1Advent Thursday- KC Emergent Cohort at First Watch-Really

I took some REALLY lousy pictures today at First Watch of the cohort meeting with Tim. Everyone was either rubbing their noses or the light was so bad it was hard to see if Christ has come in all his glory or or darkness had fallen. There were twenty guys and Tera Yeakel and me. I know some of the folks who were there---maybe 6 by name and another 6 by sight. Anyway, Tim described his approach in writing his book Intuitive Leadership. He said he did not have a thesis to prove but a question to ask...what does it mean to lead? He drew the distinction between the temptation of churches to mimic the successes of others---by copying what another church is doing, trying to replicate that "success" (usually judged in numbers) and that is not an authentic response to the specific cultural and community context that is different, really for every community of faith. Instead, Tim urges us to use the primary stance of "engagement" to define and discern our church's ministry.

As much as I believe the model that Tim lifts is needed in the postmodern world, I guess I think some of that is already in the Wesleyan tradition...and other Protestant traditions as well. The top-down kind of approach to leadership which Tim sees as no longer, if it ever was, viable for the church certainly does sound like the Methodism I grew up with, and, lets face it, am an illustration of. I guess I wonder if even in a hierarchical system like we have, at least for the moment unless some things REALLY do change about the church, engagement already happens in some intriguingly beautiful ways. I know it does. I REALLY want to think about all this some more. It was a really neat discussion.