Faced with crisis, lack of direction, or just plain "stuckness," many congregations and their leaders are content to deal only with surface issues and symptoms only to discover that the same problems keep recurring, often in different, and more serious, ways. In The Hidden Lives of Congregations, Christian educator and consultant Israel Galindo takes leaders below the surface of congregational life to provide a comprehensive, holistic look at the corporate nature of church relationships and the invisible dynamics at play. Informed by family systems theory and grounded in a wide-ranging ecclesiological understanding, Galindo unpacks clearly the factors of congregational lifespan, size, spirituality, and identity and shows how these work together to form the congregation s hidden life. He provides useful tools for diagnosing and understanding how one s congregation fits into the various categories he names and suggests what leadership skills are necessary to get beyond the impasse of surface issues and help the congregation achieve its mission. The Hidden Lives of Congregations provides one of the most far-reaching looks into the invisible nature of faith communities written in recent years. For seminaries and divinity schools, it provides a standard text for getting a solid start in congregational practices; for experienced pastors, it provides support for renewing ministry; for lay leaders and committees, it offers insight to deepening mutual ministry. Israel Galindo has written an indispensable manual that leaders will return to repeatedly for new wisdom and guidance"

A Family Genogram Workbook, by Israel Galindo, Elaine Boomer, and Don Reagan, is an easy to use, but powerful, guide to understanding your family and how it shaped you. This workbook will take you step-by-step to learn how to create your own family genogram. A genogram is an exciting tool for understanding and interpreting family history and relationships. By working through various exercises and activities in A Family Genogram Workbook you will gain insight into your family and your place in it. The workbook has four chapters. The first, a tutorial, shows readers, step-by- step, how to create their own family genogram so that they can quickly reap the benefits of this powerful tool for understanding family emotional process. The workbook format contains work pages so the reader can create a genogram right in the book. Subsequent chapters provide basic information on how to interpret and how to use the genogram. The chapter titled The 20 Questions to Ask About Your Family will help readers focus on key issues related to family emotional process. By working through various exercises and activities in A Family Genogram Workbook readers will gain insight into their families, how they work, and their place in it. Along the way, readers will also acquire an understanding of basic Family Systems Theory concepts and terminology. This resource is suitable for courses on family systems, social work practice, individual or group study, marriage and family retreats or workshops, for premarital counseling with couples or blended families, coaching relationships, or for personal use.

A Christian Educator's Book of Lists is a manual of basic information that every Christian educator and teacher should have on hand. At the heart of this book is the desire to make available to churches and their leaders a handbook of basic, practical information for effective Christian education. Part basic encyclopedia, part trivia resource, part practical ?how to? compilations, part teaching manual, and part general knowledge index, the book is a handy reference manual for Christian educators and teachers. It's everything you need to know about Christian education but didn?t know where to find.

Planning for Christian Education Formation was written to help congregational leaders, clergy, staff, and laypersons, plan and organize a Christian education ministry from the approach of Christian formation in a community of faith context. This book provides a model for organizing the Christian education leadership committee or team of the church, demonstrates how to use the church year as a framework for planning the Christian education ministry of the church, and gives a model for assessing the effectiveness of the educational ministry of the church and a process to help congregations move toward the Christian Education Formation approach.

Galindo and Gonzalez present a collection of modern parables and stories for the contemporary Christian. This book is ideal for teaching, sermon illustrations, youth groups, and personal devotional study.