Help in planning an approach to an organization with great value differences

Harrison Owen hhowen at comcast.net
Wed Nov 10 13:19:58 PST 2004


About 10 years ago (October 1992 to be exact) The Presbyterian Church (USA)
found itself in some state of disrepair and thought it wise to consider
their state and plan for the future. 500 folks representing every aspect of
the Church met in Dallas, as I remember – and for 2 ½ days had at it. They
talked about every imaginable aspect of Church Life and Mission and by the
conclusion had produced the largest book of proceeding I have ever seen –
346 pages! The Theme was “Discerning the Spirit – Envisioning the Future.
And I think it is fair to say that is exactly what they did. Obviously they
didn’t solve all the problems in the churchly world, but they certainly laid
down a good foundation. They also produced an outstanding video of the same
name as the theme, which used to be available from their Media Department in
Louisville, KY for about $10. 

 

Anyhow, that seems like a long time ago, and we didn’t do a lot of the
things we would have done now like prioritization, convergence and action
planning – but I have not a doubt in my mind that Open Space will do just
fine, nothing else needed.

 

Harrison

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>


Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Bob
Sullens
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 12:16 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Help in planning an approach to an organization with great value
differences

 

Greetings,

 

I have been asked to work with an area organization of a mainline protestant
denomination to develop a strategic plan.   The organization consists of
70-80 clergy and lay members responsible for a specific geographic area in
California.  

 

The group has had a history of intergroup conflict based on liberal vs.
conservative(evangelical) approaches to scripture, doctrine, human
sexuality, peace work and social justice issues.

 

In the last year they had a facilitated reconciliation conference, that
appears to have improved the interpersonal relationships.  Their goal now is
to develop a strategic plan that they can agree on.

 

Any suggestions about how best to approach this task would be appreciated.
I was think that a standard open space approach would work well.  Other
possibilities are a Future Search Conference or an appreciative inquiry
approach. 

 

Thanks,

* * ==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To subscribe,
unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist


*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20041110/d4244e75/attachment-0016.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list