Going back to zero

I am still at Mount Sequoya, (please excuse my outburst of yesterday!)and today was a special training event for dss and directors of connectional ministries, led by Gil Rendle (he's in the picture on the left). It was a great event, as we thought about our changing roles, the purpose of charge conferences and many other things. One of the morning learnings and "aha"s for me was when Dr. Rendle talked about how we, as leaders, need to be able to help pastors and churches to "go back to zero", that is, we need to help folks get back beyond/before their assumptions were formed, to a place/space where they have "gone back to zero", everything is on the table and negotiable, so that we really can lead for fundamental change. He used as an example the emerging church, which he says, "goes back to zero." I got what he meant, I think. I thought he meant that we who are trying to be in this emergent conversation are trying to help folks to see that what are norms or expectations in many of our churches, really are manifestations of a particular culture and generation. Many of the emergent leaders are calling our mainline churches in to accountability about all of this. I need to think some more about this. It was good to talk as a cabinet this afternoon about important things, and I look forward to tomorrow.