02.07.10

leadership, science and Scripture

Posted in complexity/systems, ekklesia, formation, leadership, mission, transition at 5:00 am by len

Debates about the nature and purpose of leadership will continue to rage. It’s probably important to affirm that the NT recognizes diverse forms. The wineskin seems less important than the wine. In diverse cultures leadership will look different.

So what is critical? What can we glean from Scripture about leadership? What is critical is ETHOS relative to the NATURE of God’s body and the TELOS of God’s intention. We all know the passages that hit at this, and the example Jesus set for us.

There are ar least four streams that need to feed into the renewal of our leadership paradigms.

1. biblical admonitions re: character and biblical direction re: telos. God is creating a people in Christ’s image — a new humanity — toward the renewal of creation.
2. the best pastoral theology. I have in mind in particular Henri Nouwen, Eugene Peterson, Jean Vanier, Dallas Willard etc.
3. the best practices from the business world that affirm life and empower creativity toward God’s intention in redemption.
4. the best analysis from organizational science of complexity and change because the challenges of renewal we face involve not just people but organizations that are embedded in a particular culture.
One of the best summary statements I have found in the literature of leadership and change, toward the challenge we face, is in “Presence.”

Senge, Scharmer, Flowers and Jaworski detail the seven movements in the process of transformation.. of what many of us would now call  “emergence.”  They write that a new spiritual path, or a new vision of leadership, will emerge “from building three integrated capacities:a new capacity for observing that no longer fragments the observer from what is observed; a new capacity for stillness that no longer fragments who we really are from what’s emerging; a new capacity for creating alternative realities that no longer fragments the wisdom of the head, heart and hand.” (p 218)

02.06.10

The Leadership Jump

Posted in books, leadership at 4:00 pm by len

Jimmy Long’s new book is reviewed by Ken Castor.

“In his book Long passionately presents the leadership tensions facing organizations like churches that rely upon multi-generational investment.  Existing leaders are caught with having control of organizations and having difficulty in giving that control over to emerging leaders for a myriad of reasons.  The most glaring reasons could be that existing leaders can’t find emerging leaders who are ready to accept their positional authority… and emerging leaders don’t want to receive the type of leadership that existing leaders have to give.  Up-and-coming generational trends are shifting from a top-down reliance upon a singular leader towards an environment of shared leadership, trust, giftings, and actival-mission.

“Churches need to prepare for this.  What’s needed is a cultural shift of typology where existing and emerging leaders partner in valuing the past and adapting for the future…”

The IVP site is HERE.

02.04.10

Intro Missional Church

Posted in leadership, mission, transition at 5:00 am by len

I have more or less finished a walk through of this new title from Alan Roxburgh and Scott Boren. It was worth the read. There isn’t a lot new here, but the book pulls together some significant thought and practice. I’ve been trying to decide whether to write a formal review or just post some excerpts. Since my week filled up quickly .. for today it’s an excerpt. The following is a summary of page 76-77.

“Most of us know the stats — we don’t have to repeat here the losses shaping denominations and the aging of the church. Church systems engage the missional conversation becasue they are scared and looking for a lifeline. Across the continent people are telling us that their church organizations are approaching a tipping point where local churches won’t be able to afford full-time, seminary trained pastors. The confusion, stress and anxiety are high among full time leaders…

“Some counter this data from the perspective of the megachurch phenomenon. There are more prominent churches of 5,000, 10,000 etc which might lead us to think the church is playing a MORE significant role in the culture.. But you can’t build a future on this model. Just from the perspective of leadership, these megachurches are created by people with leadership gifts that few have. To see this as an ‘answer” is to tell 98 percent of churches and their leaders that they have no future. But the issue is not .. how many churches are shutting down.. we are in a new world and the church as we have known it has to become very different in order to journey to this new place.

“The philosopher Charles Taylor calls our a ’secular age,’ in which ‘our present dondition is to say that many people are happy living for goals which are purely immanent..’ People’s primary concerns are for success in this life – they rarely ask questions about the transcendent. At the same time, they are feeling terribly insecure .. Witness the recent financial crisis and the stress created.. People go to church looking for words of security and a sanctuary.. but this is the problem. Churches give people what they want: [an escape] and comfort. The church is called to be what people really need: a foretaste of God’s new creation, a movement of people who change hte world, not escape it.

“In the midst of all this transition a missional church is formeed by people who are starting to own thaty they are no longer living in a safe place.. Just as Dorothy had to learn new skills to navigate in Oz, we too must learn new skills to be missionaries in this new place.”
See also this POST

“Introducing The Missional Church” is published by Baker Books.

02.03.10

change and conversation

Posted in complexity/systems, gospel, leadership, learning, pilgrimage at 5:00 am by len

“In nature,” writes Margaret Wheatley, “change never happens as a result of topdown, preconceived strategic plans, or from the mandate of any single individual or boss. Change begins as local actions spring up simultaneously in many different areas.”

What can we learn from this? According to Wheatley, we learn that the world “doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.” They realize all of sudden that they make up a forest, an ecosystem—a community.

“.. the small group, not the large group or the individual, is the most potent focus. The best place to begin is in having a good conversation and cultivating relationships.

“For Wheatley, all of the truly marvelous changes wrought by humans can be traced back to “some friends and I started talking and….”

“One of the most important things we need to do is find time for reflection. “This kind of time has disappeared from our lives, and we need to reclaim it,” she says. “We must have time where we start to feel centered, peaceful, focused.” Out of that space, we can cultivate a real relationship and start a conversation”

From “Complexity, Chaos, Collapse” by Barry Boyce.

01.29.10

Michael Hyatt interviews Seth Godin – Linchpin

Posted in complexity/systems, gospel, leadership, poetry/prose, transition at 1:00 pm by len

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh.

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference!  R. Frost Read the rest of this entry »

01.28.10

Heifetz on Christian leadership

Posted in leadership at 10:04 am by len

Sounding similar to Brian McLaren in A Generous Orthodoxy, Ron Heifetz (Leadership on the Line) is interviewed in the Christian Leadership series sponsored by Faith and Leadership forum of Duke Divinity School.

Provocative.. Heifetz starts out by saying that “Christians can help me be a better Jew.” He argues that there is a mission beyond proselytizing, to share the generativity captured in the life of Jesus. “Christianity has a deep tradition of trying to understand the nature and practice of love in ordinary life.”

Heifetz on Christian Leadership

Unrelated.. mostly.. McLaren on the “worship industry.“

01.27.10

Kinnon – You Might Not be Missional..

Posted in hermeneutics, leadership, theology at 9:46 am by len

Bill Kinnon quotes Leeman,

“More and more evangelical and missional leaders have begun to characterize the gospel of justification by faith alone, penal substitution, and the salvation of souls as a “small gospel.” [emphasis added]

And then asks, “who are these ‘more and more’?” .. If there is a divergence, why? (Or more helpful as my counselling prof used to say, “What for?”

Bill’s post well worth a read.. on polarities and what is this debate really about..

Missional – is the question

Todd Littleton also comments on the bru-ha-ha…

01.24.10

fitness landscapes

Posted in complexity/systems, leadership, semiotics, transition at 7:20 am by len

Biologists use the term “fitness” to describe the success of an organism. In business it is used to describe the competitive edge.
Fitness depends on numerous interrelated factors that can combine in endless variety. There are three types of fitness landscapes, and each can be used to characterize familiar scenarios:

1. gradual. like the undulating terrain of southern California. This environment is now history in the world of business and isn’t likely to return.
2. rugged. like the topography of Nepal – compare to the present day conpetition in the cellular industry.
3. random. the topography of the moon, where the impact of meteors rather than the logic of plate tectonics shaped the surface

Higher degrees of fitness are depicted by linear height on a landscape, and a loss of fitness is visualized as going downhill. When a species is threatened, as happened with the coyote in America, it descends the fitness landscape to the edge of chaos. The coyote had to cope with habitat destruction, encroachment by human population, and even outright attempts to eradicate it. If a species adapts, it may lead to increased fitness, even better than the original habitat. In the case of the coyote and the foothills around Malibu, this is what occurred. Read the rest of this entry »

01.23.10

emergence and design – giving permission

Posted in complexity/systems, culture, emergence, leadership, learning, mission at 5:30 am by len

There are two types of structures in human organizations, and each type needs leadership. Reflections will follow at the end.

Fritjof Capra writes,

“In human organizations, both [emergent and designed] types of structures are always present. The designed structures are the organization’s formal structures, which are depicted in its official documents and describe the organization’s mission, its formal policies, its strategies, and so on.

“In addition, there are always emergent structures. There are the organization’s informal structures—the alliances and friendships, the informal channels of communication (the “grapevine”), the tacit skills and sources of knowledge that are continually evolving. These structures emerge from an informal network of relationships that continually grows, changes, and adapts to new situations. Read the rest of this entry »

01.22.10

conversation as a vehicle for emergence

Posted in complexity/systems, emergence, leadership, learning, transition at 10:36 am by len

“Conversations are the foundation of our social world. Furthermore, they are the means by which we engage in internal dialogue and reflection, founding our internal world and our ability to learn. Conversations connect our personal internal world with another reality.. the others around us, and the Other who surrounds us. Conversation founds not only connection, friendship and community, but also prayer.

“Consider learning. It could be argued that all learning is founded on conversation, even if that dialogue is only internal. Single loop learning becomes double loop learning when it becomes conversation and dialogue. Language forms the boundaries of our world, and conversation is the means by which we explore and grow in understanding.

“Recently organizational theorists have been paying attention to conversation as the fuel of learning communities and the stuff by which organizations learn, adapt and change through shared knowledge. Since change is the order of the day, and since networks are increasingly important to us as we attempt to understand our world toward influencing change, conversation is inextricably linked to leadership.”

“The most powerful organizational learning and collective knowledge sharing grows through informal relationships and personal networks — via working conversations in communities of practice.”

Fritjof Capra, Creativity and Leadership in Learning Communities

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