Mission(al) Monday: Missional Renaissance, Shift from Church-Based to Kingdom-Based Leadership – Changing the Scorecard, Part 1

This is a challenge for those who are involved in church-based leadership, but McNeal helps with metrics in four different areas in his leadership training: paradigm issues (moving toward a missional mindset), microskill development (competencies the leader needs), resource management (what the leader has to work with), and personal growth (the leader as a person). Before we look at each, McNeal notes that it will take ‘ruthless self-management’ to ‘live the change they seek’ in the church and in others. What does it look like?

Paradigm Issues
Moving to a missional worldview is seeing your life as a mission trip. Following Jesus is not something you add onto your life, it is your life. McNeal suggests the following to help track the shift.
· Numbers of relationships with people who aren’t Jesus followers or church people, including those who are community leaders.
· Intentional study of things that help you understand your culture – periodicals, books, blogs, websites, and podcasts – and debriefing the culture with your leaders.
· Number of venues for intentional service in the community and number of hours serving.
· Number of life-coaching relationships and a regular commitment to debriefing your personal life with a coach or personal growth group.
· Number of stories of external, missional experiences used in your speaking and writing.

Microskill Development
There are plenty of resources available – books, seminars, and professionals – to grow in the areas to follow.
· Coaching. This means helping people with their further development.
· Storytelling. People under 30 make meaning through story. It is key to helping the missional change. It helps persuade and show people, concretely, how the gospel makes a difference.
· Conflict Management. Change means conflict. There’s also a self-awareness of what’s happening psychologically in yourself if you deal with negative emotions in conflict.
· Transition Leadership. Change doesn’t kill people. The emotions of change bury them. Helping people through it is vital.
· Listening Skills. This is mostly done through focus and intentionality, but there are also resources available to help with this (one of the books on our Friday Book Club queue is Quick-to-listen Leaders).
· Celebrating Others and Self. Celebrate missional progress and achievements because ‘what gets rewarded gets done.’
· Missionary Training. We need to help people understand the language of their own culture – and it should probably begin with generational studies.
· Praying. More time praying, but just as important, prayer must be dialogical, listening to what God is doing and where He wants to lead us.