I am only about half way through Joseph Myers’ Organic Community but here are a few good quotes from the first four chapters:

When planning a new initiative, I prefer to ask, “What are we hoping for?” Your answer to this question, whatever it might be, will serve as an organic guide. Most likely, the answer will allow enough flexibility to deal with future questions as they emerge and the guiding principles to answer those questions more effectively. (p. 32)

Prescriptive patterns rarely start out as such. They are usually rooted in descriptive patterns. We see or experinece a pattern that “works,” and then we assume that if we repeat the pattern exactly, we can manufacture the same result. This works almost well enough often enough to convince us that it could work all the time. (p. 40)

Many church leaders have spent too much time on the art of getting people to participate and too little time trying to understand how people participate. (p. 53)

If we only concentrate on the numbers, we’ll miss what is really happening. (p. 72)

Story is the universal measurement of life. (p. 79)