An Adventure in Leadership

I teach a class on "Leadership & Discpleship" in the Friends University Master of Arts in Christian Ministry program and I am always looking for good resources on Leadership. I was looking for a resource that would speak to leadership in the church today that is reformed and always being reformed according to God's word. I was not interested in another formulaic resource, "Do as I do and your church will thrive and grow like mine" but rather a resource that spoke to the ever changing, growing, and organic church systems that I have come to know and love in my 22 years of ministry. My friend and colleague Dr. Chris Kettler introduced me to such a book, Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos, written by Tim Keel of Jacob's Well in Kansas City, Missouri. I was so impressed with the book that I introduced it to our Session (elders in our church) and we are studying it over the summer. Included in this blog is the study session for the first section of the book. You are invited to read it along with us and use these study notes to explore leadership in the real, messy and wonderful churches you serve.

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos
Written by Tim Keel of Jacob’s Well in Kansas City, Missouri

Three parts to the book
-Entering the Story- June reading pages 1-100
-Engaging Context- July reading pages 101-209
-Embracing Possibility- August reading pages 210-266
Keel argues that our stories shape us and that we need to understand our stories in order to better understand where we are on our faith journey. How did you first learn about your faith? Who was your mentor or guide? How did you live out your faith?

“Stories shape and create identity- not just for individuals. They shape identity for families, communities, and cultures. We are awash in stories, and when they are good and well told, they can locate us in the world even when that world seems chaotic and without purpose. Throughout history people have told stories and been shaped by them and in doing so they have discovered and constructed ways of understanding who they are and what is happening in the world around them.” (page 33 )

“Following Christ and seeking to be faithful has hijacked my life in a way that I could never have anticipated. That part of being faithful to Christ has led me to participate in the growing of a church plant.” (page 49)

Tim Keel argues that rather than accepting what other churches are doing and jumping into the latest theological or evangelical fad, that we pay attention to our own story, embrace our own story and let our story, our strengths and our unique character and faith guide us. If we were to look at our church, what story would we tell? How did we start? Where did we come from? Where have we traveled in the past 27 years?

“Our faith became domesticated, made in our own image, deprived of its wildness. In our pursuit of the systematic, rational, objective, and universal, we lost the particular, imaginative, poetic, and creative. I am afraid that we lost the ability to discern and follow the Spirit of God, especially as he leads us un places unfamiliar and unknown to our domesticated faith” (page 43)

“We have been called to freedom and courage. We are called to story; to remember; to live; to tell.” (page 43)

Keel argues that our individual stories and our corporate story intersect with God’s story as revealed in Scripture. What are the stories that shape our lives in the Bible? What are the stories that we go back to as our organizing principal in work, parenting, faith, community, church? Who are the theologians who help us interpret scripture and our own faith? Karl Barth wrote a book called The Strange New World of the Bible.

“The Bible as the story about the confusing presence of a personal deity engaging bizarrely unpredictable people in astounding and mudane wasys over a long period of time.” (page 36)

“God revealed himself in a specific time, in a specific place, among a specific people. God did not create a divine subculture and then wait for humanity to wise up and join in. God joined the story. God got dirty. God entered. God engaged. And this is the calling of the church as well- to join in and participate in God’s story at work in the world.” ( page 70)

Tim Keel’s critique of twentieth century suburban Christianity: “They lost their way of life. They entered a way of life that was compartmentalized, disintegrated, individualistic, subcultured, ghettoized, programmed, and purpose driven.” (page 72)

Keel’s recommendation: “Is there an alternative? I believe there is, and I am beginning to hint at it with the concepts of story, community and experimentation. When we think about creating an environment that might give rise to life in response to the Holy Spirit and the world we live in today, we must cherish and engage our context.” (page 77)

Keel's own experience with Jacob’s Well: "We wanted to be a place where people who were searching could join us, ask real and probing questions, and together with us seek God in spirit and truth. We wanted to create a space that would allow us to form a community what would be hospitable to the people in our lives whom we wanted to bring to the Messiah. And to do this we experimented our way into finding the kingdom that Jesus declared in our midst." (page 88)

What are the main ideas we can take with us as leaders at Covenant? What ideas do we not accept as we explore Keel’s writings in the context of our church and culture? Where do we already connect with the concepts he is lifting up in our living our faith and being the church?