Speed B. Leas

 
Consultant, The Alban Institute

 
Mailing Address: Box 2250, Boulder Creek, CA 95006

Telephone: 831-338-1024

Fax: 831-338-1025

Cell Phone: 831-334-5965

 
Speed Leas is a nationally known consultant to religious organizations and an educator of church leaders, including pastors, laity, and church executives. For the last 39 years he has worked full-time as a teacher and consultant to ecclesiastical groups throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has an extensive background as a management consultant to churches and synagogues and has earned a special reputation as an authority on conflict. His experience with conflicted congregations, judicatories and church agencies places him in a preeminent position in the nation. From this work and his research, he has written eleven books and numerous articles and monographs, and has given hundreds of seminars and lectures. Mr. Leas is now retired from full-time employment, though he still takes contracts with congregations from time to time.

Areas of Expertise:

            • Conflict Management

            • Long-Range and Short-Range Planning

            • Organizational Analysis

            • Management by Objectives/Time Management

            • Multiple-Staff Ministries

            • Consulting Skill for Church Executives

            • Leadership Development

            • Interpersonal Communications Clergy Assessment

            • Development of Volunteer Programs

            • Assimilating New Members

            • Systems Theory

Consulting and Training Clients Include:

Local congregations, denominational groups and governing bodies, judicatory staffs, seminaries, church agencies, community organizations, study commissions, clergy networks, chaplains, and social and health ministries.

 
Professional Experience:

1964-67 Senior Minister, Immanuel United Church of Christ, Los Angeles

1967-73 Director, Center of Metropolitan Mission-In-Service Training

1973-77 Director of Training, Institute for Advanced Pastoral Studies

1977-92 Director of Consulting Services, the Alban Institute

1992-2004 Senior Consultant, the Alban Institute

1999-2004 Visiting Professor of Congregational Leadership, Pacific School of Religion

2004-Present, Consultant, part-time, the Alban Institute

 
Published Books:

Understanding Your Congregation As A System (manual and Congregational Systems Inventory, with George D. Parsons), 1993, the Alban Institute.

The Inviting Church: A Study of New Member Assimilation, (with Roy Oswald) 1987, the Alban Institute

Moving Your Church Through Conflict, 1986, the Alban Institute

A Lay Person's Guide to Conflict Management, 1985, the Alban Institute

Discover Your Conflict Management Style, 1983, The Alban Institute, Revised 1998

Leadership and Conflict, 1982, Abingdon

The Pastoral Counselor in Social Action (with Paul Kittlaus), 1981, Augsburg-Fortress

Should the Pastor Be Fired? 1980, the Alban Institute

Time Management: A Working Guide for Church Leaders, 1978, Abingdon

Church Fights (with Paul Kittlaus), 1973, Westminster/John Knox

 
For further information about Speed Leas see his Résumé.

Also included in this web site are two articles about his work: one an interview with him in Leadership Magazine and the other an article that appeared in The Milwaukee Sentinel about his work with a congregation there.

 
Leas has written about "Levels of Conflict" the preceding link is an article about that theory.

 
For information about the Alban Institute, click here: Link to The Alban Institute

 
For information about the Pacific School of Religion see: Link to Pacific School of Religion

 
You may send E-mail to Speed Leas by clicking on this link: Speed Leas E-mail.