Bryan in AIIAS

Today I came across an excellent chapter from the book Focus on Leadership. In this chapter, Bennis is suggesting that the following ten traits should exist in a life of a leader. How can our churches incorporate some of these traits when training leaders? Is it about time for us to start doing so, or should we just be satisfied with the status quo of our leaders? Source: Bennis, Warren. (2002). Become a tomorrow leader. In Spears, Larry C. & Lawrence, Michele. Focus on leadership: Servant-leadership for the twenty-first century , pp. 102-107. New York, NY: John Wiley. Warren Bennis Tomorrow’s leaders must learn how to create an environment that embraces change, not as a threat but as an opportunity. Some leaders will be successful at this; others will fail. 1. Successful leaders have self-awareness and self-esteem . They sense when a different repertoire of competencies is needed, without being threatened by the need to change. They have the diagnostic ability...

Its now the third month of 2012 and this is my first post for this year. Well, 2011 has been an interesting year. Last December I went home to distribute my survey questionnaire at the churches in North Minahasa Conference, Manado. My study is focused on finding the correlation between leadership behaviors of small group leaders towards the effectivity and success of the small group ministry program in the North Minahasa Conference. In order to achieve that, I have designed a questionnaire to measure leadership behaviors of small group leaders and also to measure the perception of small group effectiveness. I spent one month in Manado in which the first week was used to distribute the questionnaire to the selected churches which represents the NMC. I divided the population into three groups: the Manado area, the North Minahasa area and the Bitung city area. This method of sampling is called purposive sampling. While the intent is to measure the total population of North Minah...

There's a story about a flock of geese flying south for the winter. As the birds were heading to their winter destination, an early snowstorm forced them to take shelter. They spotted a farm with an open barn, landed, and took shelter in the barn overnight. The farmer was quite surprised to find that he'd left the barn door open and that the barn was now occupied by a flock of wild geese. But he took compassion on the snowbound birds and provided food for them. The snowstorm lasted several days, and the geese decided to stay put. The farmer continued to feed them. When the storm finally broke, the geese debated about whether or not to continue on their journey. Because the farmer had been so kind, they decided to stay a while. The farmer thought it was quite a novelty to have a flock of wild geese at his disposal, so he continued to provide for them. The arrangement worked for all parties involved, and the geese decided to stay the winter. When spring finally arrived, the...

Today I came across an illustration from Craig Van Gelder’s The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), pp. 99-100. “Growing up on a farm in rural Iowa provided me with an object lesson for understanding the church’s being mission by nature. Each county in the state employed an extension agent to work with farmers…. As new farming technologies, seeds, and fertilizers became available, the extension agents introduced these to the farmers. My dad, like many farmers, was often hesitant to acce3pt the innovations. One of the methods extension agents used to gain acceptance of these innovations was demonstration plots. A strip of land, usually along a major roadway, was selected as demonstration plot, where a new farming method, seed, or fertilizer was used to raise a crop. It was uncommon for farmers to remain skeptical throughout the summer as the crops grew. But there was always keen interest in the fall when crop was harvested. I...

Miguel Angel Cerna in his book The Power of Small Groups in the Church  used this powerful contrast to show the differences between a LIVE church and a DEAD one. In page 39 he writes: 1. Live churches always have parking problems --Dead ones never do 2. Live churches are constantly changing methodology --Dead ones don't have to 3. Live churches have lots of noisy youth --Dead ones are very quiet 4. Live churches have expenses that exceed their income --Dead ones are so unchanging that everybody knows everyone's name 5. Live churches support missions enthusiastically --Dead ones keep all their money at home 6. Live churches focus on people --Dead ones focus on problems 7. Live churches are filled with tithers --Dead ones are filled with tippers 8. Live churches move out in faith --Dead ones operate totally by sight 9. Live churches evangelize! --Dead ones fossilize! I wonder which category your church is in, LIVE or DEAD?

Last night I was reading through the blog and comments of Cindy Tutsch at Adventist Today , in particular her blog about Emerging Church entitled "DANGERS OF EMERGING/EMERGENT TRENDS TO THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST MOVEMENT AND MISSION" She started with sweeping generalization that Emergents do not have a solid Biblical foundation for their faith, because worship is all about how they experience it. She says: For Emergents, experience and subjective revelation trump Scripture. Absolute truth does not exist; all truth is relative to each person's experience. Thus, no moral judgments can be made about evil. Where there is no evil, there can be no call to repentance and no freedom from guilt through the blood of Jesus because there is no sin. Furthermore, she says "emergent worship is highly individualistic in the sense of placing greater value on one's personal story and personal interpretations than on worshiping God through the biblical model of repentance....