Holiday party

We need to decide what we're bringing to make sure the food options are balanced and plentiful on Saturday. Faron is making cajun pasta, I think.

I suggest we have at least one person sign up for each of the following: appetizer, salad, dessert, drinks.

Any takers?!

I will bring a dessert - either my "dang good brownies" (Matt named these) or ginger cookies.

Notes on Servant Leadership

The long awaited...

Notes on Servant Leadership

General Information

• Phrase coined by Robert Greenleaf in 1970 – Book/Essay: The Servant as Leader

• Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world. 

• The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…

• Traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

•  Organizations as well as individuals could be servant-leaders - Book/Essay: The Institution as Servant 

• Larry C. Spears – 10 Characteristics of a Servant Leader

• Listening, Empathy, Healing, Awareness, Persuasion, Conceptualization, Foresight, Stewardship, Commitment to the Growth of People, Building Communit 

XU/UC Servant Leadership Forum – Held 10/24

-          Freedom Center President C.G. Newsome

o   Highlighted Mary McLeod Bethune

o   Key characteristics/traits: spiritual intelligence, empathy, energy, fortitude, resiliency

-          University of Cincinnati President Santa J. Ono

o   Highlighted George Washington, MLK

o   Key concept: Servant leaders are concerned with the growth and well-being of people and community in they belong

o   Book: How Will You Measure Your Life? – Clayton Christensen

-          Xavier University President Michael J. Graham, S.J.

o   Highlighted Pope Francis

o   Key concept: Person before you is the object of your concern

Servant Leadership Forum

Greetings LDG,

A quick note regarding the forum on servant leadership...

There is no RSVP. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.

The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Harriet Tubman Theater at the Freedom Center on Thursday, Oct. 24. 

I suppose aiming for a 6:00 p.m. arrival should be sufficient.

Here is a link to the page with the address, directions and parking info: 

http://freedomcenter.org/visit-the-center


Matt

Just For Fun: Some Leadership Quotes

Greetings all,

Here are some quotes, some funny, some serious, regarding the nature of leadership.

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. ~ George S. Patton

"You hear about how many fourth quarter comebacks that a guy has and I think it means a guy screwed up in the first three quarters." - Peyton Manning, Record-breaking NFL Quarterback 

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ~ Dwight Eisenhower

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves. ~ Lao-Tzu

Your brother in Christ,

Faron

Meeting Summary: Session Three

Greetings all,

Boy is this summary late.  It seems like I have been running since Tuesday night, but I have a few minutes before I head south to retrieve children.  This week we began with prayer and housekeeping.  Jamie is bringing drinks next week and Matt dessert.  A reminder that we will not have group on Tuesday, October 22nd and instead y'all will be going to the leadership forum that Thursday.  Matt is making the arrangements for that event.  We then shifted into a review of homework for the weak which included a discussion of spiritual formation (SF), what it is, why it is important and how it relates to leadership and character.  This is the beginning of an ongoing conversation about SF but at its essence it helps form our character and provides for us the Spirit resources out of which we can then minister.  It is what forms the kind of spiritual leaders we will become and provides the power out of which we will serve.

The discussion of SF intertwined with a discussion of Part I of Invitation to a Journey.  This book provided our definition of SF, "Spiritual Formation is a process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.”  We recognized that SF is a process that we all experience, the question is are we being formed towards life and prosperity in Christ or death and adversity?  It begins by recognizing the temptation to define ourselves by our "doing" rather than our "being," but it is the process that allows us to overcome that temptation allowing God to challenge us a midst our brokenness and conform us to His image and make us whole again.

We then looked at another personality inventory known as DISC.  Where the Myers Briggs looks at where we get our energy, how we receive and process information and how we choose to relate to the world.  The DISC looks at how we operate in groups or on teams.  We all generally end up with one dominant characteristic.  The D stands for dominant and are those people who are both big picture and task oriented.  These are the guys who drives us towards the accomplishment of our goal.  The I stands for influential and are the people that are big picture and people oriented.  These are the natural recruiters who are more about connecting with people than pursuing the task.  The S stands for stead and are people who are detail oriented and people oriented.  These are the people who will take everything on themselves because they don't want to burden anyone but equally will remember to send everyone a card on their birthday and sooth over any hurt feelings.  The final letter C stands for conscientious and are detail and task oriented people.  These are the accountants of the world.  A balanced team will have some of each category on the team.  The D leads, the I recruits, the S keeps the team together and happy, and the C makes sure nothing is being forgotten to accomplish the task.  A balanced team is the most efficient and effective and is what we will strive to build as leaders.  We then took the inventory.

After the break we moved into a discussion of Inductive Bible Study and looked at the story of Noah, Genesis 5:28-10:1.  We began learning the method, we read the scripture as a group and then made observations about the text from a general standpoint and a leadership standpoint.  There is a blog post specifically about this so I won't go into further detail, but it was an exciting and fruitful discussion and is the first of many Bible studies we will do about Biblical leaders and the nature of the Church.

Our homework is as follows:

1. Read Parts II & III in Invitation to a Journey
2. Do an Inductive Bible Study of Acts 1:1-6:7 looking at who we are as the Church.

Once again great meeting!  See y'all Tuesday.

Your brother in Christ,

Faron

Bible Study: An Introduction to Inductive Bible Study

Greetings All,

Tonight we talked about a method of Bible study known as inductive Bible study (IBS).  It is a manner of going to the text aware of our presuppositions, attempting to set those aside and then allowing the text to speak to us on its own merits.  This is the first of many Bible studies we will be doing over the next year and this is the manner in which I want us to approach the text so I have posted two links to articles about this method.  The first is from Asbury Seminary where I learned the technique.  It is a comprehensive site about this method which is the preferred method of study taught at the seminary.  The second is to Intervarsity Press where they offer some helpful hints on how to go about IBS.  Both are worthy of your time and will be helpful to you as we go through the year.

http://inductivebiblestudy.seedbed.com/

http://www.intervarsity.org/bible-studies/inductive-bible-study-hints

 I also have embedded a video here of Dr. Robert Traina, who is a pioneer in this method, teaching a seminary class on how to go about IBS. The video is long, almost 100 minutes, but if you have the time it is excellent teaching from a great professor.

 

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Just For Fun: A Leadership Cartoon

Meeting Summary: Session Two

Good morning all,

I hope you had a chance to go home and relax a bit after our meeting.  Once again I am amazed at the speed at which you are coming together as a group.  Thank you all for your willingness to be a part of this process.  Marie we missed you but will see you next week and pray that William recovers quickly.  Last night we recapped the homework and discovered there are many different models, types, styles of leadership.  Nobody embodies all of them and the effectiveness of the style often times directly relates to the leadership context.  For example the autocratic leadership style works well in an emergency crisis but would not serve well working with a very specialized, high-functioning team; the hands-off approach would be a much better style for that team.  The main point in the exercise was for all of us to realize that our leadership potential can manifest itself in many different styles.  Some of the styles we may never embody, but that doesn't mean we are not a leader.  The second part of the homework was to consider the difference between managers and leaders and the final conclusion we came to was that leadership requires people.  One cannot lead time, materials, resources or finances but they can manage them.  An important note to consider about managers is that being a manager is not a rung on the ladder to becoming a leader like some of the Internet literature would suggest.  A manager can be a leader in their own right.

The second part of the session involved looking at the personality preferences of the Myers Briggs Personality Inventory and taking the Kiersey Temperament Sorter.  We discovered as a group that while on the surface we seem quite diverse, at a personality level we had very little diversity with most of the group being ISTJ.  Part of this weeks homework is to take an online version of the Myers Briggs.  Follow this link: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp .  There are 72 yes/no questions and you will get your results the moment you click submit.  Once you have taken the text please reply to this post with a comment that has your name, your letter breakdown and the number that goes with each letter.  For example I would post: Faron Owen ENTJ, 100/25/50/33.  The second piece for homework was to consider spiritual formation and discipleship.  Come next week prepared to define these concepts, discuss their importance, their relationship to leadership and to character.  We have plenty of drinks left over so we don't need those, but Brandy has dessert.  Thanks again to Michael and Cindy for drinks and desserts last night.

Your brother in Christ,

Faron

Meeting Summary: Session One

Greetings All,

I want to tell you how excited I am after last night.  I was overwhelmed by your openness, honesty and willingness to participate and I cannot wait to see what God does in our midst.  Thank you all for sharing your answers to each question during the first half of the session last night.  I feel like I got a glimpse of a deeper part of each one of you.  In the second half we had a great discussion on the characteristics of a leader.  You added things to the list like good communicator, innovator, passion, faith and plenty more while also recognizing that all leaders do not have all of these traits.  This list will be the foundation for us developing a definition of a leader, especially a spiritual leader.  The homework for next week was to come back prepared to a) discuss the different types of leaders and b) discuss the difference between a leader and a manager.  Michael you are bringing drinks next week and Cindy you have dessert.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Leadership Characteristics: Facing Failure

Greetings All,

 As we consider characteristics of leaders I want to highlight some on the blog. Today I want us to consider the issue of "failure." One of the challenges leaders face is the reality that we may fail in our undertakings be them business or ministry or even family. The truth is "failure is a part of life." It is not that leaders avoid failure, it is how we acknowledge the reality that we have failed and how we move forward from there. Here is a link to an article in Forbes magazine about what we can learn from failure.  While it is an article focused on the business world, the ideas put forth are just as applicable to a ministry setting.  When you get a moment read the article and then post a comment to this post where you name one of your personal failures and how you moved forward.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Welcome!!!

Greetings CUMC Leaders, Welcome to our Leadership Development Group (LDG) Blog. This will be our primary communication point apart from our Tuesday meetings. I ask that you check the blog once each day. Sometimes it will have devotional thoughts, other times practical information about the upcoming meeting, sometimes articles about leadership, or thought provoking questions about leadership, theology and life. It will become the journal of our time together. A place we can look to the future as each upcoming week is laid out on the schedule and where we can look back on what we have learned and discussed and experienced over the past few weeks. As we progress in the group I will give all of you posting privileges on the blog so that you can share with the group things you have learned, ask questions or even challenge us to think differently about something. I am so excited to be sharing the upcoming year with each of you and cannot wait to see what God does through each of you and this group! Your brother in Christ, Faron