Course Description

Helping Change Happen in your Church: A Practical Introduction to Leadership for Elders

Leadership is a learnable skill. Leadership is about encouraging change to happen effectively in whatever organization one is a part of—including one's church.

The purpose of this course is to help students develop in their understanding of leadership, its practice in church life, and in their confidence in being congregational leaders. In this course we will be learning practical ways of being a Christian leader.

Topics will include:

• how we can define leadership? What makes leadership "Christian" leadership?
• how is leadership different from management?
• the crucial role of individual character in leadership.
• the things leaders must be faithful to in order to be effective in leadership.
• How to ask the question "what is really going on here?" as the first vital step in leadership.
• How to envision a future and then plan for it.
• How to work through the obstacles to change.
• the most common reasons why change efforts fail.
• "the good, the bad and the ugly" in Session leadership within congregations.

At the beginning of the course students will be encouraged to think of some situation in their own congregation that they believe is in need of change. This situation will become their personal case study to which the student will apply the course content week by week.

The course will help the student develop a potential action plan for encouraging change in this specific situation.