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 a season of profound transformation within the church—and within faith itself. The cultural ground beneath us is shifting. Long-familiar assumptions, institutions, and ways of belonging are being questioned, while new expressions of spirituality, community, and discipleship are emerging.
Such moments require courageous, discerning, and Spirit-attuned leadership. We are invited not to cling anxiously to the past nor rush blindly into novelty, but to cultivate the wisdom to notice where the Spirit is already at work. Faithful leaders help communities navigate uncertainty by nurturing an expanding imagination of G-d’s Shalom for all creation and embodying the conviction that faith, hope, and love become tangible in the ordinary practices of everyday people seeking to follow the Way of Jesus.
The challenges before us are real and deeply interconnected. We continue to reckon with the lingering effects of the pandemic, growing economic inequality, housing insecurity, homelessness, forced migration, and the displacement of refugees. Democracies around the world are strained by polarization, authoritarianism, and forms of Christian nationalism that distort the gospel. Movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have exposed long-ignored injustices, while LGBTQIA+ communities continue to call the church toward greater dignity, safety, and belonging. Meanwhile, climate disruption, ongoing wars, nuclear proliferation, and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence confront us with questions no previous generation has faced in quite the same way.
These realities can leave us feeling overwhelmed. They can also become an invitation—calling us to recover deeper practices of presence, discernment, imagination, and hope. Rather than retreating in fear or grasping for certainty, we can learn to participate more faithfully in the reconciling work of G-d, joining with others to cultivate communities where justice, mercy, belonging, and flourishing take root.
“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
Periods of profound disruption and change invite leaders, teams, congregations, and organizations to (re)examine the why of their shared, place-based existence. In such moments, values, mission, practices, strategies—even deeply held assumptions and beliefs—often need to be revisited and realigned.
This moment seems to be calling forth a renewed way of following Jesus: contemplative enough to discern the Spirit’s movement, courageous enough to relinquish what no longer serves love, and creative enough to imagine what has not yet been. It is a way that refuses to separate inner transformation from faithful action, personal formation from communal flourishing, or devotion to G-d from the healing of the world.
Together, these practices cultivate communities that participate in G-d’s reconciling work—joining the Spirit in seeking the abundant life Jesus promised 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 Companion for the Journey
In seasons of disruption, transition, and possibility, having a trusted companion can make the journey less isolating, more discerning, and ultimately more hopeful. A modest investment of time, attention, and honest conversation can renew your imagination, deepen your leadership, and help your community discover its next faithful step.
You don’t have to navigate this alone.
Dwight’s vocation is to walk alongside leaders, teams, and local communities of faith and practice as they discern how to participate in what Jesus called the Kin-dom of G-d—a world where love takes root, justice flourishes, creation is cherished, and all can experience abundant life.
Whether you are navigating organizational change, seeking greater vocational clarity, reimagining your congregation’s future, or simply longing for a thoughtful conversation, Dwight would be honored to journey with you.
You’re warmly invited to begin with a complimentary introductory conversation. Simply complete the contact form or schedule a Zoom conversation by selecting one of the available times on Dwight’s calendar.
Set up an Initial Conversation
Facilitate Your Future
Guide your leadership team & congregation in designing your ministry’s future!