I’m currently reflecting on insights from Mark Lau Branson’s book, “Memories, hopes and conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change”. Mark is Professor of Ministry of the Laity at Fuller Theological Seminary and hosts a class blog on churches in the world, congregation as learning community, missional churches and leadership.

In 2001 he was invited to help Altadena Presbyterian Church, a mostly Japanese congregation in California, to help them write a mission report as they chose their next minister. Mark suggested they use appreciative inquiry rather than work through a typical check list of buildings, programs and needs. The resulting book, written during a sabbatical semester, is informative and inspiring.

Appreciative inquiry is based around the claim that conversations change us. True. Our talk fests often lead us nowhere. But if we frame the conversations with carefully constructed questions and a discipline that leads to action, we have some hope.

Mark outlines ten appeciative inquiry assumptions, collected from a range of sources.

1. In every organisation, some things work well.
2. What we focus on becomes our reality.
3. Asking questions influences the group.
4. People have more confidence in the journey to the future when they carry forward parts of the past.
5. If we carry parts of the past into the future, they should be what is best about the past.
6. It is important to value differences.
7. The language we use creates our reality.
8. Organizations are heliotropic – they lean towards the source of energy, whether it is healthy or not.
9. Outcomes should be useful.
10. All steps are collaborative.

See Mark’s expansion of these points here. Items 1-7 are adapted from Sue Annis Hammond, The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, 2nd ed. (Plano, TX: Thin Book Publishing Co., 1998), 13-21. Item 8 is from David L. Cooperrider, “Positive Image, Positive Action,” in Suresh Srivastva and David L. Cooperrider, eds., Appreciative Management and Leadership, rev. ed. (Euclid, OH: Williams Custom Publishing, 1999), 117. Items 9 and 10 are from Dennis G. Campbell, Congregations as Learning Communities: Tools for Shaping Your Future (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2000).