Order of the Ascension

 

 

 

 

 

PATHWAYS OF GRACE PACKETS

Packets for participants in Pathways of Grace programs

Silence and Action

Making Ourselves at Home 

Attrait

Adoration - Awe -Service

SPIRITUAL MAPS

Three Movements of the Spiritual Life - From Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Henri Nouwen      

      Loneliness to solitude   

      Hospitality

      Illusion to Prayer 

      Three Movements of the Spiritual Life -parish assessment

The Threefold Rule Of Prayer (also called the Prayer Book Pattern) 

More detailed posting on the Threefold Rule

    Variations: Functions Served    Responsible Thinking     Chart    Explanation and Chart

A map: Worship and Prayer

A map - Presence in Providence

The Benedictine Promise and the Dynamics of the Spiritual Life

In Your Holy Spirit

Contemplation - Intercession - Action -  the model

Contemplation - Intercession - Action - article

The Christian Life - short OA tract from the 1980s    A worksheet

Character Traits - By Urban Holmes

The Person Being Formed - a worksheet

 

ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS

These are models drawn from the field of organization development that can be used to assess the parish on the same terms as any organization.

Organizational Diagnosis

Four Key Systems

Intervention Choices

Aspects of Shared Responsibility           Worksheet

Systems Theory

Systems Thinking - a presentation. given by Rebecca Debow

Transformation Model 

 

THE PROCESS OF CHANGE

The Process of Planned Change - a booklet used in the novitiate, Order of the Ascension

        Process of Planned Change 

            Overview - one page diagram

            Diagnosis

            Planning

            Implementation

            Evaluation

Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention has an updated and more complete exploration of the Process of Planned Change  AMAZON

        The Process of Change      

        Organizational Change Strategies 

        Designing & Implementing Interventions - worksheet

        OD Research -- what seems to work?

        Resistance to Change

Lists of competencies for Parish Development and OD 

      Practitioner Competency for Interventions in the Parish    Worksheet   

      Rules of Thumb for Change Agents 

      Congregational Development Leadership/Consultant Assessment 

      Organization Development Competencies - from 2001, being revised in 2021 by the OD Network

      Definitions of Ascetical Theology & Organization Development

Developmental Initiative Worksheet - you can use for planning and reflection purposes

Developmental Initiative Evaluation - for use as you reflect on and learn from your DI

 

PARISH DEVELOPMENT STORIES

The material in this section may be useful for parishes as they design a weekend event to begin an improvement process. The PDFs include the materials used in such weekends. All of this has been on-line for at least 5 years. It was originally posted in service of that parish's work as they prepared for, and looked back on, the weekend. It has also served other churches as they consider ways to begin a parish development effort.  You may find it useful to look at the Parish Life Cycle as background for reading the stories. 

Saint Paul's - beginning a transition 

Saint Clare's - Episcopal Spirituality: Individual Spiritual Growth and Parish Development

Trinity - This parish had a practice of holding a yearly vestry retreat at a conference center. 

 

 

GROUP DEVELOPMENT THEORY

I-C-O -- inclusion, control, openness (was affection in earlier forms)

I-C-A -- Basic Concerns of Any Group

I-C-A (or O) graph

Group Development Theory - Leadership Issues

Stages of Team Development 

Jack Gibb on Trust Development in Groups     

Trust Development - Gallagher

Shared Leadership: Task and Relationship

 

GROUP & TEAM ASSESSMENTS

Changing Norms

Team Meeting Assessment

Likes-Concerns-Wishes Meeting Assessment

Meeting Assessment--Group Processes

Rating Team Effectiveness

Team Effectiveness Assessment- human factors

Team Meeting Assessment (2)

Team Role Assessment: Task & Relationship

 

 

METHODS

Survey-Feedback

Intergroup Team Building Process 

A Meeting Cycle

Designing a Meeting

Improving Vestry Meetings 

Discernment - three threads    

Communal discernment       Related worksheet

Discernment listening guidelines

Discernment readings

Testing Process

Channeling Process

A few structures and processes to facilitate listening

Lectio Divina

     Lectio Divina - from Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

     Spiritual Reading - from Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

     Accepting the Embrace of God - Fr. Luke Dysinger, O.S.B.

     Article on Lectio - Abbey newsletter

Silence quotes         Survey on silence

An Attitude of Silence in the Daily Office and the Holy Eucharist

Learning from Experience - EIAG method

Group methods, structures, norms for parish faithfulness and health

Participant Role in a Team

 

LEADERSHIP

    Bonding: Priest & Community       Worksheet

    Use and Misuse of Power

    Oversight of Parish Life and Development

    The Life of the Pastor

    Pastoral Leadership

    Worksheet for Leaders Managing Emotionally Difficult Issues in the Parish

    Leadership Conferences

    Vestry Self-Assessment

    What do you bring to the table?

    Board Development Functions           Related worksheet

    Parish Development Teams          A job description 

 

SPIRITUAL MATURITY & EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

       What kind of person is being formed?

       The emotional competency framework

       Assessing emotional competency 

       Practitioner Competency for Interventions in the Parish

        Emotional and Social Intellegence Elements

        Feelings Sheet - a help in naming your feelings

        Worksheet - managing emotionally difficult issues in the parish

        JoHari Window        Expanding Area of Free Activity

       Interpersonal Gap - John L. Wallen         Worksheet

       Behavior Description     Worksheet 

       Learning from Experience - EIAG method 

       The Drama Triangle  - Persecutor, Rescuer, Victim

 

Giving and Receiving Feedback

 Skillfully Receiving Feedback

Core communication and feedback skills

Feelings - a list of feelings that me help you name and accept responsibility

A Feedback Process for use in a discernment for holy orders process

      Worksheet

Feedback - Negotiation Worksheet        

 

ASSESSMENTS

Purposes of the Parish Church Assessment

Assessing the Parish's Spiritual Practices - In Your Holy Spirit Model

Assessing Your Spiritual Practices - For individuals, In Your Holy Spirit model 

Benedictine Promise - a overall parish assessment 

Benedictine Promise  - personal spiritual life

Benedictine Promise - and the Dynamics of the Spiritual Life in a Diocese

Assessing using the Benedictine Promise   Related on Wonderful and Sacred Mystery

Christian Life Model assessment - parish

Christian Life Model - Your spiritual life 

Renewal-Apostolate Cycle - an overall parish assessment

Renewal-Apostolate Analysis

Renewal-Apostolate Analysis #2

Renewal-Apostolate Cycle - Rule of Life Worksheet

Renewal-Apostolate Cycle distorting tendencies -ways in which the parish can cut across the Cycle

 Interview Questions - a worksheet (Rotted in the Renewal - Apostolate Cycle)

Shape of the Parish - an exercise

Parish Assessment - based on Albrecht's Four Key Systems 

Parish Assessment - based on Organizational Diagnosis model

Parish Community Life Assessment

Parish Assessment Workbook - 1988 publication ...a very useful resource with a bit of adaptation.

Conflict - heading off parish conflict

Discernment in Parish Life

Eucharistic Assessment

Liturgical Space Considerations - Note: the second part was used with a particular parish to test issues it faced. You might revise the form to test issues of your parish.

Incorporation Process Assessment - Welcome/first contact, Orienting, Integrating

Evangelization and Growth

Vestry Self-Assessment

What do you bring to the table?

Circles of Influence 

Aspects of Shared Responsibility

Strategic Management Assessment

Parish Oversight Assessment

Likes - Concerns - Wishes Process

              Leadership Assessment: Likes, Concerns, and Wishes

              Parish Assessment: Likes, concerns, wishes

              Response to a report: Likes, concerns, wishes

              Meeting assessemnt: Likes, concerns, wishes

       Three Movements of the Spiritual Life -parish assessment

      The Church: Analogies & Images

      Key Factors (2021)         Key Factors (2009)

          Article on Key Factors at Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

     Assessments - a packet of assessments used in the Shaping the Parish program

     Assessing Parish Cultural Density

 

Assessments using presentation of options 

These assessments seek to begin a parish conversation about a desired future.  The idea is to provide a wide range of options so that people are helped to shift from "Yes - No" thinking to more nuanced and complex thinking. The intention is to maximize choices, thereby increasing people's free choice and internal commitment (see Intervention Theory). Note: these assessments are best used as examples to help you create an assessment that fits the particular situation of your parish. We'd appreciate your offering written credit on your assessment form if you have made significant use of these materials.

Liturgical Options

Liturgical Space Arrangement - This offers several pictures and asks people to put them in rank order

Liturgical Space Choices - A series of forced choices 

Parish Options      Worksheet #1   Worksheet #2   Ranking Worksheet

        Parish Options - article in "Means of Grace, Hope of Glory"

               Parish Options with description of Basic Choices

     Possible Futures - several parishes used this process

      Results - St Brendan      Possible Futures - merger      Results - merger

       Possible Futures - Trinity       Results - Trinity

 

HISTORY

The History of Parish Development in the Episcopal Church (as of March 2023)

Understanding from Within: Working with Religious Systems

Two Schools of Congregational Development  and a web page article as PDF and on-line

History of OD chart

Myths and Norms in Parish Life: A Guide to Parish pathology - written in the 1979s by Loren Mean, then director of Project Test Pattern. A mix of humor and wisdom.

  

INTRODUCTION TO OD

      Definitions of Ascetical Theology & Organization Development

      Defining Organization Development

      History of OD chart

      Taking the al Out of OD

      Principles of Practice

      Organization Development at WomenRising 1992-2016 - Two members of OA were involved in this work

 

EVANGELIZATION - MEMBERSHIP GROWTH 

Evangelization

Six Strategies for Growth

Defining and Marketing the Parish

St. Paul's Parish, Seattle: Growth & Decline

Parish Options

Buzz

Newcomers Gathering

Four Growth Strategies     (older version - Three Growth Strategies)

Deciding to be in Community

The Sunday Morning Experience 

Stay in the City

 

TRAINING MANUALS

Church Development Institute - 2008 Manual 

Shaping the Parish - Diocesan program manual

Leadership Training Institute (LTI)

Human Interaction 2008

Group Development

Design Skills - training, educational and program design

Consultation Skills

Other programs

Group Facilitation Skills

Sanctification of All

 

BOOKLETS: EUCHARIST, CONFESSION

Eucharistic Practices: Notes for Facilitators - A training session to increase Eucharistic competence

        Examples PR flyers   One    Two

Liturgical Presence 

Practices During the Eucharist

The Holy Eucharist - with suggestions for use of the body in the liturgy

The Sacrament of Reconciliation

 

DEVELOPMENTAL INITIATIVES

This section consists of a number of Developmental Initiatives used in the Shaping the Parish program. Our experience with participants in the Church Development Institute (CDI) and the College for Congregational Development (CCD) was that their projects were rarely strategic or developmental. While the ideas strategic and developmental are part of the teaching in both that doesn't seem to result in related projects. For the most part the projects are worthy endeavors. However, they rarely have much of a ripple effect or likely to impact the parish culture. On the other hand, the process of designing those projects does often have payoffs as participants increase their abilities for team work and project design. The Shape of the Parish leaders decided to focus on helping parish teams produce truly strategic and developmental results emphasizing the results for the parishes over the design learning of the participants. Their hope was that participants would come away with a stronger sense of what was developmental and strategic having implement such initiatives. 

A Developmental Initiative Worksheet - you can use for planning and reflection purposes

Developmental Initiatives from the 2011-12 program

"Interventions: Methods and Processes for Building Healthier Parishes" - a PDF In the Developmental Initiatives (DIs) below you'll find references to pages in the PDF.

Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, Intervention by Heyne and Gallagher is a book based on that earlier work. It will be available from Ascension Press shortly.

The DIs below were categorized by the degree to which they were strategic and development--A, B or C.

A

Communal Voice 

This initiative is to create or significantly improve the parish’s approach to communal voice. The core of this initiative is around establishing a pattern of community meetings, the use of survey-feedback methods, and an understanding of communal discernment. A useful and effective “communal voice” depends on the positional leadership (rector, vestry, others) staying in role.

Creating an Adult Foundations Course

This initiative is designed to assist in the development of proficiency in the Christian life by the development and implementation of an adult foundations course program.

     “Outline of an Adult Foundations Course in Faith & Practice”

     Course Outline from From Nothing so contagious as holiness

Listening Processes

Increase the parish’s processes and structures for listening. The immediate goal is to put into place several listening processes within the next three months. And set in motion the longer-term goal. The longer-term goal is to establish a parish culture given to respectful and thoughtful listening to God, the larger church, and one another.

Euchristic Competence

The project is to develop the Eucharistic competence of the congregation. This is a long-term developmental approach. In fact, it never ends because there are always new people joining the life of a parish. The overall goal is to establish and maintain a critical mass of people in each congregation of the parish who are proficient in their participation in the Holy Eucharist.

Rule of Life - Critical Mass

This project has the capacity to build a critical mass of members with an intentional spiritual discipline, a rule of life. It might require offering the process several times over 2 or 3 years or in combination with other programs on the spiritual life for the critical mass to emerge.

Serving One Another

This project touches both on issues of emotional intelligence and spiritual practices connected to community and service. The long-term intention of this project is to create a climate in the parish of quality service to one another. That service needs to be grounded in behavioral norms operating in most of the groups of the parish. The short-term objective is to begin to establish these norms in two parish groups.

For the purposes of the project we’ll describe quality service as having three characteristics:

• Timely
• Thorough
• Respectful

A possible pathway is to invite two groups to work with you. Consider beginning with a couple of groups that are already pretty good at living with quality service norms.

Conflict Competence

This initiative is directed at significantly improving the congregation’s ability to engage in and manage conflict. The project assumes there is not presently a high level of conflict in the parish.

Arts and Spirituality Parish Self-Definition

This initiative is directed toward helping the parish deepen or generate a connection to the arts that defines the parish in a healthy and sensible way.  There needs to be a kind of critical mass of activity, interest, and marketing for the effort to become part of the parish’s self definition.

Grounding in Spiritual Practices

This initiative is offered as the foundation for a strategy focused on grounding the parish in spiritual practice and developing competence in spiritual practice.  When used as a key element of a broader strategy, this initiative can be used to build a critical mass of members with competence in spiritual practice.

Daily Office - Equipping the Individual 

The immediate objective is to establish a system of training and coaching so individuals may develop the habit of saying the Office. During the period of this project the system is to be created and launched. The longer-range objective is to have 20% of the adult ASA saying the Office in some form. The system established needs to be one that will have this likely outcome.

Public Daily Office

Establish the permanent practice of a public offering of the Daily Office.

 Do in a manner that:

1) Draws an adequate number of participants

2) Is offered on at least four days (Mon- Sat) for at least ten months of the year.

3) In which lay members are either immediately or eventually able to officiate. 

Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practices 

This initiative is to set in motion and sustain the parish’s work on the primary task of formation though training, guiding and coaching members in spiritual practices. The work is one of establishing a “demand system” and critical mass that supports that focus. In this initiative the assumption is that the “map” being used is the one in In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practice, Robert A. Gallagher 2011, Ascension Press

Orientation to Spiritual Practices

Provide an adequate overall orientation to spiritual practices within the first five months of a person’s arrival in the parish.  Make it a priority to ground new members in spiritual practice. Weave this onto the parish culture: Place the dates for the program on the parish schedule for at least the next 16 months. Have the program on the parish web site. Have related books always for sale and some related handouts always available for free or at low cost. Fresh posters about the next session always up. Weave into preaching.

Trust Development

This initiative is designed to engage the parish in understanding and acting in a manner that approaches trust as something to actively develop rather than a quality noticed when it is missed. We are seeking a parish with characteristics related to high trust: competence, reliability, responsiveness, reciprocity and congruence. With a critical mass of members acting in a way that develops trust, especially competence in spiritual life and practice as that relates to inclusion and hospitality, acceptance and challenge dynamics, communication and listening, and discernment and decision-making. The task is to shape the parish so it facilitates trust in and through its climate, structures, processes and behavioral norms. We seek ways of inclusion, acceptance, communicating, and making decisions that result in high levels of internal commitment, self-management and collaborative relationships.

Sunday Liturgy -- full, rich, graceful, beautiful

This initiative is directed toward helping the parish Sunday Eucharist consistently be an extraordinary event.  The goal is that this becomes so true, and so well know to a broader community, that it becomes part of the parish’s self-definition and identity. This initiative is strategic to the extent it is not simply a segment of parish life or an occasional activity but is related to a sustainable and meaningful parish identity. Such an identity must arise out of the parish’s existing life—there must be an adequate number of parishioners with skill, knowledge and passion for Eucharistic practice; it must fit the existing culture of the parish. A parish may want to begin the initiative on Eucharistic Competence either before taking this initiative on, or do it in a somewhat parallel time line.

OD Process - Appreciative 

This initiative is to launch a significant OD process improvement process using an appreciative process. This is to include increasing the competence of parish leaders for such work and integrating methods throughout the parish. Appreciative Inquiry is a strategy for intentional change that identifies the best of "what is" to pursue dreams and possibilities of "what could be"; a cooperative search for the strengths, passions and life-giving forces that are found within every system and that hold potential for inspired, positive change.

Coping with Loud Voices

This initiative may fit your situation if you have a small group of members who behave in a manner that suppresses the voice of the larger congregation or the voice and authority the rector and/or the majority of the vestry.

Exploring Congregational Options

This initiative may fit your situation if the parish no longer has the ability to continue in the ministry structure it has been accustom to.  A reasonable target might be to find a new alignment that stabilizes the situation for the next few years. The immediate goal of the initiative might be to begin the exploration of options and to map out an initial design for a process over the coming months.

Culture Change

This initiative is a broad ranging effort at significant culture change to include the parish’s way of being and doing around spiritual practices, primary task, emotional & social intelligence, and dealing with change. Some parishes face the most difficult choice—change or die. Others find themselves increasingly aware of how much better and healthier the parish could be. Very few parishes have any idea of the magnitude of change that will be required. A systemic, parish-wide culture change is a long term, complex and difficult task.  It will call for persistence and courage, wise leadership, and a capacity for strategic thinking and management.

 

B

Improving Group Fuctioning

Improve the functioning of the vestry and other significant groups in the parish in  an action – research process. Facilitate a process in which members of the group learn from their experience as a group. Use a learning-from-experience process with the vestry and other selected groups. The process may be the use of meeting assessment forms or another EIAG process (see attachments below). The same process is to be used for at least two meetings in a row and scheduled for use at several other meetings over the following 14 months.

 

C

Giving Feedback

As parish leaders, participants increase their use of skillful feedback. In the long-term you are seeking to make feedback from leaders a normal part of parish life. In the short-term you are: 1) using feedback to improve at least three working relationships, 2) deal with a difficult member, 3) improve your feedback skills, and   4) increase your own self-awareness and self-management in offering feedback.

 

THE DIOCESE

The Three Primary Tasks of a Diocese

     With an Assessment Worksheet

Elements of a Diocesan Parish Development System

The Role of the Bishop and the Diocese - a blog posting

Pastoral Leadership Today - M. Smith SSJE

Diocesan Training Programs - Loren Mead presentation 1970s

Critical Mass - Diocesan Assessment

Benedictine Assessment

Four Assessments 

 

PARISH AND DIOCESAN CONSULTATIONS

A few examples of the working packets used in consultations & workshops.

St. Augustine's, Oakland       Christ Church Frederica, GA

Trinity, Wilminton, DE           St. Paul's, Fayetteville, AK

Charleston WV Parishes 

Diocese of Southwest Florida Vestry Conference

Diocese of New Jersey Strategic Session

 

HUMOR

      Does the Damn Thing Work?

      Intervention

 

Postings on conflict