Archive for 'leadership development'
Performance Art
August 5, 2009 by Jeff, under New world, The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 2 Comments
Mathematics is a performance, a living act, a way of interpreting the world. Imagine music lessons in which students worked through hundreds of hours of sheet music, adjusting the notes on the page, receiving checks and crosses from the teachers, but never playing the music. Students would not continue the subject because they would never experience what music is. Yet this is the situation that continues, seemingly unabated, in mathematics classes. – Jo Boaler, author of What’s Math Got To Do With It?
Being a math teacher and working with a musician in this blog, I resonate with the quote above. All of us have learned to drive by driving, not by reading about it or observing others doing it. I think Jesus told us to know and do or do and know if you please. The good news was performance art for him, not as a person on a stage as much as a way of living. What if we dispensed with the checks and crosses and just let people play the music? What could happen then?
Power(ful) Questions
July 15, 2009 by Jeff, under New world, The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 13 Comments
Those who have power never think about it and those who don’t have it think about it all the time. – Thomas Friedman
A friend and I have been pondering this double question and I’m putting it out to you –
What is power? and How do you recognize it?
Fire away.
Reflections on Pentecost Seattle
May 21, 2009 by Tim, under New world, Practicing Church Stories, leadership development | | No Comments »
Last week I pondered briefly whether it is possible for churches to practice together within a geographic boundary. While the true verdict of the event last Saturday called, Pentecost Seattle will remain subject to how many new relationships, initiatives, and stories result, the gathering certainly filled me with hope. (more…)
Tags: Church, ecumenical, seattle
A Grandpa’s Possibility
April 22, 2009 by Jeff, under The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 2 Comments
My grandfather, L.0. Smith, passed away Sunday morning. In the last 36 hours, I can’t keep count of how many memories have sprung up (more…)
Everything you need is already there
March 26, 2009 by Tim, under The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 3 Comments
To live in a consumer society means that we live in a society that is constantly seducing us to remember what we do not have. We need, we don’t have, if only we could get, wouldn’t it be great to have, I could do this if only I had……these are all familiar chorus lines to that song you can’t get out of your head called, consumerism. (more…)
Tags: community development, consumerism
Leading When Everyone Is Smarter Than You
March 11, 2009 by Jeff, under The Practicing Church, leadership development | | 11 Comments
We no longer live in a world where the scarcity of information defines our leadership credibility. In fact, everyone in our organizations is (or has the potential to be) smarter than we are.
So my question is
How do we exercise leadership in a world where everyone knows more than we do? … Anyone.
