Robert's Ramblings

Appreciative Inquiry Is Coming

What in the world is "Appreciative Inquiry?"
      It's a different way of looking toward the future and planning for it.  (Because the name is long, I will abbreviate: AI).  Appreciative Inquiry starts with the assumption that in the eyes of their members, organizations have valid reasons for being, or they would not be.  Something works and is effective.  The key to the future lies in discovering what those members value.  To do that, AI, as the name suggests, asks questions:  What is memorable for you?   What works in what we are doing?  Where are our strengths?  How do we build upon those?  When AI is used in the church, the scope of inquiry expands to include memorable moments in our faith journeys.  Then AI invites people to answer such questions by telling their stories.  From all these stories, common themes emerge.  From those themes, we learn what we value and, thus, how to plan for the future.   The stories we tell are at the core of AI.

Do you mean to tell me we can design for the future by telling stories of the past?
      Precisely!  I admit that when I first learned of AI, I asked the same question.  But think about it.  Our identities, whether as individuals or as the church, are stored in the stories we remember.  Often the significance of those stories lies below the conscious level.  In telling them we raise their meanings to the heightened consciousness.  The same process works for individuals and groups.

      Another consideration:  We of the church live by our stories.  We believe that when we tell and retell the stories, God re-creates them among us.  Do you want examples?  They are in the Holy Week we've just experienced.  On Good Friday, the old spiritual asks us, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"  And we know that, not literally but spiritually, we were.  On Easter day we celebrate with Paul:  "We have been raised to life with Christ."  Stories of what God has done, is doing and will do are our "stock in trade."

      When I had gotten this far into my inquiry into AI, I learned the method has been used for at least twenty years "out there"-by multinational corporations, governmental agencies and educational institutions.  If they can use AI effectively, certainly, it adapts beautifully for us in the church.

What's broken that we have to fix?
      That's the wrong question.  The proper one is:  How can we maximize the effectiveness of our ministries to our faith community and among our neighbors?  You don't need to be told that change keeps coming faster and faster all the time.  I think those lines from a James Russell Lowell poem that seems truer today then when he wrote over a century ago:

      New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth;

      They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of truth.

      The story of what God has done and continues to do through Jesus Christ is timeless.  But as people’s needs and expectations change, we have to be able to adapt with them.  Finding who we are through our stories allows us to respond out of our strengths.

But I'm not special, and I don't have special stories.
      Wrong on both counts!  You are indeed special;  God says you are.  As for those "special" stories, we’ve been conned into believing the only ones worth sharing are, if not miraculous, then spectacular.  Not so!  The most authentic ones come out of ordinary experience.  May I suggest that you begin thinking now about times of encounter with God and how your life has been impacted for good because of the people of God or how you have impacted others.

That's my part?  When do I tell my story?
      Collecting our stories will be no small task. And we're just getting started in Appreciative Inquiry.  More, much more, information will be shared as time goes on.  We project that we will spend much of 2003 gathering and understanding our stories, drawing themes from them and making plans based on them.

      By the way, here's a list of our Appreciative Inquiry Leadership Team:

      The Rev. Bill Bennett, pastor of DeSoto Presbyterian Church, serves as our consultant.

-- Robert E Shelton