Monthly Archives: September 2013

Contextual Leadership Formation Program – Discovery Summit

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Contextual Leadership Formation provides current and future leaders the opportunity to intentionally practice and reflect within a community of supportive peers and supervision. Such a program offers participants a safe place to risk, and even to fail, knowing that they will experience grace and mercy, and will be nurtured and aided in the critical reflection that transforms brokenness into wholeness and failure into potential for new fruitfulness.

Likely components to the program include:

Over the past few months I have been in three separate conversations with unrelated groups who mentioned their interest in pursuing these ideas in their own organization.

I am proposing a summit to gather current practitioners and others interested in exploring the possibilities for their own settings. This event will be scheduled for fall 2013 in Dallas.

Among the potential conversation partners are:

People from other regions of the country have already expressed interest in this conversation, and that they would be likely to make the trip here in order to participate.

I am looking for individuals and groups who will do one or more of the following:

  1. Participate in the summit
  2. Serve as a host organization
  3. Aid in planning and development
  4. Serve as a sponsoring organization – providing seed money or in kind service
  5. Promote the summit through your networks and encourage others to participate
  6. Prayer support

We will convene a local planning team for an initial conversation. Please respond with your interest. Let me know your suggestions for others whom we could include in this discussion.

God’s Dream Is Our Wholeness

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Genesis 1:24-2:25

We were made complete, and
God’s work of salvation is restoring us to completeness.

The stories from Genesis tell us several things about our humanness. We learn about three aspects of our being that have both external and internal expressions:

  • Physical / Spiritual –the self and our deepest experience
  • Relational / emotional –our experience of self and others
  • Work / intellectual – our interaction with and reflection on the world

As the two creation narratives unfold, we see each of these facets of humankind come to be.

  • The humans are made, physical beings infused with spirit, in God’s image. (1:27; 2:2-8, 21-22)
  • The humans are in relationship, with each other and with God. (1:27; 2:18-25)
  • The humans are given work to do – to tend the garden and manage the animals. (1:28 ; 2:15)

Most of the Biblical witness reflects the unfolding story of God’s continuing invitation to us to live our created wholeness, and our inability or unwillingness to do so.

In the salvation work of God through Jesus Christ we see these three aspects once again, and we see them both redeemed, and used in the ongoing redemption of the world. And in all three aspects, there is a transformation from the former to the latter way of being.

Physically, in the creation stories, distinction and difference matter and are given a central place. In the New Creation, these distinctions fade to the background, what matters is that we “are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Reconciliation – restoration of relationship both to others and to God –

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Resurrection of the body – the restoration of the physical self, joined with the spiritual.

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 – (Paul works hard to try to explain the inexplicable.)

Work / Intellect

The work of ministry – (Paul compares Christian ministry to the various roles in building construction)
1 Corinthians 3:10-15

Work from salvation, not for salvation –
Ephesians 2:8-9

Transformation of the Intellect –
Romans 12:1-3

(Paul uses the image of a body to explain how we as believers are to function in our ministry roles and more generally how we are to behave.)
Romans 12:4-21

Through the BODY of Christ comes reconciliation of relationships with one another and with God –
Ephesians 2:13-22
Colossians 1:11-23

These all impact each other directly and indirectly – physical illness often disrupts our ability to think clearly and work strongly, as well as upsetting us emotionally. Conflict in a relationship will also often disrupt our work, and impact us emotionally. When we are spiritually disengaged, the result is destructive to all aspects of our self.

God’s work of salvation, including the work effected in and through Jesus Christ and the ongoing power and presence of the Holy Spirit, is to restore us to wholeness. Any faithful work in our personal Christian lives or in our congregations and communities will move us toward this wholeness in which we were created and toward which we are being saved.

I would love to talk with you and explore ways that we might work together as you grow and mature toward wholeness in all areas of your life. I am also available to come and do workshops for organizations. Let’s live into God’s dream for us!