Today we first got into groups to review our rough drafts on our case studies and then Dr. Bolger lectured about the shape that many action plans for change in a church can take. Essentially this model was created in response to a desire to move a relatively large church in a new direction and so, if our contexts don’t fit that description exactly, we will have to alter the model some. Actually, right now I’m wondering about the angle I should take on my context, and this will affect how I appropriate this action plan model. The thing is that I began the study of my context from the understanding that we should look back on a past ministry experience and then try and figure out what we might have done differently. At the same time, we could also take the another approach and try to anticipate a future context. The thing about my context is that it has ended…the fellowship group no longer exists, and the church is ripe for a new fellowship group. In some ways, it makes more sense for me to imagine what I could do now and in the future to facilitate a new fellowship instead going back into a situation that no longer exists, per se. That is, the church, the neighborhood, its history, ect. , is all still there and so there’s definate overlap, but if I chose to think about future possibilities more, it will affect how I plan on bringing the model to bear on this context.
