Leadership

The Rev. Dr. Roger Ferlo
Since Sunday evening, I have been at Honey Creek for the Diocese of Georgia Clergy Conference. We were led in thinking through issues of leadership in the church by the Rev. Dr. Roger Ferlo, Associate Dean and Director for the Institute for Christian Formation and Leadership at my alma mater, Virginia Theological Seminary.

We looked at leadership as shown in some large swaths of scripture (Exodus 3-4, 18; Galatians 2; and Luke 22) as well as some models for leadership and how power is exercised, including Carl Dudley's Three Styles of Pastoral Leadership; Goleman's Emotional Intelligence; Roy Oswald's Power Analysis of a Congregation; and French and Raven's Five Bases of Social Power. In the photo above, Roger is getting us to consider positive aspects of leadership and the challenges.

One scriptural example was Exodus 18 in which Moses' early pattern of doing all the leading on his own was dealt with by his father-in-law Jethro who said, "What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you."

Throughout his time with us, both in and out of formal discussions, Ferlo led the gathered clergy through a biblically grounded, thoughtful consideration of leadership in the church, both lay and clergy. I enjoyed the presentations as well as a chance to be with my fellow clergy in the Diocese of Georgia.

Looking for more of what we covered? Try this online version of one model we considered: Parker Palmer's Leading from Within: Reflections on spirituality and leadership.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The Rev. Jim Shumard comments in a discussion.