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 shooting for.  I have found that all of us carry a certain set of assumptions to team environments and this document is an effort to layout some of those expectations in the open and, if needed, deconstruct some expectations that aren’t helpful or fair.

The idea running under all of these thoughts is the need for an atmosphere of trust. This atmosphere of trust is difficult to come by and it doesn’t happen overnight. Nor does it happen by simply agreeing to fact that we have to have trust. Trust comes over time and a commitment to honestly work things out in community.

Therefore, also underlying the entire leadership enterprise is a commitment to seeking community within the leadership team.  When someone is on a leadership team in a church environment, it is important that this person be able to make significant relational commitments to the other members of the leadership team.  This is where trust is built.  Perhaps it would be possible to have a different view on this if one were part of a leadership team in a non-church environment.  But, we believe that when we are leading a church are calling the church to community and family, we must be doing the same.

I’ll be posting four different section to this series which you’ll be able to find here: