Awaken Conference
April 5, 2008
I am continually amazed at how technology is changing the world. Although I am not in Los Angeles, I feel like I was able to attend the Awaken conference of my former church, Mosaic, by reading Eric Bryant’s blog and others who commented on the conference that I haven’t met before.
Here are a few of leadership insights I found significant from “invisible mentors:”
How we Learn
February 8, 2008
Currently, I am taking a course called Foundations of Leadership Development from a distance at Fuller. I am finding the course really helpful, especially as we are implementing some more intentional leadership development in our church community. Today, I listened to a lecture by Eddie Elliston, Ralph Winter, and Ted Ward about the future of leadership development in the church, and it was really interesting on a number of levels.
Two points really jumped out to me:
“seminaries need to move from seeing their roles as disseminating the right information to an invitation of inquiry into the unknown that leads to real discovery”
“you learn best by understanding what you need to learn for what you want to do, and then learning while doing it”
One of the professors said that the “dissemination” way of teaching often fosters dependent and dettached students. This made me think about how we learn. When I learn, it is because I have a vested interest in learning. I remember Erwin McManus saying one time that he made an intentional decision when he became the lead pastor of Mosaic not to “feed people, but to make them hungry.” The best teachers I’ve had are the teachers that help me to see the need to search, discover, question, and expend my own energy to enter into the unknown because my insight and contribution matters.
