leadership

There are right tools…for the right job. Tools are designed to make jobs easy and more productive. Using the wrong tools can oftentimes be counterproductive and sometimes hazardous. You wouldn’t want to use the sole of a shoe as a hammer, nor a kitchen knife as a screwdriver; but the truth is, we probably have. We did it because the tools that we needed; at that moment, were simply out of our reach or unavailable. So, we proceeded with what we had.

The Church would do well to explore the differences between organic and organizations tools.

How do leaders and leadership need to be shaped or contoured in order to meet the unique demands and challenges of 21st century ministry?

Papers presented in the Hague, Netherlands, 7th - 10th May, 2005.

The way "spiritual leadership" is viewed, conducted and evaluated is undergoing a major shift today that demands our attention and response. What needs to change touches upon critical questions related to the theory and practice of leadership; but of equal importance is another question: What is actually needed in the person of the leader today to be faithful and fruitful over the long haul? In this upcoming Thinklings gathering we want to move into addressing these complex leadership issues.

Out of the turbulence of post-modernity, new church clusters will form. They will be built around natural networks of relationship, and will be in a state of continual change. These clusters will be the “Emerging Church”. The “local” or “community” church will still exist and grow, but when non-believers are introduced to the redemptive values of Christ they won’t be tuning into the “brick and mortar”church for answers. They will be tuning into their own natural network of relationships, or clusters, to find God’s presence. These clusters, and countless others, will define the Church at large, and the Church will grow like never before. However, the prominence of the Church itself will diminish: the organization of the Church will begin to look more like the nature of biblical leadership, which is “servanthood”— a behind the scenes entity, familiar to the church community, but not a mainstream corporate brand. New-believers will associate themselves with the Church at large, but will belong to their cluster. And they’ll be right to feel that way, because they will have played an important role in making it a reality.

Considering the millenial (read:postmodern) aversion to hierarchy, authority, etc., how do we consider and shape a Biblical practice of authority in the emerging context?