Steve Ross
Blog Posts
What are the signs that your congregation is ready for a genuine renewal? There are four powerful characteristics that are present in almost every congregation that initiates a renewed vitality. These are clues at what to work on if you desire renewal. When they are present they are signs that renewal is possible.
Blend with your community.
This continues my series of blog posts on the eight strategies for dealing with messes from The Innovators Way by Peter Denning and Robert Dunham. Some great thinking there about how to lead a community into a new and greater fruitfulness.
- Declare it a mess.
- Learn and listen.
- Envision an approach.
- Blend
Changing context requires an adaptive response. Congregations that thrive have leaders who practice the eight strategies of innovation. A consciously Christian life tends to empower innovation. The first practice of innovative leaders is Listen and Learn. The second practice addressed here is "envision new approaches." This is the practice of creative imagination.
“Learning and Listening” is first of the seven disciplines required of people who lead fruitful congregations.
I know you’re tired of hearing about change. Yet, you decided to start reading this. Too often we think of change as a kind of weather thing, everybody talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it.
Well, that’s partly right. You can’t stop change. But you can do something about it. Kris Kristofferson is credited with the quote, “If you can’t get out of it, get into it.”
How can we get into change? How can we engage with the changes in ourselves, in our churches and in our world in ways that will increase blessing? A change leader is someone who can do that – help us engage with the changes going on around us in ways that bless our neighbors and ourselves.
There are terrible reasons to share your faith, and there are terrific ones.
In a recent column in the Oregon Trail District newsletter, Steve reminisces on family journeys and compares them to planning conference leadership.