Shaping environments where community emerges naturally   
  
Can you really create community through master plans and elaborate strategies? Sometimes, says Joseph Myers--but more often, lasting authentic connections occur organically within healthy environments. Organic Community offers you practical guidance for helping your church or organization create spaces where community naturally comes into being.  
  
"Once again, Myers hits a home run. Organic Community calls us all--church and congregants alike--to honesty about our goals and then offers us sophisticated, efficacious, and grace-filled ways to realize them."--Phyllis Tickle, contributing editor in religion, Publishers Weekly   
  
"Looking back on twenty-four years of church planting and pastoral ministry, I wish I had thoroughly digested Organic Community before I got started. It would have saved so much wasted energy--mine, and those whose lives I foolishly tried to 'master plan.' This is a book I will reread and widely recommend."--Brian McLaren, author, activist; brianmclaren.net  
  
"If a classic is something that has never finished what it has to say, then this little gem is a 'classic.'"--Leonard Sweet, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, Drew Theological School; distinguished visiting professor, George Fox University; www.wikiletics.com  
  
"Myers acknowledges that his is a different kind of how-to book. As much, or more, it is a how-not-to book that exposes fallacies inherent in common organizational policies and procedures, which are all the more destructive in organizations relying on volunteer efforts."--Ray Oldenburg, emeritus professor of sociology, the University of West Florida; author, The Great Good Place  
  
  
Joseph R. Myers is an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and owner of FrontPorch, a consulting firm that helps churches, businesses, and other organizations promote and develop community. Author of The Search to Belong, Myers is also a founding partner of the communication arts group settingPace, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Joseph R. Myers is an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and owner of FrontPorch, a consulting firm that helps churches, businesses, and other organizations promote and develop community. Author of The Search to Belong, Myers is also a founding partner of the communications arts group settingPace, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can't be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem, says Joseph R. Myers, is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge.  
  
Organic Community challenges key leaders to become environmentalists--people who create or shape environments. Outlining nine organizational tools for creating a healthy environment, Myers shows readers how to diagnose their current situation and implement patterns that will develop possibilities for healthy communities.

The bestselling author of The Search to Belong helps church leaders create more natural congregational communities by becoming environmentalists--people who create or shape environments.

Myers, Joseph R.

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

Author’s Note 

Introduction: okay, but how?

1: Organic Order

2: Patterns

3: Participation 

4: Measurement 

5: Growth 

6: Power 

7: Coordination

8: Partners

9: Language

10: Resources 

A Final Word 

A Special Thanks 

Notes 

Selected Bibliography 

Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can't be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem, says Joseph R. Myers, is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge.  
  
Organic Communitychallenges key leaders to become environmentalists--people who create or shape environments. Outlining nine organizational tools for creating a healthy environment, Myers shows readers how to diagnose their current situation and implement patterns that will develop possibilities for healthy communities.

Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. Outlining nine organizational tools for creating a healthy environment, this work shows readers how to diagnose their situation and implement patterns that helps develop possibilities for healthy communities.

Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can't be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem, says Joseph R. Myers, is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge. "Organic Community" challenges key leaders to become environmentalists - people who create or shape environments. Outlining nine organizational tools for creating a healthy environment, Myers shows readers how to diagnose their current situation and implement patterns that will develop possibilities for healthy communities.

Organic Community (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) [eBook]

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Organic Community (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) [eBook]

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