I am officially on “family leave” until August 15th, but this week I was blessed to be with 25 other younger clergy from across the nation. We gathered together just outside of Baltimore as our first (of four) session for the Lewis Fellows program through the Lewis Center for Church Leadership. The focus of this first leadership training session was that of Visioning and the importance of Emotional Intelligence for pastoral leadership.
Each session we will have the combination of a main leadership theme, with the addtion of three foci: theological, skills, and personal. The larger hope is to find ways to equip younger leaders to bring together challenge, support, and accountability, as we strengthen our churches for ministry in the world.
My two favorite aspects of this session were
- The opportunity to network with other younger clergy from a diversity of contexts and backgrounds – being able to find support and encouragement.
- To learn the vital content and best practices of helping churches and ministries vision for the future, discerning what next steps God is calling us to take.
The texts we read in preparation for this session included: Take the Next Step, and Primal Leadership. Both texts were very helpful and informative. The leadership of clergy would be more effective at equipping people and helping churches move into God’s preferred future if they would read and engaged these texts.
I will reflect and blog further about the insights of visioning and emotional intelligence in the coming weeks.
