This year I have agreed to be part of a learning experiment at the Vancouver School of Theology. Officially the title is PT651 – “Studio for Strategic Leadership.” During the fall 2010 term we will focus upon “Fundamental Skills of Strategic leadership.”

I must confess though, that at this time of year when the fall calendar is overflowing and several new presentations need development plus the usual assortment of meetings, occasionally I wonder why I agreed to this.

This quote from Reggie McNeal, Practicing Greatness, (p. 64) helped reorient me.  I find it both accurate in its assessment and sobering in its implications.

“The church has to play catch-up to the Spirit again, just as it did in the book of Acts. The Kingdom Age is fast eclipsing the dominant Church culture. The Christian movement is again taking to the streets, to the marketplace, to homes, moving out of institutional settings and beyond institutional control. Spiritual leaders who have trained for institutional leadership, who anchor their leadership in positional authority, and who rely on educational credentialing don’t understand the new expectations for leadership rooted in personal credibility, legitimized by followers, not external agencies. Leaders locked in the old world still believe that people think in secular-versus-sacred dichotomies and are expressing their spiritual quest by looking for a great church to join. Only unlearning those tried-and-true assumptions and practices will equip leaders to move with and meet these new conditions.”