"This Is Our Story:" A Contextual and Appreciative Inquiry-Informed History of the Valley Forge Christian Church
Date
2024-04
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Abstract
This project applies Appreciative Inquiry and a contextual approach to writing a history
of the Valley Forge Christian Church in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
enables organizations and communities to explore and appropriate those elements of their stories
that inspire hope and confidence. Instead of focusing on discrete problems to be isolated and
solved, AI takes a more wholistic approach by asking groups to identify and learn from their
times of greatest vitality. In conjunction with the pioneering work of Carol Kammen, who has
published extensively on the topics of researching and writing local and congregational history,
AI provides a useful framework for exploring and learning from the history of the Valley Forge
congregation. This study traces the church’s story from its founding as part of the Stone-
Campbell restoration movement amid the challenging circumstances of post-Civil War northeast
Tennessee. It continues with the church’s early growth and “near death” experiences in the early
twentieth century. It narrates the period of renewal and reorganization that followed, and it
concludes with the era of significant growth and vitality that occurred during the latter half of the
twentieth century. With the church’s recent observance of the 150th anniversary of its founding in
view, this project offers an historically informed resource for the congregation as it reflects on
and plans for the continuation of its unique story within the larger story of God’s redemptive and
reconciling work.
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Keywords
Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Congregational history, Valley Forge Christian Church (Elizabethton, TN), Stone-Campbell Movement, Stone-Campbell Movement -- history, Stone-Campbell Movement -- East Tennessee, Siebenaler, David