For five years, Alban Institute senior consultant Susan Beaumont has been giving voice to the organizational and leadership demands of large congregations. Through her work, she has identified five basic leadership systems that need to stay in alignment for the large church to function well for its size: clergy leadership roles, staff team design and function, governance and board function, acculturation and the role of laity, and forming and executing strategy. She has also learned that these five systems operate with some important but subtle distinctions in what Beaumont calls the professional church (400-800 in worship attendance), the strategic church (800-1,200), and the matrix church (1,200-2,000). Often, she has discovered, problems in a large congregation are related to the fact that one or more of the five systems is inappropriately structured for the size of the congregation. In other words, the church isn t acting its size. Beaumont is invested in helping large congregations 'rightsize' their leadership systems to better serve their ministry context. This book articulates why size matters and how it matters in the world of large congregations. It is written for anyone who wants to better understand the leadership and organizational dynamics of the large church anyone seeking to understand the challenges of leading from inside the large congregation.

As congregations grow, they become dependent upon a greater number of staff to equip and lead their diverse collection of members. As leaders of multi-staff teams, senior clergy must play the dual role of both Moses and Aaron--both visionary and detail-oriented leader--in order for their large congregations to thrive. Long-time Alban senior consultant Gil Rendle and senior consultant Susan Beaumont have developed When Moses Meets Aaron to help clergy responsible for several-member staff teams navigate these unknown waters. They have taken the best human resource practices and immersed them in a congregational context, providing a comprehensive manual for supervising, motivating, and coordinating staff teams. Rendle and Beaumont give both detailed and big picture guidance on hiring, job descriptions, supervision, performance evaluation, staff-team design, difficult staff behavior, and more.

How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You are Going is a practical book of hope for tired and weary leaders who are in danger of defining this era of ministry in terms of failure or loss. This book does not attempt to describe where the church is headed; rather, it helps leaders stand firm in a disoriented state, learning from their mistakes and leading despite the confusion. This book lays out leadership tasks appropriate for liminal seasons. It blends sound organizational practices with a contemplative leadership stance—an attitude of wonder and an openness to discovery. The book begins by inviting a fundamental shift in the spiritual orientation of the leader, and then moves on to explore the soulfulness of the institution. Author Susan Beaumont introduces four types of work that are appropriate for organizations in a liminal season: clarifying institutional vocation, shaping institutional memory, deepening communal discernment, and nurturing emergence.

How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You are Going is a practical book of hope for tired and weary leaders who are in danger of defining this era of ministry in terms of failure or loss. This book does not attempt to describe where the church is headed; rather, it helps leaders stand firm in a disoriented state, learning from their mistakes and leading despite the confusion. This book lays out leadership tasks appropriate for liminal seasons. It blends sound organizational practices with a contemplative leadership stance—an attitude of wonder and an openness to discovery. The book begins by inviting a fundamental shift in the spiritual orientation of the leader, and then moves on to explore the soulfulness of the institution. Author Susan Beaumont introduces four types of work that are appropriate for organizations in a liminal season: clarifying institutional vocation, shaping institutional memory, deepening communal discernment, and nurturing emergence.