The result of my personal experience of grief, coupled with my work of serving congregations experiencing the paralysis of disorientation, is the awareness that congregations caught up in this disorientation need a path guiding them through their grief. A path guiding congregations to answer the “why do we exist as a community of faith and who are we” identity questions while at the same time guiding them to discover the meaning or purpose for their communal lives, a purpose which congregations can intentionally live.

Also, it will be a path guiding congregations to discover that change and transition is a positive time for growth in the natural cycle of life. Of course, congregations will, also, discover living through change and transition does take time because the culture of the congregation is shifting to a new culture with either new traditions or older traditions being reframed to fit the new identity and congregational culture.

-from the Introduction

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Carson O. Mouser is a Presbyterian Minister who received his Master of Divinity Degree from Colgate Rochester Crozer Seminary and his Doctor of Ministry Degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. He is married to Tina, and they have five adult children and eight grandchildren.