Welcome
This is the first post from makingchurchdecisions.com! Julia and I are very excited to be offering resources in support of consensus based decision making in the church. We hope that our site will be a place where we can learn from, and encourage each other. Greetings from the team.
Who we are
Julia is a layperson in the United Methodist Church who has served on the staff of the (Global) General Board of Discipleship based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her areas of expertise include: mediating disputes, assessing Congregational vitality, transforming conflict, and leading strategic change and visioning. Julia is a respected Keynote Leader, Facilitator and Consultant. Previous books include: “Partnersteps: Contemporary Cooperative Ministries” (Discipleship Ministries), and “Guidelines for the Small Church”(Abingdon). She produced the video “Small Churches Can Make a Big Difference!” (Discipleship Ministries). Julia has also written curriculum, articles and web resources
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Terence is an ordained Minister of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). He served 15 years as the General Secretary of the UCA Assembly. Terence was responsible for running many large national meetings for the Uniting Church using its consensus based approach to decision making. He has been engaged as a consultant in relation to alternative business procedures by the World Communion of Reformed Churches (twice), including for its 2017 General Council meeting in Leipzig Germany; and by the United Methodist Church (USA) for its 2016 General Conference. Terence is also a member of the Executive of the Christian Conference of Asia and a delegate to the 2016 meeting of the World Methodist Council. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is a nationally accredited mediator.
Making Church Decisions – What we are doing
We will post articles once a week. The reason that we have produced this website is to support our book that Abingdon is publishing on May 2nd. It is called The Church Guide for Making Decisions Together. You can purchase the book through our virtual store. This arrangement with Cokesbury will be in place from May 2nd. We hope that you will use our “virtual store” as the small affiliate fee helps cover the costs of the website. There is a lot of good material in the book. However there is also so much more that can be explored about consensus decision-making. We hope to provide a space through which people across the church, around the world, can raise their questions, share their experiences and develop resources. This will support leaders who want to move towards a healthier, more Christian way of doing group discernment. If you are interested in learning more about faithful and effective group discernment subscribe to our blog or follow us on Facebook. Take culture and context seriously, be inclusive, prayerful, Spirit led, and true to Christian values. Join us at Making Church Decisions. Your comments will be a major contributor to the value of the website. So please start today by letting us know what you would like to discuss or to receive resources on.