All posts tagged Leadership Summit

“The Church of today is a place of collaboration, a countercultural community of reconciliation and justice,” says Rev. Brenda Salter McNeil, a much-sought-after speaker worldwide—and one frequently requested by attendees of The Global Leadership Summit. President of a leadership development organization and a 2010 presenter at the Lausanne World Congress in South Africa, Rev. Salter McNeil is zealous about preparing the Church for the impact of globalization by changing the way the next generation of Christian leaders think and act toward people who are different. Rev. Salter McNeil is a lightning rod for transformation, bringing people together from all nationalities to complete our shared Kingdom assignment in the Church and beyond.

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• In 1986, Brenda and her husband were invited to England to talk about the African-American Church in America.
• Redundancy in the church has happened as a result of industrialization.
• “Where have you been? Why didn’t you come sooner? Didn’t you know what we were going through?”
• A catalytic event is a game-changer.
• It’s a moment that changes everything.
• It will broaden your experience, humble you, and expand your worldview
• Catalytic events are never nice, easy, or comfortable.
• Catalytic events cause you to hang on for dear life.
• Words can fail to communicate feelings in catalytic events.
• In 1947, Captain Chuck Yaeger broke through the sound barrier.
• Many other people tried what Chuck did and failed.
• When the severeness of the shaking was at its most intense, Chuck resisted the temptation to pull back and he moved forward.
• Most of us have been impacted by huge demographic, economic and cultural shifts that have changed our world over the past decade.
• It’s shaken us at our core at the speed of light.
• These catalytic events are unprecedented.
• Young leaders have grown up with the shaking around us beneath their feet.
• The new generation is global by default.
• Technology has made it possible for the world to be connected.
• We know what’s going on?
• How have you responded to that as a leader?
• Are you suffering from information over-load? Has it immobilized you?
• Or, has it challenged and spurred you forward?
• Acts 1:8  was the catalytic moment that birthed the Church.
• This text defines our mission until Jesus returns.
• Everyone who receives the apostles’ teaching become witnesses of the Kingdom of God.
• We are to take it across geographical, economical, and racial boundaries.
• We need to lead the church forward into a global future.
• God has created us for globalness.
• There is a movement outward.
• We have to break through one cultural barrier after another.

1  - We must begin in Jerusalem

• Jerusalem represents our home turf, our comfort zone.
• It’s a place where we are known and people understand us.
• It’s where we feel most comfortable and connected.
• It’s a place where people are most culturally like us.
• It’s a place where even if they don’t like you they have to let you in.
• At first glance, any leader could make a church work in a setting like Jerusalem.
• It takes courage to be a catalytic leader.
• If you really think about it, it takes courage to be a catalytic leader in Jerusalem.
• It’s not… it forces us to look at our own bigotry.
• We have to take on the risk to talk to our own family, our own people, our own kind.
• We have to have the courage to address the systems that aren’t inclusive.

2 – Judea

• Judea is the place in your world that is close to home but is not quite home.
• There are subcultures that require acceptance and flexibility.
• There are cultural differences expresses there are tough to navigate.
• They are subcultures that divide us.
• We are all from the same place but we are speaking a different language.
• It’s like one generation talking to another… we need translators.
• Ministry in Judea requires catalytic change and prophetic leadership.

3 – Samaria

• A place nearby that we avoid.
• Represents people who are hostile to us.
• We don’t relate to them at all.
• They are the “other.”
• Samaria’s worldview is different than ours.
• Like the neighborhoods we drive through and lock our doors.
• It’s a place of sex trafficking.
• It’s a place of child soldiers.
• It’s a place of corporate greed.
• It’s a place of environmental injustice.
• We are called to be witnesses in Samaria.
• It means moving outward and experiencing the otherness of those around us.
• It’s not easy.
• It takes an extraordinary leader to go to Samaria.
• Requires leaders who have extraordinary thinking.
• It moves you beyond your natural affinities.
• Jesus said, “you shall receive POWER…” to push us out of our comfort zones.
• Samaria forces us to contend with the complexities of our differences.
• You can’t escape it.
• Requires unorthodox methods.

How Do We Move From Where We Are to Where Jesus Calls Us To Be?

• We have to have a catalyst.
• Without a catalyst we stay stuck in our safe space.
• We have to have something that pushes us from where we are to where we are supposed to be.
• Acts 2 is the Catalytic Event.
• People were bewildered by what they heard and were amazed.
• The accuracy, authenticity and credibility of what people heard was undeniably clear.
• A mutli-national, multi-lingual, multi-racial church was born in Acts 2. It was a global movement.
• It’s amazing and confusing
• The Church is called to be counter-cultural.
• It’s meant to confuse and bewilder the world.
• Like Peter, we need to be ready to answer the question of what the catalytic events in our day mean.
• As catalytic leaders we have to be willing and ready to interpret the events of our time through the eyes of faith, not fear.
• Maybe globalization  God’s way of getting people who have been isolated have to learn how to partner together and collaborate.

How To Be a Catalytic Leader

1 – Pray for Divine Mandate

• Catalytic events are not things we can conjure up.
• They happen when God breaks through with something new
• We can’t do something about everything, but we can do something about a few things.
• Ask, “what things need my name on it?”
• The most dangerous prayer you can ever pray is, “God, break our heart for what breaks yours.”
• It’s not what we can do but what God can do.

2 – Name Your Catalytic Event

• Stop and ask God, “What are you doing?”
• We need Christian leaders that view catastrophic events as catalytic moments for the spirit of God to break in.
• God is not dead. He is still able.
• The Father has always worked.
• God is at work in our world.
• Our job is to find where God is at work.
• Look for the catalytic events that will set you up for success.

3 – Mobilize people to go!

• Faith without works is dead.
• The creative tension in collaboration is what God had in mind for the Church.
• It takes courage to have conversations across the aisle.
• Don’t stop there.
• Push forward to Samaria… the area where we are culturally, politically, and ethnically different.
• Don’t go to help. Go to learn.
• Learn the language of the people different than you.
• Learn to speak with authenticity.
• Immerse yourself in the culture even when you want to run.
• Don’t practice voyeurism… get engaged and become a part of what is going on.
• A PhD and Doctorate mean nothing if they aren’t relevant to people.

Where is Your Samaria?

• That is where God is calling you to go.
• That’s where you are supposed to be.
• We need to experience our own Pentecost.
• What you decide right here and right now may be the spark that lights a fire to transform your church.
• God wants to interrupt our previously scheduled program.
• We need to lead past every boundary that has ever held us back.
• We need new languages to speak with authenticity and credibility.
• We need to become the global church God has called us to be.