NOTE 1.
Leadership: intentional and self aware.
I have reached a season in my life when I have no strong investment in denominational leadership. I am not investing directly in denominational strategies. Rather, I am doing what I believe for me is more effective: investing myself heavily in the health of individual pastoral leaders, mainly through my 25 current mentoring relationships.Of course this is a function of personal history but it also aligns strongly with my own personal convictions about leadership and the way a guy at my age ought to be conducting himself. By our late 50s I believe most of us should be standing on side-stage, encouraging and supporting others in the spotlight. Standing in the wings gives you a better chance to see what is happening, and reflect on it, than when you are in thick of things. And observation and reflection are critical functions for leaders.
One of my strong hunches is that leadership skill is not an area of strength in our evangelical tradition. There are those who do it pretty naturally, and there are those who don't, but not many do it thoughtfully and in a way that is skilfully self aware. This is the rationale for this other area where I am investing myself at the moment - 'Oilstone'. The goal of Oilstone is to develop peoples' leadership skills in a way that is more conscious and thus more effective in their own lives, and more transmissable to others.
I have mentioned to many of you that Oilstone represents a program of church leadership equipping to which Michael and I have both contributed, he from his background in corporate leadership training, and myself from my own pastoral leadership training, teaching, study and experience. On my side, it represents very many of the things that I want mentorees to know for healthly leadership practice and for training others.
Michael and I wish to make a suite of tools available to you, in the interests of developing your skills and influence as a leader who in turn influences others. We also hope to help generate a shared leadership language and (with your own adaptions) a common healthy approach in the evangelical community in Sydney and beyond.
Peter Moore, 30 January 2015