Credibility = proven competence + integrity + relationships<\/b><\/p>\n
As I read <\/span>Cascades<\/span><\/i> by Greg Satell, my mind was drawn to the emphasis on relationships and community, especially as the author contrasted the historical mental model of strong governance as the catalyst for change. [1]\u00a0 The need to create interconnectivity and interdependence is essential.\u00a0 The author pointed out that as leaders insulate themselves, they become incapable of understanding the forces that would lead to their downfall.\u00a0 I find this to be true in so many situations, especially in the lives of followers and how the next generation of followers is perceiving our apprenticeship to Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n Consider Raoul, a friend of mine, a follower of Jesus for many years. In recent days, he began questioning some things that happened in his past, while desiring to grow closer to the Lord and with others in the faith.\u00a0 He surrounded himself with other followers and found much encouragement within the body of Christ.\u00a0 However, in a time of questioning, he pulled away, isolating himself.\u00a0 He began to question the relationships he had formed with his small group, not sharing any of what was going on inside with his friends and fellow followers.\u00a0 He stopped attending small group and worship.\u00a0 The more and more he isolated, the more he found his heart desiring less of God and more of what seemed to satisfy his happiness outside of a relationship with God and others.\u00a0 It was sad to see this cascade happen.\u00a0 While this scenario is one of personal leadership on behalf of my friend, it breaks my heart that this situation does not stand alone, isolation is a trend I see happening in the lives of so many deconstructing their faith, some reconstructing and some to the point of atheism.\u00a0 I pray for more followers who will engage in relationships with others, for the long haul, mutually growing more and more into the likeness of Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n To create meaningful change, I must put forward an affirmative vision for what I want the future to look like.\u00a0 In my NPO research and own experience, literature and personal experience asserts that deconstruction is a cycle that all followers of Jesus experience at some level. Deconstruction is not new.\u00a0 Job experienced deconstruction.\u00a0 Thomas experienced deconstruction.\u00a0 However, a person should not feel isolated in their deconstruction, but understand that like Thomas, one of the twelve, individuals experience doubt and that within the faith community, questions and conversations are welcome.\u00a0 This is where interconnectivity and interdependence comes into play.<\/span><\/p>\n Much of my NPO research has been in the powerful interplay of relationships, integrity, and proven competence.\u00a0 Relationships are a catalyst for growth in the lives of followers of Jesus when engaged in an apprenticeship marked by integrity and fruit, proven competence. Story after story of people who find themselves leaving the church have some element of hurt from the perceived lack of integrity from a leader in that person\u2019s life, whether it be a pastor, teacher or friend.\u00a0 The credibility of church, as a system, has been tarnished by story after story of disappointment in the fruit that others have rightly or wrongly witnessed. I would challenge the author, while Gandhi was determined to internalize the struggles of those he wished to liberate, Jesus Christ internalize them to the point of death, giving the ultimate liberation from sin and death. [2]\u00a0 No other leader took on the struggles of those he loved like Jesus.\u00a0 The development and preservation of relationships is one key element in leadership.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As we consider proven competence, in my research, I had a Zoom interview with author A.J. Swoboda.\u00a0 As we discussed our mutual concern and mutual hope when considering deconstruction and reconstruction, he proposed that a call to greater obedience (integrity\/proven competence) would inspire a generation of young adults leaving their faith behind to reengage with God and the body of Christ.\u00a0 I sort of \u201cgeek out\u201d on the lives of the desert saints.\u00a0 I am inspired by their desire to live in the desert, for some, to recover a faith that contradicted natural desires, training themselves in discipleship through a rhythm of work, prayer, and solitude.\u00a0 Their lives bore witness to having been engaged in spiritual disciplines or ascesis, mentorship (Abbas – spiritual apprentices for rigorous discipleship and Christian doctrine), scripture memory, worship, and fasting.\u00a0 The practice of ascesis distinguished their daily life. [3] The inheritance of this early form of apprenticeship or discipleship, initiated by Christ and carried on with the desert saints, has been the production of generations of church leaders and followers to our current time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n T<\/span>he outcome of discipleship and apprenticeship to Jesus is the transformation of the whole individual, fully integrated with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Contemporary literature notes that one of the reasons young adults are deconstructing their faith to the point of atheism is that young adults are not seeing the fruit of a fully integrated life with God, within themselves, but especially from other Christians.\u00a0 The orthopraxy, or \u201cright practice\/living\u201d has not echoed the life of Jesus in the world.\u00a0 Reconstruction offers the opportunity for Christians to follow all of Jesus Christ, living in obedience to God\u2019s authority.<\/span><\/p>\n As I think about myself as a leader and desiring to <\/span>create meaningful change, I am praying that as I research, read and apprentice with others, that I will be able to forward an affirmative vision for what the future could look like in the lives of a generation of leaders with so much passion and determination to make the world a better place.<\/span><\/p>\n [1] Greg Satell, <\/span>Cascades: How to Creat a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, <\/span><\/i>(New York: McGraw Hill\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Education, 2019), <\/span><\/i>15.<\/span><\/p>\n [2] Ibid, 103.<\/span><\/p>\n [3] <\/span>\u00a0Gerald Sittser, <\/span>Water from a Deep Well:\u00a0 Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>(Downers\u00a0<\/span>Grove, IL:\u00a0 InterVarsity Press, 2007), 88.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Credibility = proven competence + integrity + relationships As I read Cascades by Greg Satell, my mind was drawn to the emphasis on relationships and community, especially as the author contrasted the historical mental model of strong governance as the catalyst for change. [1]\u00a0 The need to create interconnectivity and interdependence is essential.\u00a0 The author […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2489,2691],"class_list":["post-32652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-satell","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32653,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32652\/revisions\/32653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}