Today's missional leaders need to be able to function in an environment of uncertainty.
Roxburgh and Romanuk discuss the reality of the "experimentation stage" in their "Missional Change Model" outlined in "The Missional Leader." they illustrate the truth of this stage by taking us back to our roots as a nation.
Quoting from John Ellis's Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Roxburgh and Romanuk make the case that our country was founded using the "experimentation stage."
"He (Ellis) argues that it was neither grand vision nor a big plan that formed the American nation but a group of men who, in the exigencies of a moment filled with great stress and without any clarity of outcome, instigated a series of experiments that began to form the nascent republic: 'The real drama of the American Revolution...was its inherent messiness. This meant recovering the exciting but terrifying sense that all the major players had at the time-namely,that they were making it up as they went along, improvising on the edge of catastrophe.'" pg. 100
As a leader who is attempting to lead missional change in a local congregation, this lesson from history is profound and exhilarating. We have permission to experiment, to try, to give it a go. As we do, we learn and grow. Others watch and gain courage to try. All of this, repeated over and over again over time will yield a new life, a new missional culture.
Who have you noticed in your local context experimenting with missional living? What are you discovering? What are you learning?
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