Missionarische Relevanz der Gemeindeberatung

Abstract

Over the last 30 years congregational counselling or church consultation has established itself in different manners in Germany. Most institutions of church consultation are methodologi-cally bound to organisational development. After a brief survey of the different kinds of con-gregational counselling the phenomenon itself is investigated. This is done by representation of two very different models of congregational counselling: The ,,Zentrum für Organisation-sentwicklung und Supervision (ZOS)" and the "Natural Church Development (NCD)". These concrete models are especially investigated in view of the missionary relevance of church consultation. In this way theological deficiencies are obvious. Further on both, the ZOS and the NCD, have another aspect in common: The relation between social sciences and theology, which is full of tensions, can be estimated as one of the central aspects of the two institutions. Not before the wider field of Church Development as locus vivendi of congregational coun-selling is analyzed, solutions can be found for this problem. On this total background it is pos-sible to summarize the missionary relevance of congregational counselling and to develop it. The search for a theological model for the theoretical and practical shaping of congregational counselling leads inevitably to "Communicative theology". This approach is processual in all its levels, shows responsibility to social sciences and is in total theologically established. So it fits for both, church and consultation processes. The missiological perspective of contextuali-zation is realised by Communicative theology. Thus the missionary relevance of congrega-tional counselling is supported. The application of Communicative theology is a model that makes it possible to speak of missionary relevance of congregational counselling.