Spirited Leadership, Fall 2024

Sept 9 (Mondays, 6:00 – 7:30 Pacific)

Sept 23

Oct 7

Oct 21

Nov 4

Nov 18

You have a story to tell! Through holy baptism and your own leadership, you are also invited into a story that is greater and more far-reaching than yourself. We invite you into a process, or cycle of spiritual awareness and intention as a leader in your faith community as you discern the leading of the Spirit of Christ.

During our sessions, we will adopt spiritual practices new and old that can be used in our own ministry settings. We will hear ministry stories from one another and reflect together about the presence of the Spirit in all that happened (or didn’t!). We will also learn about and consider approaches to measuring ministry and assessing needs within our context.

Although each session will include a story of ministry that includes the “whole cycle”, we will also touch on a specific step in this process, as listed below. This process invites us to think organically about ministry, which is less linear and more multifaceted and circular.

What happened? What event or decision comes to mind as you think 

back and review your leadership in your ministry setting? How did it 

either challenge or validate your hopes?  

What are some of the roots of the happening? From the viewpoint of 

holy curiosity, can you point to factors that contributed to this 

outcome?

  What specific pruning are you led to do? Are there approaches that 

you might now consider unhelpful? Are there programs that are not bearing fruit and should be discarded?  

What new fruit are you noticing? Are there areas in the ministry where 

the Holy Spirit has already been active? Are there new shoots or 

branches developing which had been unnoticed until now? 

What is your deep hope? What do you long for in this ministry setting?   

Who is the new fruit nourishing? What are the stories of new 

connections you would like to lift up and celebrate?

Each 90-minute session is to include a brief introduction to the theme of the session. A narrative of ministry follows. After the story is told, the cohort will participate with clarifying questions and deeper conversation. Individual journaling or contemplative time can be built into each session.

The hope is that anecdotes and stories from our own experience helped to create a flow of reflection and response for the participants.

This formative process is meant to help participants recognize a narrative in their participation and ministry leadership. The foundational Lutheran question “What does this mean”? can be a helpful resource as our witness to the movement of the spirit is itself a defining process for our experience in ministry.

Each session will conclude with prayer and a brief suggestion for how to bring this work to our own circles of congregational leadership.

As this whole series is meant to be understood as a cycle, one will notice that after session six, they can easily move into session one and begin the process again. 

Fee: $35 donation (can be adjusted according to need). Donations will be added to the Synod’s “Cultivating Leaders Fund” for further enrichment opportunities throughout the Synod.