Skills: Leadership Development Resources

Today we are discussing various resources for developing our leadership potential and the leadership potential of those we influence.  We started by discussing various conference options.

Conferences: Willow Creek Leadership Summit (Aug 6-7, $245 non-member price), Catalyst (Oct 7-9)and Catalyst West (Apr 22-24), CCDA (Oct 21-25, $99).  Barbee brought up the Resurgence.

Books: We reviewed various books that discuss leadership both inside and outside the church.  The bibliography we reviewed had over 50 books on it, and several were recommended.  The must read on the list was A Work of Heart by Reggie McNeal.  Get it, read it, be changed.  Chris has been finishing  The Ascent of a Leader by Thrall, McNicol, McElrath.  Here is the basic recommendation:   Don’t go out and buy it unless you are working hard at improving your individual skills and abilities, and perhaps need to consider character development first.  There are many things said in this book about the best ways of leadership, but a few big ideas are fleshed out in addition to at least one excellent tool.  The first big idea discussed is the “Capacity Ladder”.  The capactiy ladder is common, but not ideal.  It’s limitations and pitfalls explain the reasons so many of us experience the negative side of leadership is various situations.  The capacity ladder has two siderails that hold the rails together.  The left rail on this ladder is named “environments of mistrust and ungrace.”  The right rail called “relationships of power and leverage.”  The authors paint the rungs on the ladder of capacity as: 1. Discover what I can do, 2. Develop my capacities, 3. Acquire title or position, 4. Attain individual potential.   This book delves into the problem of merely attaining indiviual potential.  What is squandered is the potential available to those who are willing to see the potential of a group commited to the Character ladder.   The Character ladder has rails called “environments of grace” and “relationships of grace” that hold rungs that follow.  1.  Trust God and others, 2. Choose vulnerabilty, 3. Align with truth, 4. Pay the price, 5. Discover my destiny.  The stages between these rungs are humility, submission, obedience, and suffering (also called maturity).  The authors then marry the “bad” ladder with the “good” ladder to make a ladder that has for it’s rungs: 1.  Trust God and others with me, 2. Discover what I can do with God and others, 3. Choose vulnerability, 4. develop my true capacities in team, 5. Align with truth, 6. Acquire positions that match who I am, 7. Pay the price, 8. Attain God-designed potential, 9. Descover my destiny.   There you go. I saved you $15 and a couple hours of reading.  This book is really good if you are in a roll leading a larger group and are feeling that it’s lonely at the top.  These authors will help show you why that need not be the case.

Podcasts:
Manager Tools – http://www.manager-tools.com/available-rss-feeds#mt_feeds
Andy StanleyLeadership – http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndyStanleyLeadershipPodcast
Harvard Business IdeaCast - http://hbsp2.libsyn.com/rss

Videos:
TEDTalks – Video PodCast = http://feeds.feedburner.com/TEDTalks_video

 

Skills: Leadership Tools: Resources for developing our leadership ability.

This week, we are discussing leadership tools to help us develop and refine our leadership skills.  We’ll take a look a several leadership books and take a particular look at one, The Ascent of a Leader.  We’ll look at some conference opportunities, some podcasts that are avialable, and we will share resources with each other.  All this at the Fellowship Forum.  Don’t miss it. Thursday, 1:30 pm, 1530 Marion Street.

 

Spiritual: Missing the Point in Scripture

Our friend Bryan Craig from Denver Mosaic has just posted a couple of blog entries after reading Scot McKnight’s book The Blue Parakeet (Amazon, B&N, CBD). They are about how we miss-read the Bible. The first post details a few ways that we incorrectly approach the text, and the second post shows a number of methods we can use to study scripture that actual hinders our abilities to understand it.  Read Brian’s posts and report back how you read it.

Other reviews of McKnight’s book include:

• From the Intervasity Emerging Scholar’s Blog
• From the Burnside Writers Collective

It should be noted that a significant portion of Scot’s book discusses passages in scripture relating to women and their role in the church.  Brian’s blog articles don’t mention that much. but the other two reviews discuss that in some detail.

 

News: Colorado’s the Drinkin-est place

A Denver Post article recently talked about the volume of alcohol consumed in Colorado in relation to other states in the union.   I thought this might interest some of you all. Some interesting details:  6% of the countries population would be considered heavy drinkers and 100,000 people die a year from excessive drinking.

 

Spiritual: Lent Traditions and History Part 2

Spiritual Disciplines – Lent

Lent is the season starting with Ash Wednesday that end on Easter Sunday.  These 47 days are marked by observers with commitments of fasting, ascetic piety, or/and increased spiritual activity. Eastern Christians (Othrodox, Pelagian, and others) observe 40 days of Lent prior to their Easter (or Pascha) celebration.  The Western tradition is also 40 days of observance along with 6 Sundays offering small breaks and Easter Sunday proper.  Since the commitments of observance are typically designed to match the sober tone leading up to Easter celebrations, each Sunday are typically days “off” or as celebrations anticipating Easter.  (By the way, the word Lent derives from the Danish lente or German lenz, words meaning Spring.)

For most Christians, the  significance of 40 through out the Bible is sufficient justification for the duration of the Lent season, but of course the historical development took some time.  My personal favorite place to start the story is with Cyril of Jerusalem.  Easter (or Pascha – the Greek transliteration) began to be celebrated by Christians prior to the middle of the second century BCE. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, delivered his Catechetical lectures prior to Easter baptism ceremonies for the new converts.  As the practice of baptizing new converts on Easter developed in the church, so did the practice of asking those seeking baptism to fast for the week during or more that their training classes were being delivered.  These are the foreshadows of Lent from what I understand.

As the tradition progressed, the duration of the fast stretched to 40 days and the church was asked to join the new converts in abstaining from certain foods and beverages as Easter was anticipated. Many different observances during Lent have developed, and many liturgical modifications have been made during by various Christian streams to commemorate Lent.  Today many Christians observe Lent by giving up something in order to identify with Christ in his suffering and to prepare for the celebration of Easter.  Many groups of protestant Christians have little formal observance of Lent, some in the United States see a growing interest among individuals from these Christian backgrounds.

Here are some random Lent Resources online:

Bread for the World’s Lent Guide

A Sermon (text) by a Presbyterian about Lent

Some Christianity Today Articles about Lent: What groups can do, A bunch of articles on Lent and Easter

Also for more detailed musing of amateur historians, pick up the wikipedia articles I linked to in my last post.

 

Spiritual: Lent Traditions and History

I realize several of you were hoping to see our notes about Lent up here already (and probably before Easter at least).  I have started the article and hope to have something up soon.  Until then, I got some of my stuff from wikipedia anyway, so check out the articles there:  Lent and Great Lent.  If anyone knows what Coptics or others do for Lent (or don’t do), be sure and comment.

 

Skills: Leadership Styles and Their Application

See the borrowed presentation from the UN here.

This last forum we discussed different leadership styles and what situations they best address.  The top four styles described in our presentation is the autocratic (or authoritarian), the democratic, the laize-fair style, and the bureaucratic style.  We discussed which styles we individually gravitate to and which styles our ministries at time demand.  Our discussion was very fruitful for each of us and we were challenged to re-think how we are leading in our ministry contexts.  Thanks to all who attended.

 

Coming Jan 29th: The Truth Project

Have you seen it yet? …

 

Skills: Raising Support Resource – The Body Builders

Hey Team, I’ve been getting these email newsletters about raising support for some time.  They are all archived on the organizations website, and you might find some of the topic inspiring, interesting, or otherwise noteworthy.  Enjoy:

http://www.thebodybuilders.net/srs/archives.html

 

The Former Forum Minutes

http://odfforum.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

The old Forum Minutes are still here.