Who Is Our Church?: Imagining Congregational Identity (Book)
Janet Cawley, Author.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2006.

Janet Cawley understands that a congregation's sense of identity is a key factor in its ability to be the body of Christ in the world. An ordained minister in the United Church of Canada with a doctorate in systematic theology, Cawley has worked with many congregations undergoing transition. At the core of her work is the belief that congregations who truly know and love who they are can better make faithful and appropriate choices and changes because they do not experience change as a threat to their cherished identity.

In Who Is Our Church?, Cawley shares her own creative technique for helping congregations discover who they are and who they are called to be. Beyond identifying their core values, examining their history, and tabulating statistics about membership and participation, she invites congregations to use what they know about themselves to create a metaphor of the congregation as a person. She then shows how they can use this metaphor to discover their hidden gifts and create a new vision and mission for themselves.

Colorful stories about the "person" metaphors other congregations have developed help to illustrate both the technique described in Who Is Our Church? and its power to transform congregations' sense of identity and mission.

This is a very accessible book. It would be appreciated by any congregation looking for a creative, fun, faithful, and effective way to explore their own identity and call.

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