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Transforming Leaders Initiative partners with ELCA Large Churches to launch Learning Journey in 2009
News Flash
John Bradosky, Scott Suskovic, Rick Barger, John Weber and Dave Koppel from the ELCA Larger Church Conference joined TLI board members Mike Foss, Dave Daubert, Ron Lee, Bob Driver-Bishop, Charlotte Roberts, Jerry Cox and Gregg Burch for a focus group meeting in Atlanta March 10. The meeting paved the way for our inaugural class to begin the three-year Learning Journey in 2009. Rick Barger offered to host a first class in Colorado in January, and John Bradosky offered to host one in Ohio in April.
We began by reviewing the major leadership concerns of these pastors and their peers. The group’s greatest concern is finding “capable” leaders for their growing multisite ministries. Such leaders are presently in short supply, and are difficult to find. Pressed to elaborate, they agreed that they are seeking leaders with these traits:
Motivated and sacrificial
Passionate
“Get it” about discipleship and multiplication
Sense of urgency
Trained to go beyond maintenance, beyond what “is”
Work as a team-no silos-Loyal to team
Warm, gregarious, theologically solid & work hard (dive after loose balls)
Learners-want to grow as leaders
Risk trying new things in their own life
Has “spine”-self-differentiated, with clarity, living the Gospel, fearless
We then listened to ideas about addressing these and larger concerns in the church. We shared the focus of our Learning Journey, and sought consensus about the approach. Through our conversation, we all share the sense of urgency that we need to get started, see what we learn the first year, make adjustments and roll this initiative out. As we talked through various options of geographic or non-geographic cohorts and cost concerns, we agreed to test both approaches, compare results and move forward as a continuously learning community.
There are strong regional clusters of Lutherans in Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska. We decided to launch one class within one of the main pockets of Lutherans and bring cohorts from within 250 miles, so people can be close enough for regular face time. The second will be a non-regional class, which will rely more heavily on virtual connections between the three meetings a year of the cohorts.
Rick Barger offered to host a first year main conference in January just after their Adaptive Leadership Academy. This will be the site of our non-geographic class. John Bradosky offered to host a first year main conference in April in Ohio, with a geographic class drawn from the area.
Each of these leaders also committed to offer up names of potential candidates. We are seeking recommendations as we work to discern the first year’s class. The TLI Board will reach out to our network seeking other recommendations. Finally, they will help us identify the Signature Ministries, churches who will host Mentoring Events for our cohorts.
Dr. Charlotte Roberts, TLI Founding Board Member, will be a keynote speaker at this year’s ELCA Larger Church Conference in May, open to Senior Pastors of churches worshiping over 500. The Initiative will be a major focus of the event. Those at our meeting committed financially to the initiative, and will encourage their peers at the conference to join in supporting our launch. The Conference of Bishops heard about the Initiative this week from Bp. David deFreese, another Board Member. We have focus group meetings set up in Nebraska in March, and plan meetings in Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Florida and Texas this spring to raise awareness and seek support.
If you want more information, or would like to understand more about our need for Signature Ministries, conference sites, and other resources, click here to Contact Us.
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