Intuitive Leadership Conference
April 23-25, 2008
Kansas City, Missouri
Over the last number of years many of us at Jacob's Well have been asked to tell the story of our church. We've been asked to do this by pastors, seminarians, seminary professors, other leaders, and even visiting youth groups that have found their way into our community - most often for a Sunday worship gathering. While some of the conversations begin through an email inquiry or an invitation to coffee and/or lunch, the largest number take place in our third-floor common room, the foyer, or standing between pews following the service. Because most church leaders have responsibilities in the mornings, our evening gathering is the place where we meet and interact most often with these curious friends.
Why are they coming to Jacob's Well? It has been interesting thing to explore and discover. There are a lot of pastors and leaders out there who are simply tired and looking for a place to be anonymous and worship. Others are "impressed" by the number of young people who make up our congregation and given that most faith communities are hemorrhaging this demographic, they hope to find a way to attract this missing group to their community as well. Still more come for inspiration and encouragement. Such people often have a basic understanding of where we are coming from and yet they often struggle to give shape to a similar type of environment in their contexts. There are probably some other reasons leaders are show up at Jacob's Well. Whatever the reasons, it surprises and humbles me. It seems that we have been given a ministry to ministers. And while we don't take ourselves very seriously (seriously - we don't), caring for and stewarding leaders is something that matters to us.
It is one of the reasons why I wrote "Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos." Simply put, I believe that many of the ways in which we have thought about leadership and church are broken. At the same time I believe there has never been a more exciting time to be alive and following after Jesus. To make an impact today, churches need to discover new ways of leading that embrace intuition, creativity, narrative, and the chaos and tension of our time. We want to continue to help leaders discover what it means to begin to lead from this new and emerging place. While it has been an honor to get to interact with the people we have on a one-on-one basis, we want (and need) to approach this from a new angle. This is why we have decided to host an Intuitive Leadership Conference in the Spring of 2008.
We want to help people to understand the nature and context of the world most leaders find themselves in these days. We want to encourage those who are already walking on this road and wondering if they are insane to be doing so. We want to help network leaders with one another. And we want to discover together how we can engage God, our Scriptures, our stories, and our contexts so that we might discover the emerging patterns of God's life among us for the sake of the gospel.Through a series of conversations, dialogues, and break-out sessions, the Intuitive Leadership Conference will help people to explore the evolving nature of leadership in our postmodern context and the implications for local churches and their leaders. If you want a sample of how we are thinking about leadership and what it means to engage, download an excerpt from my book that includes the table of contents, the introduction, and one chapter (ch. 8) from the Emersion blog. Emersion is the line of resources being produced by Baker Books in partnership with Emergent Village. Click here.
One other exciting aspect of this conference is that it will be tied together with Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change Tour, based on his recent book of the same title. Jacob's Well is co-hosting this tour stop in Kansas City with YouthFront. We have worked with Brian so that people will be able to attend both conferences back-to-back for one price. The Intuitive Leadership Conference will begin on the evening of Wednesday, April 23 and continue until lunch on Friday, April 25. That same night the Everything Must Change event will begin and continue through Saturday. Brian will be joining us for one session of the Intuitive Leadership Conference and will also preach at Jacob's Well that Sunday. I believe this gathering holds a lot of promise.
In the next couple of days we will add a page to this blog that contains information specific to the Intuitive Leadership Conference, including costs and a registration form. Registration will be limited to 200. If you would like to receive a notification when registration opens, then please leave a comment to that effect on this post (and include your e-mail address), or directly e-mail our pastor of community development, Deth Im (dethi@jacobswellchurch.org).
Stay tuned...
Late last week I was invited to join a small group of people to discuss mainline denominations and the emerging church. We are gathering in Washington, DC, at the National Cathedral. I think. It may be that we are actually in the Cathedral College. I am not sure. However, we will meet today from 3:30 p.m. until the same time tomorrow. I only know a few of the other folks that will be there (Doug Pagitt, Phyllis Tickle, Linnea Nilsen Capshaw). I think it will be a good conversation and I love every chance I get to be in the capital of our country.
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