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PLI is devoted to empowering leaders for wider influence for the sake of the gospel in their communities and effective leadership in their ministries. Learn more about our vision and process here.

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Life is better connected. Connect with others to experience life-giving community and build authentic relationships. We have several learning communities. Find the best fit for you.

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We provide a number of resources and materials to educate both our participants and the general public on effective leadership principles.

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Interested in how PLI can impact your ministry? We'd love to get to know you and learn how we can empower your ministry.

Lead with a Humble Spirit

As leaders we are supposed to have the answers. Right? But the world is ever changing and this leaves us feeling off balance. Uncertain.

It takes courage and skill to step out and move into the unknown. We would like to offer five adaptive skills you need to practice in 2018 to lead in this ever changing world. We’ll dissect one each week.

You have plenty of “successes” notched on your leadership belt.

More recently you’ve become acquainted with “it’s not working like it used to work,” and you’ve leveraged additional leadership. You have:

  • Focused clearer,
  • Rallied the troops louder,
  • Tried harder.

In an earlier era you’d have been the one calling it the definition of insanity. Now, for those of us who care about the Church and God’s mission to seek and to save the lost, it’s a prerequisite for stepping into unfamiliar terrain.

And, once we’ve “tried harder” and offered one more shiny “quick fix” to our congregation’s greatest challenges, we’re ready for the much greater task of adapting to a world that’s foreign to most of us.

And, we desperately need leaders like you and congregations like yours willing to lead and press into the unfamiliar domain of church in a missionary world.

change is happening

Adaptive leadership is guiding your congregation to adapt to a world that didn’t exist a few short years ago.

How ironic that being the answer woman or the man with the solutions or the leader with the promising new program just might render you poorly prepared for today’s adaptive challenge.

Capacity to be an adaptive leader begins with a humble spirit.

It’s Ezekiel:  I don’t know if these bones can live; God, what do you think?

It’s the 72: Empty pockets. Sent as lambs. Alert to where God might be at work.

It’s Daniel asking his brothers: Plead to God for mercy to crack the mystery of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

The prerequisite need in a well-formed character of an adaptive leader is humility! A humble spirit that attaches itself to the mastery of necessary, new skills for today.

A humble spirit that can ask, “God, what might you be saying to me?” And then couples itself to the faith to act.

However, leaders don’t come by a spirit of humility naturally. It’s compromised by the sinful condition.

This type of humility gets forged when leaders:

  • Embrace the unfamiliar,
  • Lean outside the margins of our comfort,
  • Shake hands with failure and disappointment,
  • Smile in the face of risk.

And refuse to surrender!

We see lots of leadership surrendering these days because no one is walking alongside and encouraging young leaders or well-traveled leaders. We need to reminding leaders…

  • You have worth. It’s not attached to position, performance or success. It was first conveyed in baptismal covenant.
  • The fruit that might be harvested is worth it.
  • I’ll stick with you.

bolsinger quote

It’s an exciting season…challenging to the core season…to be a leader. The Spirit of God goes before us.   God’s mission will not fail.

Thanks for not surrendering.

PLI would welcome the opportunity to be the one to walk beside you in one of the new learning communities launching this year.

One Response

  1. Thanks for this – I think you are really accurate in your analysis of our world.
    Greatest Frustration: knowing this and seeing people who just want more of the “old” church. Not older people who want the comfort of the familiar – I have compassion for them and want to give them Christ’s care in the final season of their lives. The frustration is the “younger” people who want to “move the church forward” by doing what worked well in the 1990’s. I am having a hard time sorting out when that push for “the last great thing” is their own seeking the comfort of the “newer familiar.”
    So, what do you think – how do you bring those people along?

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