, more Spirit-inspired? “Let’s Talk About Resources” — part of Lake Institute on Faith & Giving’s “Shifting Ground”…
Read More
It was William Bridges who helpfully named that there is a difference between change and transition — change is situational, whereas transition is psychological. Change can happen in a moment, but transition — adapting to that change — lasts much longer. In…
Read More
“If your vision is ambitious, you will always need more staff than you can afford, no matter what resources you have at your disposal.” So says Dan Hotchkiss, a former Alban senior consultant and now one of the consultants of…
Read More
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have learned a great deal more about the inequities and injustices in American society. As in-person life resumes in much of the country, we are forced to ask how we will live and…
Read More
It’s been our core work at Alban for more than four decades now — strengthening congregations by supporting and equipping their leaders for the challenges and opportunities before them. This week, we pause our look at the future for hybrid…
Read More
One of the changes that the pandemic has brought to many congregations is that geographic proximity is no longer a primary factor in determining who participates in our congregational life. A family-sized congregation reports that former members who moved across the country…
Read More
Early in the pandemic, the question I heard most from congregational leaders around the United States and from the members of my own congregation in North Carolina was, “When will things get back to normal?” As days of sheltering at home became…
Read More
In this week’s edition: what we are learning as the pandemic persists. Former Alban Senior Consultant Susan Beaumont writes about five assumptions about congregational life that are failing us now. Adam Russell Taylor from Sojourners asks us to reflect on what the pandemic is teaching us about…
Read More