Course Description:
Advanced Seminar in Church Leadership
Power, Faith, and Civic Leadership

The following course now is offered by the Interdenominational Theological Center, in cooperation with Columbia Theological Seminary and the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

Registration: Through ITC; CAM 833 / Advanced Seminar in Church Leadership / Power Faith, and Civic Leadership

Dates: Fall 2002, Thursdays, 6-9 p.m., beginning September 5; room 1222 of the Urban Life Center (at corner of Piedmont and Decatur), Georgia State University.

Instructors: The Rev. Robby Carroll, Director, Atlanta Center for Counseling and Development; Dr. Harvey Newman, Professor, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, GSU; Dr. George Thompson, Associate Professor, Church Administration and Leadership, ITC; Dr. Jim Watkins, Director, Faith and the City, Columbia Seminary

Enrollment: Limited to seven students from each of the three schools. Class size is limited to 25.

Purposes: This course seeks to examine various concepts and practices of power, as they are potentially and actually experienced within local communities of faith and within local communities. The various concepts will be drawn from theology, the behavioral and social sciences, public policy studies, and civic politics. Tensions between normative and descriptive views of power will be discussed. Practical implications for ministerial and public leadership will be explored.

Readings include:

Law, Eric, The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb, selections
Phillips, Barbara, City Lights: Urban-Suburban Life in the Global Society, selections
Stone, Clarence, Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988
Thompson, George, How to Get Along with Your Church, selections
Watkins, Jim, "Making a Difference in the Public Arena"
Other readings will be suggested

Session 1: Introductions (who are we and why are we here? Students will be asked to "help build agenda." Presentation of "lenses" for course (our personal style of relating/leadership and streams of culture in which we relate/lead). PACE profile distributed. Reflection paper assigned.

Session 2: Pace Profile discussed. Leadership and the Biblical, theological, witness vis-a-vis cities. Guest: Dr. Kathleen O'Connor, Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary. What the separation of church and state is and is not.

Session 3: Power and decision-making -- regime politics. Reflection papers due.

Session 4: Power and budgets.

Session 5: Power and leadership style.

Session 6: Power and leadership style (cont.).

Session 7: Power and reading culture.

Session 8: Power and reading culture (cont.).

Session 9: Newspaper scrapbooks and letters to the editor due. Small group discussion using mutual invitation.

Session 10: Power and impacting public decisions.

Session 11: Power and impacting public policy decisions (cont.).

Session 12: Journals due. Small group discussion using mutual invitation.

Session 13: What difference does all this make as we pursue our calls? Final papers due.