Revisioning and Reforming for STaR Mission (Fall 2022, Fall 2024)

Many small town and rural congregations and communities are facing significant changes and challenges in their context. Their leaders realize that their congregations need to adapt their mission to respond to these challenges in ways that support sustainability and promote vitality.  Yet they often struggle in discerning what God is calling them to do and how to practically implement new visions and forms that emerge.   Students will learn and develop skills for entering a congregation and leading a discernment process.  Students will learn how to concretely implement a vision for new strategies or forms for mission aimed at sustaining and revitalizing congregational ministry. Students will be offered methods, tools, and processes to assess the congregation’s current situation using hard data as well as the congregation’s energy and spirit. This course highlights numerous possible missional formations as well as other creative adaptations and the methodology to bring them to reality.​