transforming our communities

Posted by: len hjalmarson
Church: Aylmer, Ontario Aylmer
Date: September 12th, 2010

Three books arrived on my desk this past week: Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging; Craig Van Gelder: Ministry of the Missional Church: A Community Led by the Spirit; and Hauerwas: Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir. I’ve begun reading Hauerwas (see this interview) – this will be a great read. I spent half an hour last night in Peter Block and was stunned. This is one of the books I have been looking for a while. Simply outstanding. I’ll give a little more sense of this below. Craig Van Gelder – this title also looks excellent, but complex. It is not going to be an easy read.

Peter Block. I’ve seen references to this book here and there and have always been intrigued. Then a few weeks ago I read something else about the book and felt I needed to order it. I’ve been watching for resources that look at the wider context of community: how do we bring transformation to our neighbourhoods? How do we move beyond the fragmentation of saturday/sunday, church and neighbourhood life? A few times a year I run across a book that brings clarity and depth to a key issue, and Block’s book is one of those. Here is the description on AMAZON:

“Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities–businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government–do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like–there are many success stories out there, and they’ve been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.”

Ideally, the publisher should make the three page “Welcome” section that opens the book available somewhere. I’ll try to find time to transcribe it next week. Here is the TOC:

Intro: The Fragmented Community and its Transformation
Part One The Fabric of Community

1 Insights into Transformation
2 Shifting the Context for Community
3 The Stuck Community
4 The Restorative Community
5 Taking Back our Projections
6 What it Means to be a Citizen
7 The Transforming Community

part 2 The Alchemy of Belonging

8 Leadership is Convening
9 The Small Group is the Unity of Transformation
10 Questions More Transforming than Answers
11 Invitation
12 The Possibility, Ownership, Dissent, Commitment and Gifts Conversations
13 Bringing Hospitality into the World
14 Designing Physical Space that Supports Community
15 The End of Unnecessary Suffering

Peter Block’s website
Peter Block Consulting
Barrett-Koehler Publishers