DLGP

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

Helping When Lost In Space

By: on October 8, 2015

Social Geographies enhance our potential as experts in Leadership and Global Perspectives. We are being led to understand and work in the global community and within the context of our most immediate communities; hence an understanding of the many spaces within which we live and work informs how we study and explore leadership. As Gill…

12 responses

When Generalization Becomes Discrimination

By: on October 8, 2015

Individuality must be taken into account before proceeding with assumption. Therefore, interaction must seek to understand the individual from a position of equality without the stress of sameness. Valentine proposed, “Individuals and groups have multiple identities, occupying positions along many separate lines of difference at the same time.”[1] When one interacts with those who differ…

15 responses

Identity, Perceptions, and the Church

By: on October 8, 2015

Introduction How is our self perception and the way we see and interact with others affected by the spaces we inhabit? And, how are the spaces we inhabit affected by our social perceptions? These are the very questions that professor Gill Valentine sets to explore in her book Social Geographies. Summary Throughout nine well-organized chapters,…

14 responses

Personal Perspective Shapes Everything

By: on October 8, 2015

Personal Perspective Shapes Everything   The book, Social Geographies by Gill Valentine, is the ideology of how space and society affect each other. Valentine gives researchable data concerning how we as people relate to and interact with each other on a spatial basis. According to Valentine, this connection can exist in “natural” form or from…

7 responses

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

By: on October 8, 2015

Do I stay or do I go?  That is the question!  When I experience discontent within an organization, I have to ask whether my presence is still helpful to the organization or has the internal conflict I feel risen to such a level that I am doing more harm than good?  If I should choose…

12 responses

Social Geographies, Space and Gender Relationships

By: on October 8, 2015

  INTRODUCTION   The typical book on social formation generally deals with race, gender, socio-economics, health and sexuality. However, Gill Valentine, in her book, takes a unique approach. She does not look at social theory in these distinct categories, rather she focuses on how societies form within a certain space or context. She states her…

12 responses

Who am I excluding?

By: on October 7, 2015

Reading Valentine’s, Social Geographies reminds me of Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf.  Although Valentine’s book is about geography and Volf’s is about theology, both deal with the concept of social relations and space.  Volf talks about how we humans build walls in our hearts between one another for various reasons and Valentine studies and…

11 responses

Research and Objective Thinking

By: on October 7, 2015

Research and Objective Thinking Gill Valentine: Social Geographies: Space and Society Introduction: In this book, Gill Valentine’s emphasis on space as it relates to all aspects and levels of human social interaction provides the readers in DMIN/lgp6 with yet another way to view, scrutinize and interpret the world we live in. In Sarah Pink’s, Doing…

5 responses

Are Pastors Loyal?

By: on October 7, 2015

  What a great book! Really…The theory and concepts in this book are important for churches to understand. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty by Albert Hirschman required some real focus for me to get through but it was worth it. The basic concepts reflect many of my consumerist habits and got me thinking about their implications…

10 responses

Ruminations in Creative Tensions

By: on October 6, 2015

For 45 years since Hirschman first developed the framework of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,[1] researchers from various disciplines – politics, economics, management, psychology, sociology – have incorporated the concept to help explain and understand the manner in which individuals and communities deal with dissatisfaction.[2] In these disciplines, the hopeful intent of the environment, if healthy…

12 responses

Voice by Exit

By: on October 6, 2015

In his book, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states, Albert Hirschman writes of a simple concept … in complicated fashion. Hirschman’s ultimate point is that when customers are dissatisfied with the goods, services, or possible climate and culture of an organization, they have two basic responses: Customers can stop…

9 responses

OUR WORLDVIEW

By: on October 5, 2015

                                 OUR  WORLDVIEW Introduction How we view the world depends on our environment, where we were brought up. It depends on the culture we grew in. Generally, it is defined by the ethnography of the culture that we were brought up in.…

6 responses

Valuing exit, voice and loyalty at church

By: on September 29, 2015

  Hirschman’s “Exit, Voice and Loyalty” may have been written as social theory to be consumed by economists and politicians, but having watched the EXIT door of the church for a couple decades I can see correlations to the church.  My comparison may be off-putting for some church folks; we’re often apprehensive when secular theories…

6 responses

Christianity and Critical Thinking

By: on September 23, 2015

Is it possible to be both a critical thinker and a Christian? After all according to Elder and Paul, “The uncritical tendency is to place one’s culture, nation, and religion above all others (Elder, p. 13). “ She also states that, “Much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right…

2 responses

Failure of Nerve

By: on September 18, 2015

  In his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Edwin H. Friedman takes a different approach than most books on leadership. I have read countless leadership books that are all about head knowledge and logical decision-making. I have also read many authors that recognize the spiritual aspect of…

9 responses

The Lie of Empathy

By: on September 17, 2015

Some books, the good books, call you into conversation, even when you don’t necessarily agree with everything. Edwin Friedman’s book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix does just that. His provocative approach that first intrigued me back in 2009 when I started the D.Min program with Len Sweet still…

18 responses

The Three C’s

By: on September 17, 2015

The Three C’s Clear Concise Comprehensive That is the mantra of my lead pastor.  Communication must be the three C’s.  He preaches it, speaks it and fully believes in it.  There are even times that he stops what is going on in a meeting to emphasize these principles.   I have worked with him for over…

4 responses

The Nerve!!!!

By: on September 17, 2015

The Nerve September 17, 15 When I read something that affects me I can remember more. As I read through this reading I actually felt like someone was talking to me. Where do I start? First off the idea of the systemic power of leadership completely got me off guard. I started reading and thinking…

12 responses

The “Terrible” Diesel

By: on September 17, 2015

As a young twenty-year-old pastor I was trying hard to “do” and “be” what others wanted.  That was a lot of expectation to live up to.   Most of the men on my Board were old enough to be my grandfather.  I had graduated from Bible College, served as an Associate Pastor and Youth Pastor.  I…

8 responses