In this excellent book, Corbett and Fikkert discuss the role of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as a way of identifying the good gifts that God has placed in a community and of dreaming about how those gifts can fix what is wrong. They use the tools of AI as part of the solution to moving toward sustainable development in places of material poverty. AI helps tap into what God has already put into a community rather than creating an unhealthy dependence upon outside resources.
In other books, Appreciative Inquiry has been applied to organizational change.
In this regard, I wonder if the tools of AI might help us design and empower more effective spiritual movements.
In its simplest form, AI encourages movements/organizations/communities to go through the following four-part process together:
Discover: What gives life? Find the Best of What Is. Appreciating
Dream: What might be? What is God calling for? Envisioning Impact
Dialogue: What should be? The Ideal? Co-Constucting the Future
Delivery: What is working? How do we increase it? Sustaining.
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