Training young leaders - CCM:Academy

"Everyone's a learner and everyone's a teacher"

One of my favorite activities I am involved with is running our Saturday morning CCM:Academy. I am tempted to say this is our church training course, which would have gone completely against my philosophy of training that I outlined in my last blog in which I outlined a holistic approach to training based on an apprenticeship model.

CCM:Academy is just a part of our training program where our young and more mature leaders learn together in a very interactive way. Last Saturday we had another excellent morning where we looked at 12 leadership characteristics of a pioneer leader. I love these mornings where around 15 of us sit around a table eating mainly un-healthy food, drinking nice coffee and working our way through different church values and leadership themes. The approach we follow is that we are all learners and that everyone has something to contribute. This philosophy adds greatly to the learning experience.

The apostle Paul’s teaching style seemed on occasions to be more debate oriented. You sometimes see the term “he reasoned” when teaching or speaking. This would of been so different too much of the present day lecture based approach to teaching in the church. Part of our development program on CCM:Academy is to train the teachers to have the skills to navigate people through a debate and a conversation model of learning. Our aim is that truth is really imparted and learnt so that we don’t end the mornings with the sum total of people’s ignorance in their eagerness to voice an opinion.

An appropriate response

"Leaders make judgements coming out of their own order of values"

In my last blog on change instigators I highlighted how Peter was strongly rebuked as he tried to de-rail Jesus decision to go to Jerusalem. In this blog we see how Jesus handles the apostles arguing about who is the greatest in a very different way.

Mark 9:34-37…on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Leaders can sometimes deal with character issues in the wrong way. They make judgements coming out of their own order of values and of course firmly believing them to be correct. This can make the leaders response even more potent, and if wrong, de-powering for the individual. Some leaders could easily take those people arguing for a position, worthy of a greater rebuke than those who through noble intent, try and derail a strategic move.

Jesus was able to bring the appropriate rebuke and gentle correction to each situation. He constantly challenged the Jewish leader’s order of values all through his ministry. We must be careful that we don’t fall into their trap, inserting our own preferences and priorities and in doing so hinder the leadership development of those he has called.

Managing Change in a Church Movement

"Church life is not immune to the impact of a quickly changing world"

As a member of the Newfrontiers international core team I was asked by Terry Virgo to address our apostolic forum on the subject of Apostles in times of transition. It was fascinating to work through the gospel narrative and see how Jesus led his apostles into the major transition of his death, resurrection, and to them leading the ongoing mission. I also looked as well at how some of the experts in the corporate world were addressing the subject of transitioning an organization. The next series of blogs will cover the material given in that talk.

Church life is not immune to the impact of a quickly changing world.  There is increasing aspiration for churches to grow and impact the communities and nations they exist in and are part of. This can put tremendous pressure on leaders. I once read that Church of England Vicars have gone from having one of least stressful jobs to one of the most stressful, due in part to the rising expectations of the denomination and congregations they serve.

Up skilling leaders to navigate the church through multiple changes is a vitally important priority. This is even more telling when we read the following daunting comment from an article called “Leading through Change” in The Harvard Business Review:

“Change management isn’t working, as it should. In a telling statistic, leading practitioners of radical corporate re-engineering (that’s what many churches and movements are currently going through) report success rates in Fortune 1,000 companies are well below 50%, some say they are as low as 20%.”

In the next post I will highlight one of the main reasons for the low success rate in churches and church movements.