Leadership-in-Community: The Missiology, Community & Ethics of Missional Leadership
Leadership-in-Community: The Missiology, Community & Ethics of Missional Leadership – A Spiritual Formation Curriculum for Missional Leaders
Lee Carter | 2021
Abstract
Many leadership theories have influenced the way practitionersframe leadershipfor themselves and their organizations. However, the landscape of Christian mission is volatile, uncertain, chaotic, and ambiguous. It is a world that often renders the most well-intended leadership theories inadequate to address the unpredictable realities that missional leaders face. Leadership theories place an often too-heavy burden upon the person of the leader, rather than the interconnectedness of all participants in the mission, to navigate this world and have the right answers.
Christian mission is rooted in the missio Dei, the mission of the One Triune God who exists in the eternal communion, interdependence, and love of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The outgoing relationality of God issues forth in the creation of his human image bearers, the imago Dei. He invites his image bearers into the same relationality that extends the good reign of God throughout the cosmos by their culture making. God is on the move! And missional leadership is grounded in our calling to be his image bears, those who reflect his character and creativity in this world where God is on mission.
The purpose of this curriculum is the spiritual formation of missional leaders into “leadership-in-community.” This study encourages participants to explore the missiology, community, and ethics of leadership-in-community. They learn that missional leadership reflects the goodness of God by its priority of relationality, servantship, hospitality, and peacemaking. Leadership-in-community welcomes diverse voices, gifts, perspectives, and differences as God’s gift to the mission for making sense of the world in which we are called to be his witnesses. The curriculum utilizes the eight movements of lectio missio to engage missional leaders in community with Scripture, prayers, readings, and mission experiences that promote learning and ongoing spiritual formation.