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When a community experiences a fracture in its communal life, what tools can be used to foster reconciliation? How can right relationship be restored when there is conflict in the Body of Christ? In Beyond Accompaniment, William Nordenbrock proposes the use of a process that is based in the theory of Appreciative Inquiry as a ministerial method to guide a community from brokenness to communion. His practical application of this process in his work with St. Agatha Catholic Church in Chicago-a community whose pastor had been accused and convicted of sexually abusing minors in the parish-will be beneficial for communities experiencing conflict of any kind.
Nordenbrock helps us focus on the positive aspects of our communities in order to discover that "our redemption and reconciliation with God, won for us by Christ, is inseparable from the reconciliation and communion that Christians are to live with one another."
List of Appendixes vii
Introduction ix
Section 1
Chapter 1 A Church of Communion 3
Chapter 2 Toward a Practical Theology of Reconciliation 16
Chapter 3 Appreciative Inquiry: Theory and Process 40
Section 2
Chapter 4 A Community's Journey of Reconciliation: Walking in Faith and Moving Forward with Christ 65
Chapter 5 Discovery: How Has God Blessed St. Agatha Church? 84
Chapter 6 Dream: St. Agatha's Faithful Future 97
Chapter 7 Design and Doing It: How Will St. Agatha Live the Dream into Reality? 109
Section 3
Chapter 8 Restoring Communion through Appreciative Inquiry 121
Chapter 9 Reconciliation and Communion Ecclesiology at St. Agatha Church 129
Conclusion: The Place of Appreciative Inquiry in the Praxis of Reconciliation 143
Epilogue 153
Appendixes 156
Notes 192
Bibliography 202
Index 205
Overview
When a community experiences a fracture in its communal life, what tools can be used to foster reconciliation? How can right relationship be restored when there is conflict in the Body of Christ? In Beyond Accompaniment, William Nordenbrock proposes the use of a process that is based in the theory of Appreciative Inquiry as a ministerial method to guide a community from brokenness to communion. His practical application of this process in his work with St. Agatha Catholic Church in Chicago-a community whose ...