{"id":4701,"date":"2015-11-12T05:51:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T12:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4701"},"modified":"2015-11-12T05:51:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T12:51:30","slug":"sneak-peek-at-the-missional-leadership-discipleship-course-next-semester-at-nts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/11\/sneak-peek-at-the-missional-leadership-discipleship-course-next-semester-at-nts.html","title":{"rendered":"Sneak Peek at the Missional Leadership & Discipleship Course Next Semester at NTS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"MOG.001\"<\/a>The mission of God is unmanageable. This is where the conversation about missional\u00a0leadership begins. When it comes to the kingdom of God, we cannot control outcomes with even the most ingenious models, techniques, and strategies. God is going to do what God is going to do with the church, and God can never\u00a0be controlled or manipulated. The mission of God is unmanageable.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s true that we cannot control the outcomes of ministry, and I think it is, then all we can really do is tend to the rhythms, habits, and practices that make for faithful discipleship, and leave the ultimate outcomes\u00a0in the hands of God.<\/p>\n

Most leadership frameworks are built on a completely different set of assumptions. They functionally co-opt the mission of God the moment they assume it\u2019s possible to control ministry outcomes via best\u00a0practices. Even the majority of leadership advice I encounter within the missional leadership conversation falls prey to this pitfall.<\/p>\n

It might seem like an odd coupling\u2014a leadership course and a discipleship course all rolled into one\u2014but\u00a0everything I\u2019ve been writing over the past six years is built on the assumption that church leadership is not the kind of venture in which one has much say over the ultimate outcomes. All church leaders\u00a0have are\u00a0the rhythms, habits, and practices of the faith, and those things have\u00a0everything to do with discipleship. It turns out that leadership and discipleship are intimately related, or at least they should be.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m co-teaching a course called Missional Leadership & Discipleship\u00a0at Nazarene Theological Seminary next semester along with Mike King.\u00a0This course explores contextual & organic ecclesial practices, dispositions, leadership & communal structures\u00a0that are needed in order to hold leadership and discipleship together within the context of mission and the life of the local church. When Mike and I set up the course last time, we knew that we wanted to keep missional leadership rooted in discipleship, and in a robust ecclesiology. We also wanted to make sure there was sufficient narrative to draw upon in order to fire the imagination. When we chose textbooks Mike and I framed the\u00a0question this way: what should every Seminary student be required to read before they graduate?<\/em> That list turned out to be impossibly long for any one course. However, the list of books for this class were all on that list\u2026 plus two more (Mike & I write books, too).<\/p>\n

If you are in the Kansas City area & are interested in Missional Leadership & Discipleship, it would be a blast to have you join us for this course. You can register online at www.nts.edu. It\u2019s possible to audit the class\u00a0if you don\u2019t need to take it for credit.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the books we will be reading.<\/p>\n