Winter 2016-2017 Developing Leaders

This is the ending of Missional Map-Making:

"When these simply actions of resistance grew in number, like increasing numbers of sound waves interacting with one another, communism's power started to crumble from the inside.

This was the inadvertent formation of a parallel culture Havel described so eloquently.  The people could not form an alternative culture, he argued, because the power and reality of communism was so strong, it infected all of life, and it was impossible for the people within it to step outside its environment and influence.  But it was possible to slowly create a parallel way of life within the monolithic fact of communism.  This is the kind of environment missional map-makers cultivate in our discontinuous new space.  It will be done in ways that reflect the wise words of Wendell Berry when speaking about the devastations to our natural environment: "We must begin by giving up the idea that we can bring about this healing without fundamental changes in the way that we think and live.  We face a choice that is starkly simple:  we must change or be changed.""

Reflecting on this passage (and your other reading and writing):

1)  Identify one or two things in you that must change in the way you "think and live" in order to lead in this "discontinuous new space." (Note that this reflection is not a call for what you think needs to change in your context, in "the church" or in "the world."  Roxburgh (and Berry) call for us to think first about what must change in us.  If you want to read/learn more about this concept, you can investigate the book "Deep Change," by Robert Quinn.

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Change-Discovering-Jossey-Bass-Management/dp/0787902446

2)  Respond to two posts -- reflecting back what you hear the person saying/writing, using different words.  (This is an exercise in "active listening," which is a necessary skill for leadership.)  You are not asked to evaluate the person's ideas or to offer them advice about next steps -- you are simply reflecting back what you have heard them say in their writing -- in your own language.