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Transforming Leaders Initiative launches pilot class in Ohio, plans next class in Southeast
In October, the Transforming Leaders Initiative’s pilot class in Ohio gathered for the first weeklong session of their three-year leadership learning journey. Fifteen pastors from four states and six ELCA synods make up the pilot class. The learning journey began last summer as monthly webinars helped the class learn about each other, lay groundwork for peer-coaching and personal visioning, and prepared for the fall gathering. The learning journey seeks to reaffirm each participant’s personal call to ministry and mission, to give them tools, skills and resources to live out the vision God gives, and provide a network of support and accountability to encourage courageous action.
Pastor Sandy Mitchell and Trinity Lutheran hosted the class in Ashland. Before the class gathered at Trinity, they had begun to develop a lay learning team of four to six people from their church to join as learning partners for the three years. They also worked with leadership to plan and complete the Willow Creek Reveal Survey to create some baseline measurements of the starting point in the church. The survey will be repeated each fall of the learning journey to measure progress in growing spiritual leaders and creating a discipling culture.
During the week together, the class learned how to use the creative process to draw their church into a shared visioning process. Participants joined peer-coaching groups of three or four, and practiced the coaching skills they are learning. The class also unpacked the results of several personal assessments to grow self-awareness. They grew in their awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and understanding what strengths to look for in creating healthy, collaborative ministry teams moving forward.
The development of a missional network of support, and the peer-coaching groups are cornerstones of support, prayer and accountability to give each the courage and strength to face the difficult decisions that leadership brings. It is important to support the emerging role of pastor as courageous leader, with so many clinging to the role of chaplain manager.
Another key focus of the week was missional theology, and its implications for the church in this new millennium. A solid theological foundation for our work is important to reinforce our Lutheran identity and beliefs.
The next event of the learning journey is a Spiritual Disciplines retreat with spouses, which will happen February 5-7 at the Proctor Center. Kai Nilsen, Lead Pastor at Peace Gahanna, will lead this retreat. Kai is on the board of Renovare, and has a passion for spiritual formation, which is the focus of his DMin work at Fuller. The third class gathering for the year will be a visit to a Partner Learning Site with the Lay Learning Team from the congregation. They will immerse into the culture of one of our partner churches and learn and observe healthy expressions of the Body of Christ.
Since our intent is to use a design-build process and create a continuous learning community for the three-year curriculum, feedback from the pilot class is helping us shape and refine each element of the curriculum to improve its relevancy and effectiveness. We are growing our capability for distance learning, and have created a private social network to share discussions and post learning resources for use in the congregations.
As the Ohio pilot class continues its first year, plans for a second class are progressing well. TLi leaders have been building network connections to identify potential participants, partner learning sites and conference host sites for the 2010 class launch in the Southeast. Partnerships with synods and strong pastoral and lay leaders in the NC, SC, Southeastern and FL/Bahamas Synods are being developed. We already have several partner sites identified, and have a number of potential candidates on the radar screen. Applications will be accepted in the first quarter of 2010 for a class to launch in October.
To see details about our Transforming Leaders Initiative, our three-year leadership learning journey, to donate or download application materials, visit our website here. If you would like to learn more, please contact Gregg Burch (greggburch@gmail.com) or Dave Daubert (DDaubert@ARenewalEnterprise.com).
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