DLGP

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

Hope for Unsolvable Problems

By: on February 14, 2024

Better Together I like solving problems. Unless they’re mathematical! Those problems are best managed by someone more qualified. Actually, there are quite a few problems which I do not have the expertise to tackle and it would be foolish and potentially dangerous to attempt to do so on my own. However, that does not relieve…

6 responses

A Growth Mindset Approach to Leadership

By: on February 14, 2024

“Leadersmithing” by Eve Poole follows a refreshingly practical approach to leader development.   I didn’t grow up in the church. I became a follower of Jesus when I was 19. After sensing a call to ministry a few years later my wife, Wendy, and I moved our family from Vancouver to Regina to attend Bible…

14 responses

The Real Hot Seat

By: on February 14, 2024

Ca. Richard Smith is a no-nonsense kind of fire captain. He is tough but fair. The kind of fire captain who will take his crew out at 2am to drill if there was some sort of mishap on a 911 call earlier that day. His crew was straightlaced, polished and always striving to be the…

12 responses

Developing Character for Life as a Violin Apprentice

By: on February 14, 2024

My violin teacher threw a pencil at me. I grabbed it in mid-air. “Nope. You caught it. Try to catch it.”  I was confused. “But I did catch it,” I protested. “I want you to TRY to catch it,” she repeated. She threw the pencil at me again. It twisted through the air as it…

8 responses

Creative Minority Groups: Taming Wicked Problems Jesus-Style

By: on February 13, 2024

“The Tendency to avoid problems is the primary basis of all human illness.”[1]  M. Scott Peck I started this doctoral program with many questions. One particular question on my mind was, what, if anything, about the way I lead with my voice today needs to change for me to be my most vulnerable, courageous self…

11 responses

The Spinning TOP and not putting God first

By: on February 13, 2024

I spent much longer reading Leadersmithing by Eve Poole than I had initially planned. Not that I was not intrigued by the book’s title, but that my time commitments were severely restricted due to travel, sermon preparation, leadership teaching sessions, and Conference attendance. However, once I began my elementary and inspectional reading, I had to…

12 responses

Meta-parenting

By: on February 13, 2024

Parenting. There is perhaps no better example of living life on autopilot, trudging along in survival mode, foolishly trying the same solutions to problems but hoping for miraculously different results. I guess we’ve all been there. I certainly saw parenting problems on every single page of Joseph Bentley’s book Exploring Wicked Problems: What They Are…

7 responses

Making a Difference Even if the Wicked Problems Don’t Go Away

By: on February 12, 2024

“Wicked problems are ill-defined, ambiguous, complicated, interconnected situations packed with potential conflict.”[1] For many years, our church housed those without a home for one week each year. This began in our city after three people died of hypothermia in 2005. A church decided to open its doors and soon they had more people seeking shelter…

9 responses

To Do Our Part

By: on February 12, 2024

In their book, Exploring Wicked Problems, What they Are and Why They Are Important, Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth explain the difference between “wicked problems,” those that are “complex, messy and unpredictable” and “tame problems,” those that have solutions and can be solved.[1] Using climate change or global warming as an example for a wicked…

11 responses

Simulated Pearls and an Unknown Apprenticeship

By: on February 12, 2024

The older I get the more I realize how smart my parents were. So much of what they did, and didn’t do, as parents, shaped and formed me into the person I am today. While they will admit, and I have come to realize, they are not perfect, but the positive role models of love,…

5 responses

There is no finish line.

By: on February 12, 2024

I like setting up chairs. At our church I’ll sometimes go into a room that’s being prepared and help set up the chairs. Our operations team must think I’m a little bit obsessive about how those chairs get set up for meetings, but the truth is, I just enjoy doing it (I tell them that,…

9 responses

Déjà vu for You and Your Wicked Problems

By: on February 12, 2024

The dream of the 90’s is alive in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. In 1993, Bill Murray starred in the fantasy comedy Groundhog Day. It became one of the highest grossing films of 1993, and went on to be considered one of the greatest films of the 1990’s and one of the greatest comedy movies ever. I personal…

5 responses

Three Conversations, One Wicked Problem

By: on February 12, 2024

In the course of four weeks, I had three conversations with three pastor-types that revolved around a common issue, yet with three different perspectives. The issue involves a crisis of leadership (e.g., pastoral and church planting leadership). It’s a wicked problem – “complex, messy, and unpredictable.”[1] It’s a problem that involves “ill-defined, ambiguous, complicated, interconnected…

11 responses

Dealing with Making Hard and at Times Hard Decisions

By: on February 12, 2024

Dr. Eve Poole in her book Leadersmthing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership provides readers with a list of seventeen Critical Incidents.  These are based on asking “board-level leaders: What do you now know as a leader that you wish you had known ten years ago?[1]  I looked over the list to determine what areas…

13 responses

Building a Kingdom Not Our Own

By: on February 12, 2024

“Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.[1]” Sometimes, when I meet people from other countries and they learn that I am an American, working in Change Management in the Healthcare Industry, I think I notice subtle nonverbal cues, like wry, knowing smiles or maybe…

8 responses

Power Pose!

By: on February 12, 2024

This week’s reading of Leadersmithing by Eve Poole [1] left me with a mixed review. I enjoyed the reading and the content of the book, but it seemed quite elementary. I guess that was the point – that leadership should be part of an apprenticeship, and something you learn on the job. However, as a…

13 responses

What Am I Looking At? OK. What Questions Does It Pose?

By: on February 10, 2024

This is a late post, because I had a severe sinus cold and throat infection this week. So, if you want a few podcast recommendations on leadership or dementia, private message me. But I also finished a series on Netflix called “Painkillers”, exploding with insight for this week’s post [spoiler alerts]. In order to retain…

12 responses

Did curiosity really kill the cat?

By: on February 9, 2024

With regard to this week reading, “How to make the World Add up,” by Tim Harford, it is very interesting how he used those real-life stories to make his points how information can be twisted into different meanings, or to one’s advantages. I like the way he used real stories to bring out is point,…

12 responses

Grace and (not or) Justice

By: on February 9, 2024

Do you know what cancel culture is?  Have you been mysteriously ghosted after a night out?  Have you had a long-lost relative jump out of the woodwork and begin to attack your latest post?  Well, The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott may be the book for you.  Lukianoff comes…

11 responses