By: Karen Rouggly on March 7, 2019
Six months ago, the student affairs team I work with went through the beginning stages of a restructuring process. At the time, we understood the process to be about 2-3 weeks, start to finish. We were implementing a new technique called a “Design Sprint”, so named from Jake Knapp and his Google Ventures team. The…
By: Jenn Burnett on March 7, 2019
I’ve just arrived back from a regional church leaders’ meeting. During some small talk with a stranger, I acknowledged how complicated it is being the church in the present time. He responded that he was much more concerned for our children. While I certainly agree there is cause for concern, I inquired what in particular…
By: Sean Dean on March 7, 2019
The U.S. nuclear arsenal is run by IBM Series/1 computers which were built in the 1970s that use eight inch floppy disks (the big black one on the left) to control them.i Why would we leave such an important part of our national defense be run by what is, relatively speaking, ancient technology? There are…
By: Andrea Lathrop on March 7, 2019
Simple Habits for Complex Times by Dr. Berger and Johnston offers leaders a way forward among the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) reality we are all trying to lead in. I appreciate the emphasis on habits we can develop and their admission that there are no easy solutions. But leaders can advance in the…
By: Digby Wilkinson on March 7, 2019
Yeah OK, I met these two a couple of years back because Berger and Johnston live just up the road from me and run leadership programmes that I have attended. Nice to read something from people who live in our part of the world. While Johnston is indeed a proper Kiwi, Berger is American. However,…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on March 7, 2019
“I just witnessed a teacher getting excited about a mistake. Why? She saw it as a teachable moment! And she ran with it! This fired me up! There are teachable moments all around us . . . if we just take the time to notice them . . . and capitalize on them.”[i] Much has…
By: Harry Edwards on March 7, 2019
Reading Jennifer G. Berger and Keith Johnston’s Simple Habits for Complex Times brought back bad memories and good ones as well. Bad because of the avoidable mistakes and anxieties in leadership I had made years ago when I managed a university campus bookstore; good because of the lessons learned. At the height of my career…
By: Mario Hood on March 7, 2019
In Simple Habits for Complex Times, Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston set out to help leaders navigate through the rise of VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.[1] The style of the book while packed with research and analytical data is written in an easy to digest format that both academics and non-academics will enjoy.…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 7, 2019
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) are widespread, according to Garvey Berger (Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World, 2013) and Johnston. Garvey Berger and Johnston cover accepted leadership practices, such as obtaining feedback, skilled listening, and expressing a clear vision, but their unique value added is how they broaden the discussion.…
By: Karen Rouggly on March 5, 2019
Last week, we hosted an annual event on campus called Missionaries on the Walk. Cougar Walk, named after the University’s mascot and the main campus thoroughfare, was occupied by 30 different mission organizations for three days, culminating in a night market event, and a student-led open mic night. An incredibly high turnout the Night Market…
By: John Muhanji on March 4, 2019
It is very challenging when one reads the book by James Hunter “To change the World.” It put Christianity to question and how the world can be changed through the moral values of Christianity by those who profess the faith. It is very saddening when you see the origin of Christianity to African countries behaving…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 3, 2019
Hunter is a sociologist based at the University of Virginia who has spent much of his academic career analyzing the ‘culture wars’ within the US. In his To Change The World, the author summarizes the irony of the Christian right, the Christian left, and the neo-anabaptist movement interacting with culture. Hunter ultimately calls for a positive…
By: Wallace Kamau on March 2, 2019
The story is told of the boy on the sea shore who was throwing fish that was washed to the shore, back to the ocean. As he threw them back into the sea, one by one, a stranger came by and criticized him citing the time it will take to finish. The boy was quick…
By: Mary Mims on March 2, 2019
The campus ministry I joined in the 80s was focused on the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. Everyone knew Matthew 28:19-20 by heart and everyone knew they must give up everything for this great cause. Nothing was to get in the way of reaching the world with the gospel; not what you were studying, or…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on March 1, 2019
I love the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is one of my favorites. Of course, it is about the traveler who was stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead along the side of the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by and ignore this injured man along the side of…
By: Sean Dean on February 28, 2019
November 9, 2016 is a day that I will remember for a long time. The previous day the United States had elected a new president – Donald Trump. I was in shock and I did not know how to process this information. A man who from all accounts envisions himself to be Tony Soprano had…
By: Jenn Burnett on February 28, 2019
This week’s reading of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World took some important twists before landing on it’s recommendations. He begins by easily identifying a common belief from both the American Christian left and the American Christian Right that Christians are called to…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on February 28, 2019
University of Virginia Professor James Davison Hunter breaks his text down into three distinct sections, a very “Trinitarian” formula, as he shares his thesis on how Christians can help transform the modern world in his award winning text, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. The…
By: Digby Wilkinson on February 28, 2019
I was conned, misled and entrapped in the most cunning of ways. Calling a book “To Change the World” when the content of the book argues that such a thing is not possible, is a writer’s sleight-of-hand at its best.[1] Personally, the book scratched an itch that I have had for a number year. The…
By: Andrea Lathrop on February 28, 2019
I think James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World delivers on explaining the irony and tragedy of Christianity in the late modern world. As I read, I kept hoping that it would also deliver the possibility as well. And I believe it does. I agree with Hunter on his broad categories of what the Church’s response…
