Empowering Leadership
Empowering Leadership Articles and Resources

Leadership in the Wilderness: Am I willing to uncover what I’ve previously tried to bury?
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand....

Leadership in the Wilderness: Am I willing to pay attention to what I’ve previously avoided?
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses...

A Journey in Missional Leadership: What are they hearing?
As I conclude my reflections over the past 25 years of missional leadership, I want to finally focus on a subject that I have become more and more convinced is essential in our desire to be Church with mission at its heart. It is the subject of communication. When I...

Marks of a Growing Church: Organization
Part 7 in our series from Alex Harris in which he helps us to explore the seven marks common to churches experiencing growth and summarises the series for us: Missed the first six? Catch up here.

Further, Faster … Or Fewer, Deeper?
My life during this pandemic has been like living on a pendulum. Challenges and opportunities, losses and gains, sorrows and joys. It’s neither one thing nor the other for long. I know I’m not alone, but hopefully the balance for you is tipping in the right direction....

Big Versus Small
I forget which Henri Nouwen book it was – one of you reading this will know – but he wrote about how God most often works in ways contrary to the preferences of our culture. Nouwen specifically named our culture’s fascination with things big and fast and famous. In...

A Journey in Missional Leadership: Finding the Best Road Map
I was due to write this article back in April of this year but then we were in lockdown. All of a sudden what I thought I was going to share was thrown up in the air and I was asking myself, “who would even read it in the unique circumstances that we now find...

Leadership in Anxious Times – Part 3
Effective leadership is always shaped by context. One of the features of our present Covid-19 context is the presence of a raised degree of anxiety in society in general and in Christian communities. By considering the impacts of anxiety on human behaviour, we can...

Leadership in Anxious Times – Part 2
In my first blog I wrote about relating to God in prayer as the foundation for leadership in anxious times. The first leadership initiative I’m recommending is to remain calm, and prayer makes this possible. The next two initiatives on my list are about how we relate...

Leadership in Anxious Times – Part 1
Uncertainty and stress due to Covid-19 in recent days are producing a pervasive anxiety throughout society. That anxiety can look different in different people but, if you pay attention, it’s there in the excited and upbeat people as much as in those who are negative...