For the Good of the Orders
Using Appreciative Inquiry for Building Communities of Hope
Clergy Orders Retreat 2005

The world and our church are longing for hope! It’s easy to find cynicism, suspicion, fear, and helplessness dominating our institutions and lives. An environment shaped by these attitudes is discouraging and depressing – and feels hopeless. It is not a place we want to live.

Our Christian movement burst upon this same kind of world with a hope for all people who were searching for more life-giving options. Jesus offered this kind of hope. How else can we explain the willing sacrifices made by his followers to embody the vision arising from his message? How do we recover this hope?

A tool has arisen in our midst that can help us rekindle this kind of hope in ourselves and our congregations. It is known as Appreciative Inquiry. AI is designed to locate the sources of hope already happening in our experiences and to use this energy to change discouragements and negativities into desirable futures. It seeks to cleanse our eyes to find where life is emerging and build a hopeful community on these discoveries.

In our conference sessions we learned the basic aspects of Appreciative Inquiry with specific application to our churches and our Orders desire for “mutual care, support, and accountability.” The learning involved presentations and hands-on exercises for building communities of hope.