What sort of leadership is needed in this time of complexity and uncertainty? I want to explore some implications of Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) for congregational life.
All tagged church leadership
Love: It’s Time to Get to Work
Reflecting on years of teaching young students, I am reminded of exercises captioned “Listen and do.” Might this be a simple, yet awfully mature, set of ancient instructions?
On Levi’s Jeans and Wine
In many established churches, we continue to assume that our jeans and our wineskins that we have received from a previous generation are still capable of holding the dynamic, electrifying power of the gospel.
Twenty Years of Congregational Change: The 2020 Faith Communities Today Overview
Summarized responses from 15,278 congregations and 80 denominations or religious groups resulted in the largest national survey of congregations ever conducted in the U.S.
Thinking About Church Leadership in a Different Way
Many of us talk to churches about how to rethink our approach coming out of the pandemic. This is a chance to do things differently.
Too Many Prophets, Not Enough Pastors
The message of Jesus is prophetic enough as it is. Ministers must obviously retell that message in a faithful manner. That act of proclamation is prophetic enough on its own. Given the difficulty with hearing who Jesus was and was really about, the story doesn’t need much additional help beyond that.
Praying Without Ceasing
Where does prayer fit in? Is it simply the customary thing we do at the beginning or end of a meeting? Or is prayer something more?
Reflection Roundup: Cultural Reflections
In order to imagine ourselves in difference-making positions, we all need models in place, models who look like we do and who don’t all look like each other.
Developing Resilience
Of all the challenges and crises that exist in congregations today, the one that I want to name here resides with leaders themselves.
Praying for People as a Leadership Practice
How much of our leadership practice is prayer – prayer for people who live in our neighborhoods and cities? What of our decision-making?
Integrity Is Integral (Part 1)
People want to follow leaders who present themselves as they truly are, not as they believe others want them to be.
Reflection Roundup: It’s a Grace Competition
Let it go. Think the best. Give prayerful time for people to explain, then believe them. Breathe deep and experience the freedom not to flesh out every detail.
Diversity of Perspective
A truly multiethnic, multigenerational, and multi-perspective church values, discusses, encourages, supports, and implements ideas and dreams that flow from all echelons of the congregation.
Reflection Roundup: Stormy Bank or the River?
Can anyone else relate to the image of crossing a river, standing on stones you’ve just thrown into the river from the comfort of the riverbank?
Congregational Mission: A Report From the Field
I commend these three core beliefs to all leader teams. Hope in God’s preferred future, practice non-anxious courage, and exercise prayerful imagination.
Lead, Don’t Boss
Church leadership is so weird. As I observe church leadership teams, including my own, I think everyone feels it. Who is the boss? Um, maybe no one.
On Reading the Bible
What I am about to say will sound so elementary that I risk losing you, my reader, before I even get to the end of this paragraph. But here goes. I want you to read your Bible.
Reflection Roundup: Relationships Birth Understanding
The resurrection Spirit pursues us as we continually cycle through relational renewal with the evidential environment of the created world: with the people, the creatures, the living organisms therein.
The OODA Loop and the Overflow of the Heart
How can we apply the OODA loop – observe, orient, decide, act – to congregational leadership?
Five Steps to Restore Your Church’s Vitality
Sometimes, a health crisis hits a church squarely in the face. If the church possesses enough self-awareness, it then faces the choice to either make dramatic changes or else permanently lose health and vitality.