Last week I spend a few days here on the blog working out the leadership culture we are trying to create at The Well. Now, admittedly I am a big leadership book junkie. I love exploring the sociology of leadership and community. But, as much as I love that stuff I realize there is a danger in it. One can become so dependent on good leadership technique that we forget that it is the Spirit that works in and through us. While technique is important, and firmly believe we can’t avoid it, we must not depend on it. With that being said, I want to highly recommend the little book by Henri Nouwen called, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. This book...Read More →
Archive for May, 2010
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May 28, 2010
In the Name of Jesus: From Relevance to Prayer
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May 24, 2010
What’s for Breakfast?? (Thoughts on Selfishness)
It seems to me that the world trains us to be pretty selfish, individualized people. Thomas Merton writes about this as he describes the problem of pride, “The self must be treated as if, not merely in feeling but in actual fact, the whole universe revolved around it…If I am the center of the universe, than everything belongs to me. I can claim, as my due, all the good things of the earth. I can rob and cheat and bully other people. I can help myself to anything I like, no one can resist me.” Now, this is a rather harsh assessment of our demeanor. I personally do not like to think of my perspective on my self as thinking that I am the center...Read More →
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May 17, 2010
Cultivating a Missional Leadership Culture
Download a PDF of this blog post here: Leadership Culture This post summarizes a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This is a list that we’ve discovered along the way and is still a work in progress. Over the years we have learned that it is important to set expectations up front on how we will walk forward together in leadership. It is also important that we intentionally...Read More →
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May 15, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Leading in and With the Congregation for the Sake of Others
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 14, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Risk and Failure
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 13, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Decision Making and Change
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 12, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture – Working as Team
This post is part of a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts and ideas that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This series of statements is some of what we’ve learned along the way and is still a work in progress. But, I share them here in the hopes that our experience will help others and also with the hopes of learning from what you have learned along the way as well. Introduction (5/11/2010)...Read More →
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May 11, 2010
Missional Leadership Culture: Introduction
This post starts a series on some of the key aspects of the leadership culture we are seeking to create at The Well. These are the concepts that we have found help guide us and lead us towards being an adaptive and creative community that is able to push the bounds of what it means to be the church while still having a sense of organization and structure. This is a list that we’ve discovered along the way and is still a work in progress. Over the years we have learned that it is important to set expectations up front on how we will walk forward together in leadership. It is also important that we intentionally define the type of leadership culture that we are...Read More →
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May 11, 2010
White Flight? (and the call of the suburban church)
A few friends sent me the link to this article that points out that white, young males are fleeing the suburbs and that, while the burbs still “tilt white…for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians and Hispanics already had topped 50 percent in 2000, and blacks joined them by 2008, rising from 43 percent in those eight years.” I believe this has major ramifications for how the church in suburbia sees its calling. A year ago as I was taking part in a prayer walk in my local town (Hatboro, PA). In this small suburban town with a main street. On the outskirts of this suburb there is a growing...Read More →
