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"The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech." Ed Friedman

Language of Belonging

Fresh Expressions

Jeff Patton

Leonard Sweet

Discernment

Renovare Spiritual Formation Group Order of Meeting

Worshipful-Work site with spiritual discernment process for churches

Discernment page very helpful

Out of Silence: The practice of congregational discernment by Amy Johnson Frykholm from The Christian Century 4/3/07

The discernment process from Bath UCC, Bath, ME (see below for more about this church)

Constitution links

How We Developed our Values and Vision (which in the latter half describes how they developed their structure out of values and vision) from King of Kings Lutheran Church in Shelby Township, Mich outside of Detroit

Good basics on developing a constitution for this era from the American Baptists...not everything on this page will fit for us, but still helpful.

Getting to Yes: Essential Qualities of a Permission-Giving Church

Permission Giving Interview with Bill Easum

Bath UCC in Bath, Maine...these pages are copies of cached pages on the internet since their web site was not active in late Feb, 2007

Stability Triangle (includes description of Meditation process, Administrative Team, Gifts and Calling Team, Equipping Team and Elders)

Core Values, Bedrock Beliefs, Vision and Mission discernment process

Small groups/Life Circles

Tom Bandy's Stability Triangle chart http://fairlawnwest.org/stabilitytrianglebandy.pdf

Commentary on permission giving structure using the Stability Triangle implementation by Tom Bandy and Bill Easum

http://fairlawnwest.org/bandyeasumimplement.htm

Observations and commentary on permission giving structure by Bill Easum and Tom Bandy http://fairlawnwest.org/constieasumbandy.htm

A local church consultation report by Tom Bandy that is helpful for us http://www.fairlawnwest.org/newhopeok.pdf

This is from the Mass Conf of the UCC which is trying to help its congregations to transform. They have used Tom Bandy as a consultant for their conference. Scroll through it. Farther down is specific info on a stability triangle structure, but the other stuff is helpful too. This is a pdf file (you will need Adobe Reader to read it if you don't already have it on your computer).

Sample constitution from St. Mark's Lutheran in Fla http://fairlawnwest.org/constistmarks.htm

Fairlawn West present constitution http://fairlawnwest.org/constitution.htm

Ohio revised code on constitutional requirements http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=125_HB_0305_I