Role of the Leader… Listen to Lack
In today’s context, your group’s experience of “lack” is key to discovering what is uniquely its to do and be!
We are living through an era of profound transformation within the church — and within faith itself. The cultural ground beneath us is shifting. Old systems are unraveling, while new expressions of spirituality are emerging in their place.
In such times, courageous, wise, and Spirit-attuned leadership is essential. Leaders today are called to help their organizations and neighborhoods navigate the unknown — grounded in the presence of the Holy Spirit, animated by an expanding imagination of G-d’s Shalom for all creation, and anchored in the conviction that faith, hope, and love take tangible form in the everyday life of local people seeking to embody the Way of Jesus.
The challenges we face are immense:
- The lingering disorientation following COVID lockdowns.
- Housing, cost-of-living, homelessness, and refugee crises.
- Rising polarization, the erosion of democracy, and the dark shadow of “christian” nationalism.
- The revelations of Me Too, the cry for justice through Black Lives Matter, and rights for queer siblings.
- A global climate crisis, ongoing wars and genocides, the nuclear threat, and the accelerating advance of unregulated AI.
“In a time of disruption, renewal begins wherever people wait and listen together for the Spirit’s invitation, experiment unto G-d’s Shalom, and welcome the very one they’ve been taught to fear… this is the work of prefiguring Jesus’ dream of ‘life to the full.'”
- dwight j. friesen
Unprecedented epochs of upheaval and change invite leaders, teams, and faith communities to (re)examine the “why” of their located-collective existence. Often values, mission, strategies… even beliefs require realignment. This moment seems to be calling forth a new practice of following Jesus — one that is contemplative, courageous, and creative; one that unites inner transformation with outer action; one that collaborates unto Jesus’ promise of abundant life for the world that “G-d so loves…”
One-on-One Connection & Conversation
Engage in a personal and confidential leadership conversation about the unique challenges you and your congregation are facing within your neighborhood and beyond.
Leadership Team Conversations
Expand the ministry imagination of your ministry’s leadership team(s), be it the board, staff, or volunteers. Dr. Friesen will work with you to foster the kind of generative futures thinking your team must embrace to further its mission while becoming a community of faithful presence.
Facilitating Change Within Your Organization
Foster even greater imagination for the Shalom of God within your neighborhood by inviting Dwight to speak, inspire, and provide training for your community of faith & practice.
What questions & concerns are on your heart?
+ Who are we now?
+ How can we reimagine our church’s building and maybe even our financial strategy?
+ How has our context changed? And what might these changes be inviting of us and our ministry?
+ What might it look like for us to discover an even more faithful way of loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves?
+ How can we listen to, and learn from all our neighbors and our neighborhood?
+ What might inner transformation for outer change look like for us in our context?
Inner Transformation for Outer Change
The Way of Jesus is misunderstood when it’s reduced to a private relationship with G-d or a form of spiritual self-improvement. Its more consistent with Scripture to imagine Jesus’ Way revealing an entirely new, liberating, and Shalomic way of being human — a life so transformed through encounter with the Divine that its radical embodiment of love inevitably subverts every form of empire.
Convening as Subversion
In 2023 the USA’s Surgeon General released a report articulating an epidemic of loneliness. That loneliness combined with social fragmentation, political divisiveness, and the residue of pandemic isolation is an invitation for communities of Jesus followers to deepen their practice of welcoming all as G-d in Christ welcomes all. Reframe your “gatherings” as divine subversion!
Abundant Life for All & Everything
G-d’s story is one of making all things new… The emerging face of Christian mission is found in embodying its doctrine of G-d of threeness & oneness. If humans are created imago Dei then, encountering difference reveals something G-d, and the response to is not to fight, convert, or reject but discover a way of love. Mission is collaborating with diverse others unto flourishing for all.
A Trusted Guide for the Journey
In times of disruption, having a trusted companion in conversation can make the path clearer, less isolating, and far more hopeful. A small investment of time, resources, and reflection can embolden your leadership and renew your community’s imagination.
You don’t have to lead alone.
Dwight’s calling is to walk alongside leaders and local communities of faith and practice as they discern how to participate in what Jesus described as the Kin-dom of G-d — a better, more just, more sustainable urban future for all and everything. You can schedule an initial conversation by using this contact form or by following the Zoom link and choosing one of the already scheduled time slots that work for you.
Set up an Initial Conversation
Facilitate Your Future
Guide your leadership team & congregation in designing your ministry’s future!