Theology: Mission Studies: Leadership

The speed of the remarkable expansion of Christianity in Africa has outstripped available support structures for Christian leadership training and development. Since many of Africa's countries are majority-Christian, African Christians also find themselves exercising leadership in a wide variety of business, educational, media, social service, and governmental venues. This book seeks to offer this support and training, to promote African Christianity, and to further the healthy development of Africa.

Explorers Lewis and Clark had to adapt. While they had prepared to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean, instead they found themselves in the Rocky Mountains. You too may feel that you are leading in a cultural context you were not expecting. You may even feel that your training holds you back more often than it carries you along.Drawing from his extensive experience as a pastor and consultant, Tod Bolsinger brings decades of expertise in guiding churches and organizations through uncharted territory. He offers a combination of illuminating insights and practical tools to help you reimagine what effective leadership looks like in our rapidly changing world.If you're going to scale the mountains of ministry, you need to leave behind canoes and find new navigational tools. Reading this book will set you on the right course to lead with confidence and courage.

As the church continues to hear and heed Christ's call to reflect the multiethnic character of his people, pastors and lay leaders need to gain skills and competencies to serve in those contexts. The multicultural team of Juan Martinez and Mark Branson has written this book to equip such leaders to create environments that make God's reconciling initiatives apparent in church life and in our missional engagement with neighborhoods and cities.Generated by courses they teach at Fuller Theological Seminary, Branson and Martinez take an interdisciplinary approach that integrates biblical and theological study with the disciplines of sociology, cultural anthropology and communications. The result is a rich blend of astute analysis with guidance for practical implementation of a deeper intercultural life for the church.Case studies, Bible studies and exercises for personal reflection and classroom use connect the real life and everyday challenges that inevitably arise in multi-ethnic contexts. Martinez and Branson offer not static model but a praxis of "paying attention," reflection and study that can lead to a genuine reconciliation and shared life empowered by the gospel that is personal, interpersonal, cultural and structural.

Recent political events in the USA indicate that ordinary people are weary of traditional politics and ways of doing business in the halls of power. A similar mood is present in churches around the world. Ordinary church members are tired of the fighting and politicking that seem to privilege the same people all the time. They want a new way of making decisions in their churches and in their representative meetings. This book shows them how such a hope can be realized. Robert's Rules of Order, or the traditional parliamentary style of decision-making used in many churches, can work for simple decisions that are aggregated and passed by consent. For complex and divisive issues, churches need a decision process that does not result in a combative, winner-take-all approach to church life. A healthy church also tries to involve commitment from a wide range of stakeholders rather than privilege a few well-informed and capable speakers. A vital and healthy congregation yearns for a more collaborative, respectful, encouraging, engaging, and empowering process. This book on discernment in the church provides a step-by-step guide on how to create a new way of working together. Drawing on tried and tested processes, it advocates for a consensus building approach and showing people how it can work in their setting (local church or judicatory meetings). Readers will learn how to design a consensus building business process for their church meeting while still respecting the denominational and legal requirements under which they must operate. This book is for leaders, members of church boards and committees, and church members who know that there is something wrong with the present system but don't know what to do about it. This guidebook is hopeful, inspiring, and practical.

How do you lead an organization stuck between an ending and a new beginning--when the old way of doing things no longer works but a way forward is not yet clear? Beaumont calls such in-between times liminal seasons--threshold times when the continuity of tradition disintegrates and uncertainty about the future fuels doubt and chaos. In a liminal season it simply is not helpful to pretend we understand what needs to happen next. But leaders can still lead. How to Lead When You Don't Know Where You're Going is a practical book of hope for tired and weary leaders who risk defining this era of ministry in terms of failure or loss. It helps leaders stand firm in a disoriented state, learning from their mistakes and leading despite the confusion. Packed with rich stories and real-world examples, Beaumont guides the reader through practices that connect the soul of the leader with the soul of the institution.

In a world of managerial discourse, measurement and control, leaders and workers alike cry out for inspiration and innovation in a way that respects their humanity. Spirituality as the search for meaning and a healthy work/life balance is therefore no longer an esoteric phenomenon but part of mainstream leadership. In this volume, two business leaders share how they have seen the need for spiritual leadership develop at their places of work. A psychologist and a philosopher explain what spirituality is, and how it works in the practice of business leadership. Three theologians frame spirituality by demonstrating the benefits of Ignatian spirituality, by comparing spiritual leadership with Christ's offices as king, prophet and priest, and by reflecting on the human tendency to glorify the leader and how destructive tendencies can be avoided in spiritual leadership. This maiden volume of the series "Christian Perspectives on Leadership and Social Ethics," is published by the Institute of Leadership and Ethics, of the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven (Belgium) and serves leaders to face increasing pressure for innovation in today's fast changing world.

This new book in Alban's Harvesting the Learnings Series gathers the collected wisdom of over 10 years of Alban research and reflection on what it means to be a leader in a congregation, how our perceptions of leadership are changing, and exciting new directions for leadership in the future. With pieces by such diverse church leaders as Graham Standish, Diana Butler Bass, Jeffrey Jones, Donna Schaper, Gil Rendle, Ann Svennungsen, Mark Lau Branson, and many others, this volume gathers in one place a variety of essays that approach the leadership task and challenge with insight, depth, humor, and imagination. The book also includes the full text of Alban's 2001 special report, "The Leadership Situation Facing American Congregations" by James P. Wind and Gil Rendle. That report examined the evidence for turmoil on the one hand and ferment on the other. The Alban Institute, it declared, stood on the side of ferment. To live into the ferment, we need to see leadership in new ways and learn a new set of adaptive skills that allow them to shape new patterns of congregational life and new leadership roles. Based in research and experience, this volume makes available the best of Alban's learning on how the leaders of congregations can go about this important work.

In this volume -- the third book in the Missional Church series -- eminent missional church expert Craig Van Gelder continues to track and contribute to the expanding missional church conversation, inviting today's brightest minds in the field to speak to key questions concerning church leadership. Contributors Richard H. Bliese Sharon Henderson Callahan Scott Cormode Dave Daubert Terri Martinson Elton Kyle J. A. Small Kristine M. Stache Craig Van Gelder