Welcome to the Alban Roundtable!
For more than a year now the Alban Roundtable has been growing as a virtual place where we gather the varied voices of our staff, as well as resources we each want to share with you about becoming and remaining a vital and healthy congregation.
We know from your comments and questions that you come from a wide spectrum of traditional mainline Protestant denominations, as well as from Evangelical community churches, from across the landscape of contemporary American Jewish congregational life, and from Roman Catholic and Orthodox dioceses and local communities.
We invite you to get to know about our work and resources not just here, but from
- Our www.Alban.org website
- The Alban Online Bookstore with its rich collection of print and digital books
- One of our e-Newsletters such as Alban Weekly
- Our award-winning Congregations magazine produced especially for our members
- Our long-standing and highly trusted consulting and coaching practice
- Our library of recorded webinars
- The services of our affiliate, the Congregational Resource Guide
- And our on-site seminars led by Alban Senior Consultants.
We hope that the Alban Roundtable will be a destination that you visit often, and we look forward to having your voice become part of the conversation around the table — here online and in person at one of our events.
Welcome!
The Program Staff of the Alban Institute
Richard Bass, Director of Publishing
Twila Glenn, Consulting Program Manager
I would have been much happier with Lawrence Peers’ imposition of narrative therapy hermeneutics onto the story in Exodus 3:2ff had he replaced “Holy Presence” with the actual words of the text. Who is the Holy Presence?…Allah, Buddha, Vishnu…or, as the story states,”the God of your [Moses'] father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? Isogesis of biblical stories, while generative of poignant illustrations of converted leadership styles, must not distort the narrative to make its point. The metanarrative of Israel’s deliverance from Eygptian slavery is rooted in the ontology of who it is giving Moses his marching orders….the “I AM WHO I AM” has a name…and to know his name is to know his character. The amorphous “Holy Presence” cannot suffice as God, the Lord of history. If narrative therapy seeks to aid stories which are theologically Christian, it cannot be used to replace, reduce, or dumb down, His Story.
Rev. Dr. Paul O. Bischoff
I’m not sure exactly the theme was behind the last article concerning the need of a community around Christ. The illustrations were confusing. All I understood from it was the concept of worship is not about us performing for God. My denomination has never taught that worship is about us performing or working for God.