Leadership Development Musings

Leadership Development Musings: December 2016

Barbara and I, over the next few months, are going to further explore with you the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership she listed last month. Our first practice is Model the Way. Exodus 3:1-12a says to us: 3 “One day Moses was taking care of Jethro’s flock. (Jethro was the priest of Midian and also Moses’ father-in-law.) When Moses led the flock to the west side of the desert, he came to Sinai, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire coming out of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but it was not burning up. 3 So he said, “I will go closer to this strange thing. How can a bush continue burning without burning up?”4 When the Lord saw Moses was coming to look at the bush, God called to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 Then God said, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground. 6 I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses covered his face because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have seen the troubles my people have suffered in Egypt, and I have heard their cries when the Egyptian slave masters hurt them. I am concerned about their pain, 8 and I have come down to save them from the Egyptians. I will bring them out of that land and lead them to a good land with lots of room—a fertile land. It is the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 I have heard the cries of the people of Israel, and I have seen the way the Egyptians have made life hard for them. 10 So now I am sending you to the king of Egypt. Go! Bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt!” 11 But Moses said to God, “I am not a great man! How can I go to the king and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 God said, “I will be with you.”  In 1981 in the United States, 11, 005 people between the ages of16 and 21 died in car accidents. Under normal circumstances, that statistic wouldn’t have meant much to Robert Anastas, a hockey coach at Wayland Public High School in Wayland Massachusetts. But 2 of those 11, 005 young people had been on his hockey team. They were killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver. Robert was stunned. It doesn’t have to be this way, he thought. Robert knew nothing would change if no one did anything to combat the problem. So he started Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) and has dedicated his life to combating the drunk driving problem. The organization works to alert students the dangers of drinking and driving. Under Robert’s leadership, SADD has grown to a national organization with 4 million members and chapters in all 50 states and Canada. Robert has also received dozens of awards for battling this serious problem. Robert saw a problem and became a leader in the fight to overcome it. In the same way, Moses learned about the Israelites’ persecution in Egypt and followed God’s call to lead them to freedom.

Questions to ponder:

1. What similarities are there between Robert’s call and Moses’ call to leadership? What differences do you see?
2. How can you Model the Way in your congregation? Your home? Your community?
3. How can you encourage others to Model the Way in their congregation? Their community?

Blessings on the journey,
Barbara Wise-Lewczak & Laura Leighton-Harris
Your Co-Ministers of Leadership Development

Leadership Development Musings: June 2016

Barbara Wise Lewczak, Minister of Leadership Development

I attend the denominations New Church Planting Conference this past weekend at Bethany with the theme “Hope Imagination Mission” with I Corinthians 3: 6, “I (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God agave the growth” as the theme passage and focused on leadership in Church Planting in particular and the wider church in general.

The leadership was provided by Efrem Smith, President and CEO of World Impact, Mandy Smith, lead pastor University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and several talented and gifted folks from our denomination

Over the next few months I will share some of what I learned during this conference.  This was by far one of my most meaningful, thought provoking, moving conferences I have attended.  I was deeply touched and moved by the experience.

Regarding “Healing Our Hope” Mandy Smith shared the following:

In ministry we have our wounds and hope is about healing our wounds by bringing our stories before God and see them as God sees them.  How we experience suffering and deep pain in our heart, like a breaking heart, a pain of the soul, a deep sadness, and hurt for the state of the community.

Mandy quoted Barbara Taylor Bradford as I paraphrase here-I have pain in my heart for the America Church for Christiandome.  I wondered if we as a church are longing for God or our intuitions.  If we just say we need God in one moment a healing can come and we realize that it was not a death pain but a birthing pain.  There are times when God can heal our story if we are obedient to the call from God. We can run towards the pain if there is a Spirit within us that helps us follow that call from God and then trust that that Spirit is availed to help us through.

I pray that we as the Northern Plains District can find a way to be there for each other to heal our pain and take all of our hurt, pain, doubts, fears, to God with that Spirit that is available to us all.  That we can be open to thinking of our pain as birthing pain and are open to what God has imagined for us in our ministries, in our congregations, in our communities, in the wider church. Open to keeping “hope” alive!  

Brothers and Sisters may we be there for each other in the weeks and months ahead praying for each other, loving each other, ministering to each other.  

Please contact Laura and/or Barbara with your thoughts and ideas about Leadership Development

Prayers to you all!

Leadership Development Musings: March 2016

Laura Leighton-Harris, Minister of Leadership Development

I participated in the webinar led by Steve Crain titled: From Call to Empty Tomb: Encounters with Jesus.

This was actually a retreat style webinar, which I found to be very refreshing and at a good time as we are in the Lenten season. So, for this month’s article I thought I would share the scriptures we meditated on as well as the seed questions Steve posed for us to ponder in relation to the scriptures. How might you and/or your congregation respond to these seed questions as you journey through this Lenten & Easter season?

Mark 1:16-20/Seed Questions:

*What fish have you been seeking? With what boat and nets?

*Has Jesus recently called you afresh “follow me?”

*Is it hard to follow?

Mark 4:35-41/Seed Questions:

*Did you see or feel the storm coming?

*What is the wind tossing your boat?

*Where is Jesus? What is he saying to you?

Matthew 26:26-29/Seed Questions:

*Jesus, the loaf, the wine, the table, the Upper Room. Who else has gathered at Jesus’s table with you?

*You’ve come to this table. What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for?

*Where in your life is Jesus whispering: “I Am the bread; I Am the wine?”

Luke 24:1-5/Seed Questions:

*Is there a seed you long to see rolled away?

*Where are you discovering New Life where once you feared you would only find death?

*How are you hearing the words, “He is risen!” in your life?

14 from our congregation also gathered this past Saturday to watch and discuss together the Congregational Ethics webinar. These webinars are great avenues of continued education on a variety of topics and can easily be done as a group too. Just go to the McPherson website and type in Ventures and you will find those upcoming and those that are archived and register.

Blessings

Laura Leighton-Harris & Barbara Wise Lewzcak

Leadership Development Musings: January 2016

As I was studying and researching for the sermon for today Christmas 1, Luke 2:41-51, the story of Jesus in the temple at age 12, I found the following thoughts written by Rev. Dwight Moody CBF and I thought they fit some of the thoughts Laura and I have about Leadership Development.  They also mirror what some have told us they experienced as they felt the call to ministry.  I pray they speak to you and give you pause as you encounter those with gifts and talents in you congregations, your clusters, the wider district.

“God speaks to the soul, at age 13 and at age 63 at any age. God stirs us to do something, go somewhere, serve somebody, preach news to people for whom it is good and glorious and God-sent.

What do you say when a teenager confides to you, “I want to be a preacher”?

There was a time when the minister was held in high esteem. They were one of the few educated persons in the community: the teacher, the doctor, the lawyer/judge, the minister; these were the professions.

I wonder if Mary and Joseph thought this way about Jesus. The rabbi, then and now, is a position of high honor is Judaism. It has retained more of its social clout than the Christian minister or priest. Did Mary and Joseph envision Jesus as one of the esteemed rabbis of Galilee, perhaps a leader of the party of the Pharisees, perhaps even making it all the way to the temple hierarchy, exercising influence over the political and cultural life of the Jewish people?

Who knows?

But times have changed for us. Other professions have surpassed the preacher: educator, scientist, journalist, programmer, film director, professional athlete, entrepreneur. The minister is more a missionary in his home country. They must fight public opinion as well as spiritual lethargy. Gospel work is not an easy life.

Mary and Joseph found Jesus at the center of religious life in Jerusalem–in the temple. He was listening, the text says, and then it says: they were astounded at his answers. Jesus both listened and spoke. He was a genius. He was brilliant. Even on a human level, he was destined for greatness.

Can Jesus be a role model for young people seeking their way in the world?

Can Jesus be an inspiration today for teenagers longing to hear the voice of God?

When we find young people, even 12-year-old kids, who are smart, talented, love Jesus and want to make a difference in the world, can we say to them: “Perhaps God wants you to be a preacher like Jesus.” Perhaps God is calling you like he called and anointed Jesus: An interpreter of the word of God, a teller of stories, a rebuker of the political and religious establishment, a caregiver of souls, a healer of diseases, a leader of people, one who stands and delivers a word for our time, who calls us all to abandon lives of selfish gain, who issues to us a challenge to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

Not everybody knows at age 10 or 12 or 14 where the road ahead will lead. Not even Jesus knew all that we know now about his life, about his death and resurrection. But he was one man who went on his own way, followed his own sense of direction, and marched to the beat of his own drummer. He was full of the Holy Spirit, they said then, and we say now.

Young people today hear that ancient question, “Who will go for us?”

It speaks to them. It reaches into their souls. That question reorients their life, their loves, their longing.

And when they kneel before the almighty and everlasting God and say, “Here am I; send me,” let us go before them to prepare the way, let us stretch our hand above them and give them our blessing, let us kneel with them and pray that God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, will protect and prosper them as they declare the unsearchable riches of the man who stayed behind in Jerusalem to pursue the calling that God had placed upon his life.”

Brothers and Sisters we pray that when you see the spark of gifts and calling for ministry in our midst we acknowledge them, pray with that person, encourage that person, recommend books, mentor them, listen to them!

Next month we will provide a list of young people who have already expressed the nudging of God on their hearts. Please continue to pray for those in leadership in our midst as we begin the 150th year of our Northern Plaines District.  Blessings, love, joy, and prayers to you all in the New Year, Sister Barbara