Lisa R Withrow

Independent Scholar, Certified Leadership Coach (ICF, BCC, GPCC) and Conflict Management Consultant, Post-Doc

Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation, Leadership, Faculty Member

Independent Scholar, Leadership Coach (ICF, BCC, GPCC) and Conflict Management Consultant, Post-Doc

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Affiliate Faculty (Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation - Leadership Studies) Founder, Principal - Clear Transition Strategies (Withrow&Associates, LLC)
(Self-employed Independent Scholar and Leadership Coach, Conflict Management Consultant for Academia and Non-Profits)
Location: Columbus, Ohio Area

Certified Leadership Coach and Consultant (ICF, BCC, GPCC), with specialty in conflict management.

Former Professor of Leadership Studies (20 years - MTSO)
Former Vice President and Dean for Academic Affairs (MTSO)

Author and Independent Researcher - Organizational Change, Liminality, Conflict Management and Transformation

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Books by Lisa R Withrow

Book - Crossing Thresholds: A Practical Theology of Liminality

by Lisa R Withrow, Timothy L Carson, and Rosy Fairhurst

The first inter-disciplinary theological treatment of liminality.

Book - Leadership in Unknown Waters: Liminality as Threshold to the Future

Leaders and their teams are invited to engage powerful questions amidst ambiguity and uncertainty... more

Contributing Writer - Books

Contributing Writer – Spirituality and Liturgy · Prayers for Health and Healing. SPCK, London, ... more Contributing Writer – Spirituality and Liturgy
· Prayers for Health and Healing. SPCK, London, 2000.
· Women at the Well: Meditations on Healing and Wholeness. Mary L. Mild. Judson Press, 1996.
· Sourcebook of Weddings. Communication Resources, Inc., 2006, 2001.
· Sourcebook of Worship Resources. Communication Resources, Inc., 2009, 2005, 2001.
· Sourcebook of Funerals. Communication Resources, Inc., 2001.

Articles
· “Creating Knowledge in Hybrid Format,” Teaching Theology and Religion, Vol. 17, No. 3, July 2014.
· “Introduction: Women and Leadership” to the Journal of Religious Leadership, guest co-editor, Vol. 11,
No. 1, spring 2012.
· “Introduction” to the Journal of Religious Leadership, Vol. 8, No. 2, fall 2009.
· “Change: Exploring Its Implications for Religious Leadership - A Pedagogical Inquiry,” Journal
of Religious Leadership, Vol. 7, No. 2, fall 2008.
· “Success and the Prosperity Gospel: From Commodification to Transformation - a Wesleyan
Perspective,” Journal of Religious Leadership, Vol. 6, No. 2, fall 2007.
· “Wilderness as Crucible: Transforming the Church,” Journal of Theology, summer 2007.
· “An Ethic of Inquiry for the Future of the Church,” Journal of Theology, summer, 2006.
· “Leadership Curriculum at Methodist Theological School in Ohio,” Journal of Religious Leadership, spring/fall, 2005.
· “Disciples for the Future: Small Groups and Vital Faith Development,” Quarterly Review, Vol. 23, no. 2, 2003.
· “A Wesleyan View on ‘Making Disciples’,” Journal of Theology, summer 2001.
· “Celtic Christianity: A Path for Spiritual Renewal,” Journal of Theology, summer, 2000.

Popular Articles
· “Wanted: Christian Leaders and Ground Fertile for Them to Thrive,” East Ohio Joining Hands, Vol. 9,
Issue 1 (Fall 2008).
· “Church for the Future,” Circuit Rider (September/October 2007).

Book - Alienation and Connection: Suffering in a Global Age

Hardback $98.00 Alienation and Connection Suffering in a Global Age EDITED BY LISA R. W... more Hardback $98.00

Alienation and Connection
Suffering in a Global Age
EDITED BY LISA R. WITHROW - CONTRIBUTIONS BY MARK DAVIES; DION ANGUS FORSTER; LISA M. HESS; THEODORE W. JENNINGS JR.; JOERG RIEGER; ELAINE A. ROBINSON; JEREMY WILLIAM SCOTT AND SANDRA F. SELBY
Alienation and Connection challenges social, cultural, and economic constructs that perpetuate alienation through suffering and powerlessness. The authors, representing Wesleyan backgrounds in this volume, all hold concern for a suffering world, believing that socioeconomic systems, prescribed roles, stereotypes, or power differentials cannot dictate normative destinies for persons or for living systems. Each writer calls for movement from suffering to surviving to thriving in the midst of discussions about how alienation, in a variety of contexts, can be transformed into connection and reconnection through intentional shifts in circumstance and human agency. A hermeneutic of healing and justice focused on human relationship with the environment, economic and social systems that disconnect and reconnect, socio-cultural and economic constructs that divide or heal, encountered difference that brings opportunity, and various manifestations of personal pain that can turn to hope, provides a significant, realistic alternative to suffering and alienation. Meaningful connection to each other and to the earth through the alleviation of suffering provides hope for the integrity and future of humankind and the healing of the planet. This book is an offering to those who are called to work for change and a challenge to those who do not believe that change should or could happen. Alienation is not the final word. Connection and hope can prevail.

Book - Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians

Book - Claiming New Life: Process-Church for the Future

Claiming New Life: Process-Church for the Future By Lisa R. Withrow Claiming New Life... more Claiming New Life: Process-Church for the Future

By Lisa R. Withrow

Claiming New Life: Process-Church for the Future invites those who care deeply about the church to move into an intentional process of co-creating the future church with God. This book explores process theology as the basis for creating an intentional process ecclesiology, or the Process-Church.

To set the stage for transitioning from institutional church to Process-Church, Claiming New Life surveys social contexts in which we find ourselves. Living in a post-Christendom, postmodern, globalizing world yields challenges for the church that it has not been ready to face.

Book - Seasons of Prayer: Resources for Worship

Book - Occasions of Prayer: Resources for Prayerful Living

Papers by Lisa R Withrow

Transformative potentials of liminal leadership

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, ... more The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

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SUCCESS AND THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL: FROM COMMODIFICATION TO TRANSFORMATION AWesleyan PERSPECTIVE

Journal of Religious Leadership, 2007

... et. al. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 23. 24 Ibid., 38. 25 David Ray Grigg... more

Alienation and Connection: Suffering in a Global Age

The Ecology of Vocation

Those who care about the future of the church have a vested interest in both the quantity and the... more Those who care about the future of the church have a vested interest in both the quantity and the quality of candidates preparing for ministry in this generation and into the next. And it is easy to see those pastors as the product of a series of independent and individualized decisions. A college student, for example, meets with her pastor to discuss her future. Or an engineer sits at the kitchen table with his wife asking if they have the money for him to quit his job and head off to seminary. The future of ministry does indeed depend on these decisions. But those decisions depend on something else. They depend on a system, a system of formal organizations and informal relationships. They depend on the system in just the same way that a flowering bush depends on the ecosystem of the meadow in which it grows. Article Purpose The purpose of this article is to study the interdependent ecosystem of organizations and entities that nurture the next generation of Christian leaders. We wi...

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Wayfinding to Freedom

The Liminal Loop, 2022

Moving Toward Koinonia In the Church: Reconciliation Through Group Work With Women

The western mainline church has become a fragmented institution. This brokenness stems from the c... more The western mainline church has become a fragmented institution. This brokenness stems from the church's patriarchal system of functioning, defined by dominant and subordinate classes based on gender. By claiming this class system as God-ordained, church leaders and members reinforce a message of division which is contrary to Christ's vision for community. To challenge the system of patriarchy and propose an alternative way of relating which emphasises equality of all human beings is the only way to begin to address fragmentation in the church. This research establishes a vision of koinonia. reconciled community, for the church by both addressing the harmful effects of patriarchy on people within the church and by providing a design by which the church can begin its journey to such a reconciled community. The method involves practical work in groups which adopt a feminist critique of church history, theology, liturgies, and psychology. Group members also are challenged to develop their own systems of relating with each other once they have become aware of the patriarchal stereotypes and roles with which they live on a daily basis. Group members work toward wholeness, and in turn reach out to other groups and individuals searching for alternative ways of relating. Thus, the journey toward koinonia is born, and the church realises its original intent-sharing the good news of empowerment and freedom for all people in Christ. This research involves a case study, including analysis and impact on the church, to illustrate the alternative approach to relating in the church which leads to koinonia.

format_quotePatriarchal systems perpetuate male dominance, creating societal resistance to change among those who benefit from the status quo.format_quote

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Creating Knowledge in Hybrid Format

Teaching Theology and Religion, 2014

Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peace (review)

Leadership in Unknown Waters

Crossing Thresholds

Claiming New Life: Pricess-Church for the Future

In this short but beautifully written work, Lisa Withrow provides an important and timely resourc... more In this short but beautifully written work, Lisa Withrow provides an important and timely resource for mainline churches and those of us who love them. Withrow's voice resonates with those whose belief in the local church's transformative power has not wavered even though we acknowledge the church has lost its footing over the past forty years. Her fresh approach begins when she opens the reader to see the mission of the church as a theological movement emulating how God is at work in the world using theologian John Cobb's insight that God is a "creative-responsive love" (p. 64). This is very different from the view that the mission of the church is eternally captured in a value statement. What remains absolute is God's love for creation and the church's response to God's call to love in the same far-reaching, risk-taking fashion. Building on the Great Commandment, Withrow releases the mainline church from archaic formulas into the freedom of co-creating in response to God's infinite love. She calls it "Process-Church." This book offers a remarkably helpful description and analysis of how the emerging church movement is changing the landscape of Christianity within our society. This analysis offers the mainline church a clear mirror from which to begin the task of self-critique using an ethic of inquiry that includes theological reflection amidst socio-cultural and economic contextual analysis. "Process Church" cannot come into being or sustain itself without an ongoing, self-critical eye toward itself. Withrow aptly notes the mainline church will be unable to reclaim itself as a movement that responds to God's creativeresponse love without ongoing conversations for self-critique and theological reflection. Withrow offers churches a useful methodology without becoming just another 'how-to' formula. She builds upon the important work of sociologists of religion, theologians, and organizational theorists to offer several signposts that illuminate a path by which churches can recover and reclaim their identity as transformative communities within our culture. In addition to creating an ethic of inquiry that includes both theological reflection and global and local contextual analysis, Withrow adds the importance of imagination (spiritual work) and the Great Commandment as a theological corrective to insular and isolating theology. She cautions that the church must develop the spiritual stamina required for a time of chaos or 'wilderness living,' during which it must continue the conversation about how it will reclaim its place as an essential movement and prophetic force within our world. Church-going Christians, pastors, seminarians, and Christian leadership faculty will find the challenge of this new book helpful as long as they are prepared for 'the long view' and not a quick fix. This long view includes rigorous theological thinking and global contextual analysis, redefining success and power in terms of being a disciple rather than making disciples, and engaging in ongoing self-critique guided by how well they are living the Great Commandment.