We tend to think of leadership as an activity and not a relationship. But in terms of creating a culture of discipleship, equipping each other for ministry, and mobilizing people and groups for mission, the relational aspect of leadership is of enormous significance.
Having already engaged in conversations around the themes of missional discipleship and missional family, the Missional Learning Commons will round off with a discussions about missional leadership. Speakers, topics, and bios are below. More information and registration here.
David Fitch: The Hazards of Being Paid to Pastor: Overcoming the Bad Dynamics of Money
Summary: When a pastor gets paid a set of negative dynamics are set into motion. Power relationships develop within a community. There are expectations from people who “give.” Ministry can turn inward and into politics. All of this works against moving a community into mission. I offer a couple observations and simple moves to subvert these dynamics.
Bio: David Fitch is a co-pastor at Life on the Vine in northwest Chicagoland and a church planter/coach. He is also Lindner professor of evangelical theology at Northern Seminary’s programs in missional church studies teaching on matters having to do with gospel and culture. He is an author with his next book – The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission coming out in January 2011. Dave is married to Rae Ann and dad to their son Max.
Fitch, Take 2: Leadership is Submission: The Counter-Cultural Way of the Cross in Leadership
Summary: Leadership that leads into the new territories of mission will always produce conflict. This is the inevitable prospect of a community pushing into Mission. The Missional leader is not one who manages this conflict from top down. Instead, through the posture of humility, service and trust in the Spirit, out of Scripture and mutual discernment in prayer, he or she leads the community through inviting it to seek what God is doing, hear and respond. In this way of non-coercion and submission, the “revolutionary” community is birthed, brought together in Christ “on the way” of Mission.
Amy Rozko: Global Perspectives on Missional Leadership: Reflections and Observations from Cape Town 2010 (The 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization)
Summary: Local churches bear the responsibility not only of equipping leaders for ministry in an increasingly globalized world at home, but also of mobilizing them for participation in God’s Kingdom work across the globe. Doing so necessitates that we have a meaningful sense of what God is saying and how God is working in other parts of the world. In this session, Amy will offer reflections on the state of the church around the world from a recent gathering of 4000 global church leaders and invite us to discuss the implications for churches in terms of leadership development.
Bio: Amy is excited to have just participated as a delegate to the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa. She and her husband of just over a year, JR, live in Elgin, IL where she also works for International Teams US as the Director of Mobilization. They are an active part of Life on the Vine in the Chicagoland suburbs.
If you haven’t registered for the Commons yet, DO IT!
