Next Webinar Scheduled: Thursday April 23, 2026 — Thursday July 16, 2026

Introduction to the Appreciative Way for Ministry

This is a combination of our foundational appreciative inquiry program that introduces people not only to Appreciative Inquiry but also to the Appreciative Way of living and being in the world. In this combined program you will then apply the Appreciative Way to the work of Congregation Development and Leading Transitions

The Appreciative Way, is Rob and Kim Voyle's synthesis of:

• The Practice and Philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry.
• The work of Milton Erickson and his Students, especially Steve Andreas.
• Positive Psychology.
• Compassion as the Agent of Transformation.
• Contemplative Spirituality.

In the second half of the program you will apply the Appreciative Way to the tasks of Ministry such as:

• Visioning, Strategic Planning, and Development.
• Leading and Facilitating Transitions Between Leaders.
• Responding to Organization and Individual Trauma, Grief and Resentment.
• Conducting Mutual Ministry Reviews and Creating Cultures of Excellence.

Because this program combines and goes beyond our briefer Introductory programs

• Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
• Introduction to Appreciative Transitional Ministry (AIM I)

this program will satisfy the first half of the Certificate in Appreciative Transition Ministry.

Understanding the Appreciative Way

What did Jesus come for?

• Was it to give us less death?
• Or was it to give us life?

Simple question, but consider the following:

• Do you spend too much time working to have less of what you don't want in your life?
• Or are you working to discover and grow what is life-giving?
• Do the organizations you work for focus most of their energy on what they don't want?

Sadly many people, churches, and our society as a whole spend more time working on having less of what they don't want and fail to live a life worth living.

In the Appreciative world we say "What you focus on will become your reality." If we focus on problems (what we don't want) we will simply grow the problems.

This training program teaches the fundamentals of the Appreciative Way and is designed to help you discover and grow what is life-giving in your your personal life and the lives of the organizations you work with.

Who Should Attend This Program: Not Just for Clergy

Although this program is designed with clergy in mind, it would also be appropriate for anyone who can articulate and reflect psychologically and theologically on their ministry or vocation. It is especially relevant for:

• Clergy
• Non-ordained persons engaged in ministry and church leadership
• Psychologists, Consultants and Counselors who are also clergy or who work with clergy and churches
• People who want to reflect theologically and psychologically on the work they do

I loved this workshop. It was deeply spiritual, entertaining, and very practical and applicable.
It is rare in my experience to find all of these in one workshop. - KR, UCC Minister

Course Description

The overal objective is to introduce people to a synthesis of three bodies of knowledge:

• The theory and research that under girds Appreciative Inquiry
• The change work of Milton Erickson, MD. and his students.
• Contemplative Spirituality as distinct from religion and how spirituality can be used as an agent of transformation.

Participants will then apply this foundational information to the specific tasks of ministry including:

• Visioning, Strategic Planning, and Development.
• Leading and Facilitating Transitions Between Leaders.
• Responding to Organization and Individual Trauma, Grief and Resentment.
• Conducting Mutual Ministry Reviews and Creating Cultures of Excellence.

From this synthesized body of knowledge participants wil be able to:

• Implement an Appreciative Inquiry process with themselves, others, congregations and organizations, to enable innovative, creative personal and organizational change.
• Identifying appreciative processes in contrast to problem or pathology driven models of intervention and to use these appreciative processes to enhance personal and organizational effectiveness.
• Use both who they are and what they do as an appreciative agent of transformation in the world

Session Outlines

In addition to the following session outline, participants will be able to apply the Appreciative Strategies to specific situations with in their own ministry.

Participants will also conduct an Appreciative Inquiry into their own life and ministry.

Session 1: Introduction to The Appreciative Way (3.0 hrs.)

• Discerning Your Eternal Purpose from a Temporal Love
• The Importance of Focus or Right Seeing
• Pathology Focus or Appreciative Focus
• Assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry
• Comparison of Historic Epistemologies and Social Constructionism

Session 2: A to B: Appreciative Model For Creating Change (3.0 hrs.)

• Transforming Negatives
• Creating Achievable Goals
• Creating Goal Steps for Long-Term Plan
• Resolving Resistance

Session 3: Discovering Resources to Achieve Goals (3.0 hrs.)

• Locating Resources on the Spiral of Life
• Domains of Life and Living
• Growing Collaboration in Times of Conflict
• From Conflict to Collaboration

Session 4: Creating Appreciative Relationships (3.0 hrs.)

• The Incarnational Way of Joining
• Compassion as the Agent of Transformation
• Helpful Relationships in Action
• Seven Positions of Leadership Exercises

Session 5: The Science and Art of Asking Powerful Questions (3.0 hrs.)

• Questions and Their Underlying Assumptions
• Goal Questions When People are "Stuck"
• Modeling the Problem Question:
• Questions for Assessing Outcomes
• Discerning the Future: Seven Questions

Session 6: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit (3.0 hrs.)

• Designing an Appreciative Inquiry Summit
• Appreciative Inquiry 5D Spiral of Development
• Why Summits and Not Surveys
• Define: Setting the Stage
• Discover: Creating Appreciative Inquiry Interview Guides
• "What in God's Name is Going On Here?"
• The Great Commandment Appreciative Interview Guide
• An Updated Interview Guide
• Church Board Retreat Interview Guide
• Making the Church a Safe Place for Children
• Making Disciples

Session 7: Dream/Deliver: From What Might Be to Innovating What Will Be (3.0 hrs.)

• Imagine a Church Exercise
• Creating Provocative Purpose Statements
• Learning the Art of Wise Pruning
• Steps to Successfully Stopping a Ministry

Session 8: Designing A Transitional Ministry: One Size Doesn't Fit All (3.0 hrs.)

• Incarnational Alternative to the Transitional Tasks
• Designing a Unique Transitional Ministry
• The Job Interview
• Should Interims be Candidates for the Permanent Position?
• Self-Description: Present Reality and Preferred Future
• Transformation or We Want to Grow

Session 9: Responding to Individual and Organization Trauma (3.0 hrs.)

• Life-Giving Golden Thread Exercise
• Experiencing the Resolution of Painful Memories
• Resolving Organizational Memories
• History Day Meditation

Session 10: Responding to Grief (3.0 hrs.)

• An Appreciative Way Understanding Grief
• Resolving Grief
• How Shall We Remember
• Inoculating a congregation against grief
• Remembering a Pastor with Love and Gratitude

Session 11: Forgiveness and Reconciliation (3.0 hrs.)

• Forgiveness Process
• Growing Collaboration in Times of Conflict
• From Conflict to Collaboration
• Discerning the Future: Seven Questions

Session 12: Mutual Ministry Valuation (3.0 hrs.)

• Reinventing Performance Review
• Creating a Mutual Ministry Valuation Process
• Reinventing Performance Review
• Creating Cultures of Excellence

Continuing Education Credit

This program qualifies for 36 hours of continuing education credit.

Partial continuing education credit is not provided. You must attend all 36 hours to receive continuing education credit.

Program Materials and Pre-Reading

No pre-reading or backgound in Appreciative Inquiry is required for this program.

You will be provided a comprehensive 100+ page handout and folder and participants will be able to access additional online resources after the completion of the program.

For those interested in pre-reading we recommend the following:

• Core Elements of the Appreciative Way by Rob and Kim Voyle which is available at our Bookstore.
• Another brief alternative is the Thinbook of Appreciative Inquiry available from the Thin Book publishing Company
• For those interested more specifically in Organizational Development written for the secular world we recommend Change at the Speed of Imagination by Watkins and Mohr. It is available at most major book stores.

The Application part of the program will rely on information that is taken in part from:

• Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment by Rob Voyle.
• Creating Cultures of Excellence: An Appreciative Inquiry Based Guide to Mutual Ministry Reviews by Rob and Kim Voyle

These are available from our Bookstore.

Webinar Schedule: Introduction to the Appreciative Way of Ministry

Thursdays, 10:00 am-1:00 pm PST.

Twelve, 3 hour sessions on Thursdays from 10:00 am-1:00 pm PST.
Classes begin on Thursday, April 23, 2026 and end on Thursday, July 16, 2026

Each ZOOM session will be recorded and made available after the session.

Please see training schedule for a complete listing of all webinar programs

Webinar Format

The webinar training sessions are live online via ZOOM. You will need a reliable computer and internet service to participate in the webinar.

To allow for participant engagement, each webinar is limited to twenty participants.

Each session will be recorded and made available for participants to review after the class.

Each webinar session will include:

• Didactic presentations.
• Experiential learning of specific approaches and strategies.
• Small group breakout sessions online during class to engage the material.
• Conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into your own professional life to experience and learn the appreciative process.

Some "home-work" to practice specific strategies will be encouraged and subsequent sessions will allow for follow-up question and answers to debrief and learn from the exercises.

Each 3 hour session will include a 10 minute mid-session refreshment break.

In-Person Workshop Format

No In-Person Appreciative Inquiry Workshops are currently scheduled.

Please Email Rob Voyle if you would like to host an in-person training in your congregation or organizational setting.

The inperson workshop will typically be conducted in a commuter/residential setting with:

• Didactic presentations.
• Experiential learning of specific approaches and strategies.
• Conducting an Appreciative Inquiry into your own professional life to experience and learn the appreciative process.
• Opportunity for creative reflection on the past and anticipation of the future.
• Opportunity to practice and reflect on specific strategies and processes.

Costs for 2026

Introduction to the Appreciative Way of Ministry

Thursday, April 2026 — Thursday, July 2026
36.0 hours of live online content plus online access to training manuals and other resources.

Early Registration Cost (On or before Monday 6, April 2026):      $995.00

Late Registration Cost  (After Monday 6, April 2026):                 $1095.00

Cancellation and Refund Policy

Tuition Refunds

Your registration is completely refundable, minus a 15% service fee, up to seven days before the start of the program. Thereafter the registration fee will be forfeited.

For more information please see our Cancellation Policies.

Presenter: Rob Voyle

Rob Voyle is a New Zealand born and trained Mechanical Engineer, Episcopal Priest, and Psychologist. He has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary in addition to degrees in Theology, Counseling and Mechanical Engineering.

Rob’s employment history includes extensive work as a teacher, an interim pastor, interposed with research and development engineering, behavioral medicine, clinical psychology, coaching and organizational consulting.

Rob is an internationally recognized leader in the use of appreciative inquiry in church settings. He is the Director of the Clergy Leadership Institute and the Founder of The Appreciative Way, a positive way to grow what is life-giving in people and organizations.

While he no longer works as an engineer, Rob sees much of his work as “engineering” solutions for people as they confront the challenges of their lives and work. Rob’s personal mission is to be “helpful, humorous, and healing,” which is manifested in his passion for conducting training. He is a gifted storyteller and has a penchant for mischievously confronting listeners with new insights that are both affirming and liberating.

Rob is the author of several Appreciative Way approaches to life and work including:

• Core Elements of the Appreciative Way
• Creating Cultures of Excellence: An Appreciative Inquiry Based Guide to Mutual Ministry Reviews
• Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment

      and the congregation based teaching programs

• Teach Your congregation How To Forgive
• Yes!³  Creating a Life In Which You Can Say:
  Yes! to God, Yes! to your Neighbor: Yes! to Yourself.

In addition to teaching ministry intensives, Rob also leads one-day workshops for vestries, church boards, and congregation development teams. Please Email Rob if you would like to host a training program in your congregation or organizational setting.