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You are here: Home / Archives for Growing Leaders

Remembering Thomas C. Knutson 1946 – 2013

May 22, 2014 by Wayne Cowell

The Rev. Thomas C. Knutson, pastor of First Ev. Lutheran Church, Harvey, a founder of Let’s Talk, died on September 18, 2013 of pancreatic cancer.  Pr. Knutson served as Chairman of the Editorial Council for a decade and a half from the first issue at Epiphany 1996, through the years when the journal was a […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

As I See It: The Pastor as Projector of a Worldview

May 22, 2014 by Frank C. Senn

This issue of Let’s Talk is devoted to leadership in the Church. There is a natural temptation to look to models of leadership from social institutions because the Church is a society in the world that operates according to social, political, and economic “laws.” Pastoral leaders can be taught leadership skills that come out of […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

On The Way: Tell Me, Muse, of the Pastor of Many Ways

May 22, 2014 by Benjamin Dueholm

It is a little after 2 p.m. on a Wednesday during Lent as I write. Since arriving in the office at 9 a.m., I have: prayed the office of readings from the iBreviary app on my phone, revised the prayers of the people for this weekend’s services, tried to help arrange for a car payment […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Urban Acacia: An Affiliated Mission Community That Bridges the Gaps

May 22, 2014 by Dan Beirne

It is a truism that we teach all of our kids in this popular Church nursery rhyme, Here is the Church and Here is the steeple. Open it up, and Here are all the… People. Churches have people in them. Second only to steeples, churches are identified by the people inside of them. People gathered […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Next Level Leadership and Our Move to Multisite

May 22, 2014 by Fred Nelson

Background My wife, Carol, and I are both second-career pastors. When we started out in pastoral ministry in our early 40s, we found ourselves leaning heavily towards a model of Pastor as Leader. Like many others who were entering ministry at the turn of the millennium, we found ourselves looking at first-call opportunities in churches […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Mentoring in Family Ministry

May 22, 2014 by Pam Voves

Who are you investing in? This question hangs directly above my computer screen in my office at Faith Lutheran Church. My call is not to the programming of Family Ministry but to the people. It reminds me not to let the relationships get lost amid all the curricula, details, e-mail reminders, and newsletter articles. I […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Leading in a New Call

May 22, 2014 by Trudy Stoffel

My second call process was very different from my first call process.  I was a little less naïve, but I hope not too cynical.  There was the tension of being present to the congregation who doesn’t know you’re leaving and the unknown of a new congregation.  And then there’s the pressure of living up to […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Embracing Relationship-Driven Ministry: A Seminary Student Reflects on Intentional Impact

May 22, 2014 by Adam Varner

At the beginning of my junior year of high school, a friend and I decided to join our high school’s swim team.  Nothing unusual there, but what was unusual for new swim team members was that neither one of us knew how to swim.  Sure, we could move in the water and around the pool […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

Taking Leadership to the Next Level

May 22, 2014 by Héctor Garfias-Toledo

You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. —2 Timothy 2:2 St. Paul was a “church planter.”  He was aware of what it took to plant […]

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Imagining Leadership

May 22, 2014 by Wayne Miller

[Samuel] sent and brought [David] in…. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this the one.” I Samuel 16:12 As a kid, I always had a particular fondness for the story of David’s anointing as the once and future king.  Perhaps this was at least partly because, since I was the one who was […]

Filed Under: Growing Leaders

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