Summary of Insights, Challenges and Experiments from Mission Summit Conversations (June 2013)
- Insights
- Organizational structure, desire for control, and traditions hinder development of new leadership. There is a genuine desire among those who are not leaders to know the heritage of the church and learn leadership through mentorship processes.
- The next generation of leaders will lead in a new way.
- The next generation leadership is not a generational issue but rather a present and future leadership issue, regardless of age
- Leadership styles are and will change with a new generation of leaders.
- Challenges
- How can current leaders mentor and support the next generation of leaders without expecting them to lead in the same way?
- Preserving and embracing what is critical and letting go of what is not essential.
- Understand the culture and hold on to Baptist distinctives as being of value in providing freedom to respond to cultural trends in church life.
- Experiments
- Both young and older need to build “Bridges of Understanding” with one another through LISTENING to one another’s stories, hopes and dreams.
- Could it be that newly identified community needs require new styles of leadership?
Summary of Insights, Challenges and Experiments from the Mission Table (November 2013)
- Insights
- Need to strategically work inter-generationally – to be deliberate about this.
- Freedom to recreate how we do church… no longer needing to “fill slots” – do we even need slots
- Challenges
- Young leaders do not see value – we need to show how ministry matters
- We need to better recognize leadership potential in our churches and nurture them
- How can the church become a place where change is common place and adaptation is the norm?
- What is the core purpose of the church and what forms can enhance that now?
- Experiments/Projects
- Can we create a clearing house for ideas for engaging this generation?
- What is the core purpose of the church and what kinds of leaders are needed to fulfill that purpose
- Can ABPS send to each executive minister the profiles of all new enrollees?
Continued Day 2 – Summary (November 2013)
- Proposed Projects
- We plan to conduct a national survey of the needs of congregations regarding future leadership.
Read the full notes:
Mission Summit Conversations:
Mission Table:
Views expressed are the sole opinion of conversation participants. They do not express the views of American Baptist Churches USA, or individual American Baptist churches. Conversation notes and summaries are shared to allow American Baptists and friends to easily review and use these Mission Summit Conversations and the Mission Table learnings as they wish.