Local leaders
Some paths to leadership just go around the corner
By Ryan Miller
Mission is about more than the future kingdom. It is about our worldly kingdoms in the future. In years past, many Christological kingdoms relied on systems of lot to establish leaders. Today, conversations and theories about personal calling, shoulder-tapping and leadership development abound.
In the discussion about tomorrow, though, we can look past today. In fact, many of the global church’s next generation of leaders are already in place.
Our role is—and has been—to help them prepare for those places they already inhabit and the places God might send them in the future.
We do this work of equipping individuals and congregations by nurturing relationships, offering presence and committing to walk with partners over months, years and generations. While connections within Christ’s body often begin on a personal level, relationships can supersede individual connections and offer systems for supporting leadership opportunities as they arise and helping leaders bring Anabaptist principles to the ways they join in God’s work in the world.
Those leaders, in return, help all of us reevaluate established visions and practices so we might always be open to the Spirit’s guidance, instead of becoming hemmed into a certain way of seeing the world.
Where are our future leaders? They are here, there, all around us. The church is in good hands.