Your bride is your mission and your ministry

I’m officially past the one week mark of being a newly wed. My wife is studying for an exam tomorrow and I’m up reflecting on something I wrote on Wednesday: Your bride is your mission and your ministry. Scripture records Israel, the church, and the New Jerusalem …

Define Synergy

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This definition of synergy is packed and offers excellent insight for community. Communities are made up of parts. There are communities that are made up of "parts" but also there are communities that are a "whole". …

Influence Flows

Leadership is a complex process of influence. Leaders should have the ability to influence in the four different proxemics that Edward Hall identifies. These four spaces (proxemics) consist of public space, social space, personal space and intimate space. Leaders …

Maslow's Hierarchy and Community

Abraham Maslow gave us an amazing tool that leaders can use when evaluating the health of their communities. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides excellent framework in helping to ensure healthy community. This pyramid model encompasses needs from all aspects of a …

The Process of Influence

The field of sociology is very dynamic in that no one paradigm explains all sociological phenomena. Leadership is no different. New paradigms are constantly being formed because both of these fields are dynamic. Leadership is a dynamic process of influence. Leaders …

Verb-centric Direction

Another essential ability of a leader is having direction and being able to cast it on his/her followers. Direction must be verb-centric and understood in the sense of leadership being a dynamic process rather being noun-centric and static.

"A leader must know where …

Organic Community: Creating a place where people naturally connect

Joseph Myers argues organic order leads to sustainability in his book Organic Community. The premise of the book is "creating a place where people naturally connect." Myers argues that organic community creates these spaces better than master planning. He compellingly …

Static: Tune out the "Christian noise" and experience the real message of Jesus

Ron Martoia's Static supplements what Kinnaman writes about in unChristian. Kinnaman addressed six issues of the Christian faith, one of them being too sheltered. Martoia addresses the sheltered/exclusiveness issue through what he calls static.

Perhaps the single …

A Leader's Passion is their Catalyst

A leader's passion is their catalyst for momentum. The larger the momentum the greater the impact. I identify two areas of passion from my life. The first is for what I am chasing and the second is with whom I am chasing. I chase after God because I believe He is …

Leadership Transparency

The concept of leadership transparency is a scary thought. In an era where manipulation and deceitfulness is often perceived as the tool needed to make it to the top, leadership transparency has gone amiss. Too often our outward reflection is not an inward …

Leaders Who Engage Risk

Leaders take risks: not because they want to but because they must. As leaders, we often find ourselves in uncharted territory due to the natural process of change. Unexpected obstacles will cause us to take unexpected paths and then we must have the ability to give …

Define Leader

Defining what it means to lead and who constitutes a leader is a cumbersome task. It is an important one to flesh out, especially if you are a leader. As a man of faith, I believe that there is a natural gift of leadership and that there is a spiritual gift of …

Leadership Matters

After developing a working definition of what it means to be a leader, I have to ask myself, Why do leaders matter? Why are they important? ?????? Chazown, often translated as vision in hebraic scripture, is an important concept to consider when asking why leader's …

Leadership Matters II

In my last post I talked about how direction is needed to ensure the growth of a community. This is one reason why leadership matters. To often, we as leaders get caught up in this idea of vision casting and honestly it is just a way to make ourselves feel good. …

Organic Community: Creating a place where people naturally connect [1]

Joseph Myers argues organic order leads to sustainability in his book Organic Community. The premise of the book is "creating a place where people naturally connect." Myers argues that organic community creates these spaces better than master planning. He compellingly …

Static: Tune out the "Christian noise" and experience the real message of Jesus

Ron Martoia's Static supplements what Kinnaman writes about in unChristian. Kinnaman addressed six issues of the Christian faith, one of them being too sheltered. Martoia addresses the sheltered/exclusiveness issue through what he calls static.

Leaders Who Engage Risk

Leaders take risks: not because they want to but because they must. As leaders, we often find ourselves in uncharted territory due to the natural process of change. Unexpected obstacles will cause us to take unexpected paths and then we must have the ability to give …

The Process of Influence

The field of sociology is very dynamic in that no one paradigm explains all sociological phenomena. Leadership is no different. New paradigms are constantly being formed because both of these fields are dynamic. Leadership is a dynamic process of influence. Leaders …

Dimensional Leadership Thoughts

Current trends in the academic study of leadership suggest that there are three leadership base elements consisting of leaders, followers and situation. As an emerging leader I am striving to develop my knowledge of these three areas so that I become a three …