Working with Churches that Have Building Issues (Hint: Don’t start by talking about the building…)

Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Conflict Management, External Relations Tagged with

16 min 36 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • The book of Acts is an underutilized resource for discerning about the building
  • There’s more than one way to solve the problem…
  • Solutions to the building problem only surface by going deeply into discerning your relationship with the community around you
  • What might you have to do to your physical space to make other people want to use it?
  • Learning not to underestimate the beauty of our spaces… > Dealing with idolatry of the building
Rev. Dr. Shelly Stackhouse

The Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1982. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, she has served churches of varying sizes as Senior, Solo, Interim and Transitional Pastor in Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, currently at Buckingham Church in Glastonbury, CT. She also serves as Senior Director of Programs for Partners for Sacred Places, a national non-profit helping churches be good stewards of historic buildings. She received a PhD from Drew University in Liturgical Studies and has taught at numerous seminaries, most recently Yale and Lexington. She and her husband, P. Gavin Ferriby, are the parents of three adult children and three demanding cats.

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