Courageous Leadership

In the book, “Breaking the Missional Code,” Ed Stetzer and David Putman lay a foundation for church leaders and pastors to break the missional code that has caused so many churches today to decline or worse, shut their doors. It is not easy to grow a church because there are many factors that have to be dealt with when dealing with people. This book does a great job to connect the dots in showing how churches can achieve their mission to connect the message of the gospel with the community at large. It is also evident that others are equally frustrated, following the exact same model for outreach but with lesser results. The authors go to great detail to show that just because a missional breakthrough occurs in one place that does not mean

A church whose pastor and others in leadership have failed to put in place a proactive plan for discipleship for Believers is usually a “growing” church — growing stagnant, growing cold, growing spiritually immature Christians, and eventually, many growing closed. Patte said, “There is much at stake in accepting or rejecting the challenge of discipleship…” When a pastor or a church makes a conscious decision to make discipleship of Believers a primary focus in their

These systems historically have been fragmented and inadequate—causing program ineffectiveness and personal stress among pastors. The degree to which the African American pastors are effective is crucial to the health of the church. Pastors with strong support systems based upon sound theology, spiritual disciplines, management training, insurance systems, and outplacement services, have a better chance of producing strong effective ministries, as compared to unhealthy leaders producing unhealthy, ineffective leadership. Not only can ineffective leadership cause by certain types of stress and stressors produce poor ministries, but it can also produce unhealthy people living unhealthy doctrines. These issues have a spiritual effect on the pastors. These choices may lead to stress and, ultimately,

My current organizational context is represented by the House LA Church, where I am temporary assisting its leadership team in further church development. This young church primarily consists of Millennials with Asian and Latino backgrounds. While the majority of the church members are single, there are also several couples with small kids and some older adults. The main missional focus of the House LA Church is to facilitate spiritual transformation among young adults from diverse cultural backgrounds, mostly 2nd generation immigrants who currently live in Los Angeles. My responsibilities in this organization include designing leadership development process and coordinating the Alpha Course

Robert Morris writes a book about the essentials of Church growth and it's development. Having made that statement, the book achieves its own manner of possessing small nuggets of wisdom. Although, that pill was extremely hard to want to swallow as Robert Morris' book is comprised of the typical attitude of mega church pastors even down to the organizational community approach needed to guide a church, all of this is exceedingly evident in part three. The premise of this book is good that we would want our church's to be blessed and be a blessing. Though the premise was good and had good intention, he tends to have shortsighted view based upon the way he envisions church versus the holistic view of what church should be as a whole.

A sentiment common to almost any organization is that the one fact that remains constant is change. As society changes, and human understanding grows, any organization that maintains a static posture, assures its demise. Churches and Christian organizations are no exception. The gospel may remain the same, but the method for communicating it must speak to the audience to assure understanding. The Christian leader must be prepared to meet this challenge by incorporating an effective model for change into his theology of leadership in order to keep the ministry relevant and effective. Searching for such a change agent can prove to be challenging as well. To aid in this search, four

Let’s see what a spiritual leader can do and how Kotter’s theory of change can be applied at the Church Organization level. One important starting point in dealing with a

Steinke addressed four core issues that leadership need to be addressed on a regular basis that includes: “1) Goals/missions; 2) Strength and Resources; 3) Anxiety and how to manage it's; and 4) Wholesomeness and to maintain it; and 5) Goals and applicable actions”. In this situation, the author feels that the church of attendance is at a stagnant state and that strongly relates to the core issues of anxiety and how to manage it along with wholeness and how to maintain it from dying. Here, the anxiety lies in watching the church membership rapidly decrease due to church leadership holding onto traditions and the refusal to make changes in the worship service and ministry leadership. In addition, wholesome and how to maintain its goal has deteriorated because the main system of leadership is unhealthy, in that, leadership is not open to understanding and with its form of spiritual dictatorship refuse to address concerns of its disease state of death. In addition, Peter L. Steinke stated that if congregation leader “struggle ineffective with one or more of the four core conditions, this can put the congregations in receipt of at-risk conditions for congregations”. Here, this author feels the main system should address its core issue by seeking god for wisdom and discernment to break this process of unhealthiness within that impacting its

We are also challenged by the failing of institutions. People are not joining organizations like they used to from Boy Scouts to the Rotary Club to the church membership is down. This is especially challenging in the church when we are dependent on the giving of our membership to continue our ministry. With commitments down how do we continue to reach out and how do we prevent ourselves from slipping into survival mode which becomes very inward

I don’t think our vision need to be changed. I think we need to recommit to the vision. There is a passivity that is taking place. This passivity permits the church to run amok. If we continue down this road, we will never church growth. There has to be action taken and it has to be aggressive. Once leaders are trained they would have to take on more teaching responsibilities. Leaders should be producing other leaders, in turn; more programs could be initiated as new members joined the church. The organization and professionalism that the trained leaders operate in will attract others.

The New Testament leaders are an example of how church leaders of today should also behave and work[8]. They ought to be able to teach, guide the believers in the way of God and nurture their spiritual gifts. The New Testament leaders had to boldly defend the word of God in case of any false teaching. Basing on this New Testament leadership, it is important to make sure that any believer appointed to the leadership office has the laid down qualifications[9].

Countries disintegrate, place of worship and corporation fail, people become dysfunctional, descendants lose their direction, and mankind drift from God on behalf of one distracting reason; insufficiency of leadership. These disappointments are often for the reason that of the deficiency of instruction, appropriate leadership, and misperception on what Christian leadership subsists and exactly how that leadership is pertinent to every component of professional and personal life. From a Christian worldview perspective, Psalm 112:5 explains, “A good man deals graciously and lends; He will guide his affairs with discretion” (NKJ). A Christian manager should always keep in mind that bounteousness and admiration for God, demonstrates that one has placed trust in Him, and not our material possessions.

Church leadership boldness has two kinds of strategies: the kind we make and we take and the posterity we require. The prospective we take in of those events and arrangements over which we have committed, such as a down time in our praying and its consequential outcome on Christian-like stewardship. In this, all we can do is aim to prevent and protect against what is right and/or wrong., But there is also the urge we "compel." That is, the inference we will encounter in the future that will openly consider the character of the choices and commitments we companion.

To view a faith-based organization from the outside in will not be beneficial to those who are looking to start a faith-based organization organization, work for a faith-based organization, or become a stakeholder for a faith-based organization. One of the effective ways to view and gain knowledge of an organization is through internal experience, i.e. interviews with staff or leaders in the organization or community, internship within the organization, tours of the organization, etc. This field research experience paper is focusing on two effective interviews of leaders in the faith-based community. Minster Duane Wallace Sr. and Pastor Thaddeus Kirkland are two positive leaders in the faith-based community who has been servicing in this community for over a decade and has worked with multiple divisions throughout it. Each leader were asked the same series of questions which are focusing on the challenges and opportunities of providing faith-based human services to the community.

Sandra Comerie-Smith lectured on Pastoral and Spiritual formation in global setting. During the lecture she gave several key points. There was one particular one that stood out to me. Rev. Smith said, “Sometimes as Christians we are not ready to face the full impact of what is happening in the world.” To be mental fit for ministry in a global setting one must possess a healthy and strong mind that allows us to handle the challenges and opportunities that life puts in from of you. With the new administration in place in Washington D.C. we are facing many challenges. The challenges of discrimination, the challenge of seeing a family separated as a result of deportation, and the challenge of individuals losing health coverage. With the new issues arising people will look to the church for direction. When this happens we must be mentally prepared to minister to the fear people are experiencing. Ronald E, Peters says, “Urban ministry must also reflect the potential love as the most effective alternative to fear.” As leaders we must demonstrate the heart of compassion to show the love people need in such a time as this. The best way we can be mentally fit to demonstrate the love of God is through self-care. As leaders we need to manage our situation better to prevent possible burn out. When we don’t take time out to equip ourselves mentally it would be difficult to help others through their ordeal. The plenary reminded me the importance of self-care to help keep me prepared for my Jonah