This site is dedicated to making life easier for leaders of faith communities, social service agencies, and community groups seeking happy, heathy, and sustainable transitions in their not for profit areas of vocational interest and passion.
New Futures is a not for profit counselling, coaching and consultation practice to provide educational, consulting, and coaching services to help Not For Profit groups and agencies deal with changes impacting their particular mission in order to be more mission-effective. Communities of faith comprise a particular subset of our not for profit focus.
Paul has written a number of small books to help church leaders, Ordered and Lay, get started on renewing their congregation. To learn more about these books
click here! The books elaborate a number of themes discussed in a variety of our workshops. To learn more about our workshops
click here!
For more information, contact Reverend Doctor Paul Gilroy at: paul [at] revgilroy.ca
Workshops: New Futures offers various workshop to assist individuals in the concious ageing process; churches in their goal of a sustainable and fulfilling community. More information on these workshops can be found in the
workshops section of our website. New Futures workshops include:
What in the World Happened to Our Church?: How our heritage shapes and limits ministry today.
The Emerging Church: An introduction to health and sustainability in our church today
Empowering the Emerging Church: Mission and ministry in Next Generation churches
The Three Colors of Ministry: Discovering the using Spiritual Gifts for leadership development
The Church on Purpose: Developing purpose-oriented mission and ministry
An Introduction to Natural Church Development: An integrated approach to church health
Crossing the Jordan: Making ready for transition to new ministry
People on the Way: Reorienting a traditional church to a new future
AWIR: Attracting, Welcoming, Integrating and Retaining new comers
MVP: Discerning and clarifying a congregation-defining sense of Mission, Vision and Purpose
Stages of Faith in Spiritual Direction: James Fowlers theory of evolving spiritual growth
If you have any questions about the workshops please contact paul [at] newfutures [dot] ca
Paul Gilroy, D. Min. has a call to renewal ministry which is devoted to helping individuals and congregations transition to a new phase of life in contemporary circumstances. His ministry is to nurture both congregational systems and individual spirits to health and harmony based on clear Christian purpose and context-relevant mission. Rev Gilroy has extensive education and training to compliment his experience:
Bachelor of Arts (Sociology: of organizations), McMaster University; 1989.
Master of Divinity, Emmanuel College, Victoria University, University of Toronto; 1994.
Clinical Pastoral Education, 1.5 Units, Interfaith Counseling Centre, Kitchener; 1996.
Natural Church Development, Certified Level Two Coach; 2001.
Transition Ministry, Interim Ministry Network, Basic Training; 2004.
UCC consultant for the newly-launched Environics /UCC mission development initiative; 2009.
Sage-ing Guild Certification in process
Looking for some related reading material? Rev Dr Gilroy recommends these titles:
Your Church Can Thrive:
Making the connections that build healthy congregations by Harold Percy: There are four types of people who represent the congregation's best opportunity to lead people to become committed to the faith and Percy offers advice on how to reach them.
New Hope for Congregations by Loren B. Mead: Mead has come up with a challenging and provocative idea - putting group dynamics to work at the parish level and putting special facilitators to work wherever congregations show a willingness to change.
The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the congregation for a new mission frontier by Loren B. Mead: Sharp insights, quotes and provocative opinions with Mead's vision of congregational mission in the next century.
Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the neighborhood church is transforming the faith by Diana Butler Bass: This hopeful book reveals the practical steps to proclaim an alternative message about an emerging Christianity that strives for greater spiritual depth and proactively engages the needs of the world.
When Better Isn't Enough: Evaluation tools for the 21st century church by Jill Hudson: Hudson's tools can improve ministry, help members and staff grow effectiveness, deepen a sense of partnership, and add new richness to the dialogue about the congregation's future.
Can Our Church Live? Redeveloping congregations in decline by Alice Mann: This book could turn thousands of declining congregations from despair to hope.
Upcoming events: coming soon
What is the relationship between NEW FUTURES for Older Adults and NEW FUTURES Transition Coaching & Consulting?
They are both about intentional change to generate a NEW FUTURE. The deeper commonality is that individuals need to recognize the need to adopt new modes of thinking and behaving in order to obtain a NEW FUTURE different from the one they are currently headed towards individually and/or collectively.
The focus of "Older Adults" is on individuals in the second half of life. This means Baby Boomers transitioning from mid life to "later life" and people living in later life who believe there ought to more for them than they have been taught to believe is possible. Often this transition is precipitated particular event, the most common being retirement. Sometimes awareness is felt as a soul-stirring or spirit-calling from people's depths.
The focus of "Transition Coaching and Consulting" is three-fold: individuals,the groups they form, and the values, processes, and/or systems that link them. Most often, people seek to change group structure and/or processes. However, groups, church congregations, agencies, etc. are a collection of individuals who share a certain sense of purpose and/or mission. For groups to change significantly, individuals must change. The rub is that people generally think others need to change for their group to get a different outcome. This becomes particularly challenging when values are involved.
Contact information: To talk to Rev. Paul, book a conference, order books or get more information send an e-mail to: paul [at] revgilroy [dot] com
For problems with the site, please e-mail: kaitikish [at] gmail [dot] com
