Mark Lau Branson is the Homer L. Goddard Associate Professor of the Ministry of the Laity and has taught at Fuller since 2000. He teaches courses in congregational leadership and community engagement.

Branson was ordained at San Francisco Christian Center, an African-American Pentecostal church, and has served on the pastoral teams in United Methodist and Presbyterian churches. He has worked with several agencies active in education, community development, and community organizing, and continues to serve as a consultant and speaker. His most recent book is Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change (2004), published by the Alban Institute. He also contributed the chapters “Gratitude as Access to Meaning" in The Three Tasks of Leadership (2009), “Ecclesiology and Leadership for the Missional Church,” in The Missional Church in Context: Helping Congregations Develop Contextual Ministry (2007), and  “Forming God’s People” in Leadership in Congregations (2007). Branson is the president of the Institute for Urban Initiatives. He and his family are active at First Presbyterian Church in Altadena, California.

CF526- The Congregation as a Learning Community
GM506- Foundations for Ministry
MB801- Methods in Behavioral Science
MC800- Tutorial in Church Growth
ML800- Tutorial in Leadership
PM856B- Practical Theology Methods
SP517- Spirituality and Everyday Life
TC501- American Culture: Social Location and the Gospel
TM507- Ethnicities and Churches: U.S. Narratives and Intercultural Life
TM521- Congregations in the World: Neighbors, Workplace, and Society

Congregational life and community engagement: congregational revisioning and transformation, leadership development, intercultural studies, urban churches, missional ecclesiology, practical theology

Dr. Branson's class blog