Authority & Leadership in the new
Have been coming across some great thoughts and conversations on the topic of authority and leadership in the new paradigm in contrast to the inherited models.

Firstly from Andrew Jones who I feel gives a really good handle on the new and how it functions and what happens when the older models seek to encroach on the new. Here are some quotes and a link to the full post;

Can emerging churches survive traditional top-down systems of governing?

What do you think about this? Emergent systems have a self-regulatory, mutual accountability system that enables everyone to participate and keep the system healthy. Which is why no one is insisting that someone organize and govern the internet - better to have the whole system work it out than hand it to one group, or one government.

The emergent dynamics of the new churches have a decentralized, non-hierachical leadership system that seems to work. But because it doesn't look like anyone is in charge, the older organizations sometimes insist that their old leadership forms be adopted. And then what was previously working explodes or implodes.

If it is true that we cannot mix old leadership styles with new emergent churches, then we really need a whole new way of training, evaluating, and communicating backwards so that the older churches can understand and allow the new wineskins to grow.

Here's the full post with people's response.

I think Andrew taps into a very key issue for us in the UK. And for me demonstrates a healthy way to foster positive communication and dialogue between inherited and new forms of church on this sensitive issue.

Tomorrow I shall post a recent article by Tony Dale on some of the practical outworking of this new model. If you have any thoughts from your own experience then add them as a comment.

posted by alexander @ 12:14 PM    0 comments

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