Organization Development Commons^™

Fostering Healing Through Narrative Transformation, Randall Carr

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

The methodology developed for recent research originated from the idea that God is constantly transforming and adapting a congregation’s narrative. With this in mind, it becomes imperative for church leaders to discern how God continues to alter the congregation’s narrative in order to effectively reach out to an immediate context. To assist church leaders to identify God’s transformative work, I developed a procedure designed to move from a congregation’s existing narrative to envisage a future narrative. This process blends Appreciative Inquiry, Ethnographic Inquiry, and Paul Ricoeur’s three moves toward mimesis, culminating in the discovery of God’s transformed future narrative.

Discovering …

Reinventing Translation: Toward A Common Language For Scholar-Practitioners, Ann Kowal Smith, Karen R. Nestor

Engaged Management ReView

Translation starts in one language, and converts to a second. But it doesn't change the languages or the people who "speak" them. We propose – instead of translation – the joint development of theory and practice that becomes a common language – a common language of a community of scholar-practitioners. This paper describes the work of two scholar-practitioners committed to addressing a pressing problem of practice: the educational attainment and skills required for positive outcomes in the 21st century workplace. This paper considers the original design and implementation of an innovative, theory-based workplace learning initiative (Books@Work) and, arising from this …