http://www.fteleaders.org/ en Copyright 2012 2012-01-30T15:45:11+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine/ REM’s musical lyric: “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine” describes the way I feel today. Today, millions of people seriously doubt that the world will end tomorrow, as predicted by Harold Camping. Camping’s Family Radio’s website “proves” through some dizzying mathematics that Jesus will come to usher in the eschaton (the end of time). Here are three reasons I gave why the world will (most likely) not end on May 21, 2011:   Young Pastors Blog 2011-05-20T13:21:34+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/leadership-capacities-every-young-pastors-must-learn/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/leadership-capacities-every-young-pastors-must-learn/ For the last few years, I have been working with young pastors on leadership formation issues through Project Rising Sun, a pastoral leadership academy. Based on my work with these leaders, I have distilled seven key leadership capacities young pastors need to develop in order to thrive in ministry. These seven leadership capacities are crucial elements in the life of any young pastor serious about pastoral ministry. If congregations are to become vital faith communities filled with God’s people practicing life abundantly together and engaging the human and social needs of the community, young pastors must cultivate these practices over time.   Young Pastors Blog 2010-09-14T13:48:14+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/churches-unholy-addiction-2/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/churches-unholy-addiction-2/ Part 2 of 2 The early church was not a practical idea. Apostle Paul admitted that our proclamation was foolish. Even Jesus’ contemporaries thought he was crazy, if not a madman. People have invested in and died for more preposterous causes in the church’s history. But they were willing to face the ridicule of the masses and risk the uncharted waters of the future, even if it meant their livelihood, if not their life, for the church’s sake. What are you willing to do?  The vitality of the church and its future is dependent on the quality of its leaders and their break from an addiction to messianic leadership. The church’s vitality and future requires that you and I risk being changed and transformed. I long to see the day when congregations and their leaders all across this land, if not the entire church, have gone wild and are set loose in the world as the presence of God’s healing and Shalom. Young Pastors Blog 2010-08-12T12:42:58+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/churchs-unholy-addiction-1/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/churchs-unholy-addiction-1/ Part 1 of 2 In a New York Times article this past weekend entitled “Congregations Gone Wild,” the author claimed that clergy are “suffering from burnout,” “working too much,” and attending too often to “their congregation’s daily wishes,” behaviors which may lead to greater job security in a profession that is severely underpaid. This news is not surprising especially among those who work with clergy and congregations. However, what I do find surprising is a prevailing belief among many clergy and congregations that one pastor is equipped and able to attend faithfully to the needs of an entire faith community. What I find most alarming is an underlying assumption that clergypersons are somehow endowed by God with... Young Pastors Blog 2010-08-10T18:13:20+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/Single-Leader-Centered-vs-Group-Centered-Leadership/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/Single-Leader-Centered-vs-Group-Centered-Leadership/ Consider these two statements on leadership:      "Strong people don't need strong leaders."      "Leadership never ascends from the pew to the pulpit. It always descends from the pulpit to the pew." The first quote is a famous line from Ms. Ella Baker, whose masterful work in organizing and leadership development helped to launch and stabilize the early work of many of the most significant civil rights organizations of the 20th century: NAACP, SCLC, SNCC and MFDP. The second quote is a lesser known line from a better known figure: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ... Young Pastors Blog 2010-07-20T17:03:57+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/story-telling-as-care-of-the-soul/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/story-telling-as-care-of-the-soul/ I recently introduced Calling Congregations’ Vocation Care practice to my home parish in Atlanta. The way I presented it was telling our stories as a way to care for our lives. Our conversations have had a surprisingly rich character. Though the identified object of that curriculum is vocation – yours, mine, and ours together as the church – the way to a calling, it seems, is less systematic than textbook theology and closer to a practice of careful attention to our lives, to their warp and woof, formed and fashioned as they are by our Creator “in the depths of the earth” (Ps. 139:15) as well as by our choices. If the Psalmist’s phrase suggests a kind of mythology it may just be the needful imaginative platform that helps our thinking about our lives, about who we really are—creatures who belong not only to ourselves but to others and to the great Artifacer. Our divine origin is a given. Thomas Moore in his now-famous Care of the Soul says that “care” is a more appropriate posture toward our lives than heroism, however desirable heroics may be to the ego. We engage the stories of our lives, he says, not to make them problem-free but to “give to ordinary life the depth and value that comes from soulfulness.” Our lives just as they are with their story-woven content just as it is. Our attempts to heal, says Moore, “can get in the way of seeing.” Young Pastors Blog 2010-02-12T20:59:21+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/jesus-and-the-next-generation-of-leaders/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/jesus-and-the-next-generation-of-leaders/ The congregational development model Jesus follows in the gospels to prepare the next generation of leaders can be stated this way—a long conversation, on the way together, as life happens, between meals. It’s a simple pattern, so lacking in complexity as to go unseen. It’s also hard to imagine that conversation can be so important (think of Mary and Martha). But this is the way Jesus cared for his own vocation and those who would follow him. That’s it. And it worked. FTE "On Call" Blog, Young Pastors Blog 2009-11-23T20:33:43+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/thank-you-dr.-vivian-and/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/thank-you-dr.-vivian-and/ The stuff of legend – that’s how one young person described C.T. Vivian after meeting him at a Sunday morning gathering, having heard him recount his experience on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. We can never say thank you enough for his courage, his fortitude, his unwavering commitment and his seemingly endless energy. Like so many of his generation, Rev. Vivian has been the kind of transformative leader that our world so dearly needs. And I want to let him – and everyone else know – we’re with you Dr. Vivian. This past weekend, the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a story about the work of Dr. Vivian and his continuing efforts to inspire the next generation of pastoral leaders for the African American church. He continues to strive through his C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute to notice, name and nurture leaders for society with the kind of vision and values that will not only honor the work of the first generation of civil rights leaders but will also imagine the needs for the next generation, that will not simply rest because we have come so far, that will empower the kind of collaboration necessary to sustain the fight against injustice. We know these efforts as well through our work at FTE. FTE "On Call" Blog, Young Pastors Blog 2009-07-20T16:26:26+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/what-is-project-rising-sun/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/what-is-project-rising-sun/ Three years ago, a few colleagues and I began to wrestle with these questions. That wrestling has become a signature pastoral leadership development program for young clergy, Project Rising Sun (PRS).   Young Pastors Blog 2009-06-12T13:16:15+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-leadership-ecosystem/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-leadership-ecosystem/ It started as a simple project. I wanted to build a raised garden bed and try my hand at organic vegetable gardening. Within a short span of time one bed grew to seven; vegetables grew to include herbs, three types of berries, grapes, flowers and apple trees.   Young Pastors Blog 2009-06-12T13:10:15+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/my-six-word-memoir-became-better-pastor-by-becoming-me/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/my-six-word-memoir-became-better-pastor-by-becoming-me/ We exist in a culture that hawks self-improvement incessantly. There is never a dearth of folks promising to make you better. He promises a smaller waist and firmer pectorals in 90 days. She promises that implementing the strategies in her book will improve your credit score by 100 points. They promise that in 90 days you’ll become closer to God and your purpose in life will emerge from the foggy recesses of your soul.   FTE "On Call" Blog, Young Pastors Blog 2009-05-23T19:42:15+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/10-attributes-of-an-excellent-minister/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/10-attributes-of-an-excellent-minister/ What distinguishes a minister who carries out her/ his call with excellence?  FTE conducted four consultations around this question with ministers across the country.   The results were published in Faithful to the Call: Reflections on Excellence in Ministry Here's a synopsis of what they said: 1.  Excellent ministers believe what they are proclaiming. "They embrace their faith as a living, breathing thing, and they share that faith with others by pointing to the scriptures and the life of the worshipping community." 2.  Excellent ministers love their communities. "Whether introverted or extroverted, gregarious or reserved, a good minister thoroughly grounds himself or herself in the life of the congregation." 3.  Excellent ministers display agility, flexibility and grace under pressure. "Excellent ministers are agile ministers. They move fluidly across a range of responsibilities, from the sublime to the everyday and the tedious." FTE "On Call" Blog, Young Pastors Blog 2009-04-15T14:21:19+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/race-gender-and-the-politics-of-the-call-to-ministry/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/race-gender-and-the-politics-of-the-call-to-ministry/ Here, a group of young women at Spelman College's Sister's Center for WISDOM share powerful testimony of the ways in which the issues of race and gender have affected their responses to God's call on their lives.  The second person to speak is Meredith Coleman Tobias, a 2007 FTE Ministry Fellow from Yale Divinity School. FTE "On Call" Blog, Young Pastors Blog 2009-04-08T14:16:20+00:00