Canoeing the Mountains

Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory

Tod Bolsinger

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780830841479
• eBook ISBN:
  9780830873876
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Over 150,000 Copies Sold Worldwide!

Outreach Resource of the Year – Leadership

Learn to Scale the Mountains of Modern Ministry Leadership

Explorers Lewis and Clark had to adapt to the unexpected. They set out prepared to chart a waterway to the Pacific Ocean, only to find themselves face-to-face with the Rocky Mountains. In many ways, leadership today feels much the same. You may find yourself navigating an unfamiliar cultural landscape, leading in contexts you never anticipated. Perhaps the skills and training you once relied on feel inadequate for the journey ahead, holding you back more often than propelling you forward.

Drawing from his extensive experience as a pastor and consultant, Tod Bolsinger brings decades of expertise in guiding churches and organizations through uncharted territory. In Canoeing the Mountains, Bolsinger provides a thoughtful and practical guide for leaders facing the unprecedented challenges of a rapidly changing world.

Canoeing the Mountains offers:

• Fresh perspectives on the adaptive leadership needed to face today's challenges
• Practical strategies to help you rethink your approach to leading in unfamiliar and shifting environments
• An expanded study guide to help you reflect, apply, and implement these lessons in your own leadership journey

If you're ready to move beyond the tools that no longer serve you and embrace a new way of leading,  Canoeing the Mountains will inspire and equip you to rise to the challenge. To scale the mountains of modern ministry, it's time to set aside your canoes and gain new navigational tools to give you confidence and courage to lead in places you never expected to find yourself. 

Notes

Chapter 1: Seminary Didn’t Prepare Me for This

1See Ryan K. Bolger, The Gospel After Christendom: New Voices, New Cultures, New Expressions, Kindle ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), loc. 419-20; and Lloyd Pietersen, Reading the Bible After Christendom, Kindle ed. (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2011), loc. 170-71.

2See, for example, “Cottonwood Christian Center v. City of Cypress,” Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, accessed May 22, 2015, www.becketfund.org/cottonwoodchristian; Ed Stetzer, “InterVarsity ‘Derecognized’ at California State University’s 23 Campuses: Some Analysis and Reflections,” Christianity Today, September 6, 2014, www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/september/intervarsity-now-derecognized-in-california-state-universit.html; and “‘Nones’ on the Rise,” Pew Research Center, October 9, 2012, www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise.

3“What Pastors Face Today,” Barnabas Ministries, accessed May 22, 2015, www.barnabas ministriesinc.org/86-front-page-articles/8-what-pastors-face-today; Richard J. Krejcir, “What Is Going On with Pastors in America?” Schaeffer Institute, 2007, www.intothyword.org/apps/articles/?articleid=36562; and Bo Lane, “Why Do So Many Pastors Leave the Ministry? The Facts Will Shock You,” Expastors, accessed May 22, 2015, www.expastors.com/why-do-so-many-pastors-leave-the-ministry-the-facts-will-shock-you.

4The quote, taken from Guder’s unpublished manuscript “The Missiological Context,” was Guder’s own summation of Lesslie Newbigin’s description of the challenge facing western churches in a post-Christendom context. For example: “[Most thoughtful Christians] recognize that, with the radical secularization of Western culture, the churches are in a missionary situation in what was once Christendom” (Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 3). With thanks to Professor Guder for providing me a personal copy of the manuscript. Used by permission.

5Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Kindle ed. (New York: Church Publishing, 1999), loc. 4493-96.

6T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” (1942).

7Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), 13.

8“Our previous success often prevents us from achieving more success.” Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, Kindle ed. (New York: Hyperion, 2007), loc. 168-69.

9Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, Kindle ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2009), loc. 4894-97.

10Edwin Friedman, “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix,” lecture given in 1996 in Michigan; available from www.leadershipinministry.org/resources/audio-and-video-resources.

11“Leadership for today’s world requires enlarging one’s capacity to see the whole board, as in a chess match—to see the complex, often volatile interdependence among the multiple systems that constitute the new commons.” Sharon Daloz Parks, Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, Kindle ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005), loc. 103-4; emphasis mine.

12“Experience, one often hears, is the best teacher, but that is true only if you reflect on it and extract its real lessons.” Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014), 12.

13Richard Blackburn, “Healthy Congregations” (workshop sponsored by Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, Lombard, IL, hosted by Trinity Presbyterian Church, Santa Ana, CA, 2006).

Chapter 2: Adventure or Die

1Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, cited in Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs and Clay Jenkinson, The Lewis and Clark Companion: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Voyage of Discovery (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), 193.

2Meriwether Lewis, journal entry, August 12, 1805; The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=1805-08-12.xml&_xslsrc=LCstyles.xsl.

3Clay Jenkinson, “The Relevance of the Lewis and Clark Expeditio...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Understanding Uncharted Territory
• Seminary Didn’t Prepare Me for This
• Adventure or Die
• A Leadership Model for Uncharted Territory
• The On-the-Map Skill Set
• Competence and Credibility
• Preparing for the Unknown
• Eating Strategy for Breakfast
• Leading Off the Map
• Navigating the “Geography of Reality”
• My Italian Grandfather Was Killing Me
• Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There . . . Then Do Something
• The Mission Trumps!
• Take a Good Look into the Coffin
• Relationships and Resistance
• Gus and Hal Go to Church
• Et Tu, Church?
• Transformation
• How a Nursing Mother Saved America
• The End of Our Exploring
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Study Guide
• Notes
• Praise for Canoeing the Mountains
• About the Author
• 278