DLGP

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Category: Uncategorized

Re-centering My Inner Pendulum

By: on March 14, 2025

An acquaintance recently shared that she left a mutual group because it was too white. Her perspective was that it was a “sea of white faces.” I experienced the same group as wonderfully diverse. I thought the group looked less like me than the typical Oregon demographic. At over 30% non-white, it was easily twice…

12 responses

Oh To Be Colorblind

By: on March 14, 2025

Race has been a factor in my life since my childhood. I remember interacting in multiple cross-racial settings and feeling like everything was peachy. I believed race was just a differentiation of skin color, but as time progressed, I found it to be the source of controversy and conflict. Growing up as a child in…

23 responses

Through the lens of a minority.

By: on March 14, 2025

Introduction What is ‘race’ to me personally? Well, I am a Micronesian from the Pacific Islands which has a certain geographical location on this planet. Race to me refers a group of people with a certain likeness, way of living, same or at least similar language and history or backgrounds. This is not based on…

14 responses

Approved and Sacrificed

By: on March 13, 2025

Reading Leading Out of Who You Are[1] by Simon P Walker was life changing. I found myself moving through reflecting on profound truths, tears, self-awareness, inner healing and my identity in Jesus.  The undefended leader, who has deliberately chosen weakness and true self-sacrifice,[2]is the kind of leader I want to be. To become an undefended…

9 responses

Vulnerability to Lead Well

By: on March 13, 2025

Leadership is often defined by strength, empowerment, control, and authority. Have we wondered what leadership might look like through the lens of authenticity and vulnerability? Hello. My name is Judith, and I want a world where leadership strength is about vulnerability, transparency, self-awareness, openness, and emotional intelligence. These are wonderful tools for building trust among…

7 responses

Speaking with Conviction

By: on March 13, 2025

In 2010, I entered a new senior leadership role with an organic produce distributor in Portland, Oregon.  As part of my onboarding and development, the Board of Directors requested that I attend a 3-day class with Josh, our CEO.  It was called “Speaking with Conviction.”   We were introduced to our instructor and a dozen other…

6 responses

The Power of Being Undefended

By: on March 13, 2025

Edwin Friedman says differentiated leaders should expect sabotage.[1] That does not sound encouraging. Over the past weeks, several members of the DLGP04 cohort have shared stories where their leadership efforts had resulted in undeserved personal attacks. The hurt is enough to prompt a now familiar question of whether accepting a role is worth the effort.…

9 responses

Character over Color

By: on March 13, 2025

What I believe about race and why. When I was in elementary school the first time I saw children whose skin was much darker than mine I questioned my mother about it. She responded by telling me that skin color was God’s gift to help people whose generations of ancestors spent thousands of years living…

14 responses

Leading From the Inside Out

By: on March 13, 2025

While the entrance of diverse knowledge, technology and information has its good aspects, the same can affect culture and the workings of a modern organisation. I’ve had great interest in the topic of organisation culture because I think it does a lot not only to the success of an organisation but also to the local…

12 responses

Succeeding Through Failure

By: on March 13, 2025

I remember the time when I was a young man in my mid-twenties, and I experienced an epiphany. This was a significant moment for me because it was when I came to the conclusion that not all failure was bad. I discovered that the worst leaders I knew, in Walker’s words, had substantial frontstage presence…

7 responses

Tearin’ Down the Walls

By: on March 13, 2025

“I have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The topic of race has always been something that I’ve been aware of for as long as I can remember. Even though I have…

8 responses

Scars or wounds?

By: on March 13, 2025

In 1992 I read the book ‘Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living’ and it changed my life and motivation. The author Swindoll says that to have a decent heart we need to have “a non-defensive spirit when confronted” and his phrase that has accompanied me as a life motto is, “genuine humility operates…

17 responses

A Macchiato with Power on the Side

By: on March 13, 2025

Starbucks is a strange place to have a threshold experience with the dynamics of power. But on a November day in 2023, at a café in a town you’ve never heard of, meeting with a courageous leader you’ve never heard of, that’s what happened for me. For a long time, I held a pretty unnuanced…

9 responses

Finding Hope in the Undefended Leader as Biblical Prophet

By: on March 13, 2025

This week, I read Leading Out of Who You Are by Simon Walker. Walker situates leadership as power and trust. A healthy leader has the power to take responsibility while they trust beyond themselves, ideally in God. In the first section, he presents Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy and his front stage and backstage to explain what…

12 responses

Peter Pan and Undefended Leadership

By: on March 13, 2025

I don’t get the opportunity to travel much, but when I do, I love to start conversations with people I run into. These conversations are intentional as I aim to share the Gospel at least five times while away from home. Several years ago, I worked logistics for an outdoor event in Hermiston, Oregon, when…

6 responses

Colorblindness or Reconciliation?

By: on March 13, 2025

What I Believe About Racism and Why Residing in a small town in north-central Alberta, a bedroom community of Edmonton, I am part of a population of approximately 22,000 people, among whom 820 are identified as visible minorities. Despite my upbringing in South Africa, where I was classified as a “coloured” person, I am not…

18 responses

What color do you see?

By: on March 13, 2025

Before reading The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, I understood “race” as categorizing specific features held by a group of people. These features can be physical signs such as skin color, body shape, or specific cultural behaviors. Growing up, I was taught that races came about at the Tower of Babel…

10 responses

Don’t be Blind to the Beauty of Color

By: on March 12, 2025

I grew up in a middle-class white home with the understanding that we are all to be colorblind. I understood that we shouldn’t see race, color, or ethnicity but that we should treat all people the same. Since my childhood, I have adopted three black, African children. They are African, not African American, or Black…

5 responses