The Ways of the Leader

By: Bill Mowry

ISBN: 978-1641586696

READ: January 2024

RATING: 8/10

Summary: This isn’t your typical leadership book. Mowry skillfully and creatively explains the challenges of leading in today’s world and the ways needed to lead successfully. Instead of talking points that emphasize bold vision and decisive action, the focus is on wisdom, collaboration, and innovation. Much like his previous book, it is filled with insightful quotes and unique insights. For church leaders this book will stimulate and challenge to embrace a model of leadership that stands on Kingdom principles instead of alongside them.

Chapter titles are: 1. The Challenge Before Us 2. Wisdom is the Ultimate Way 3. The Way of Learning 4. The Way of Collaboration 5. The Way of Cultural Wisdom 6. The Way of Innovation 7. The Choices We All Face Epilogue

Chapter 1: The Challenge Before Us

“Today in our church and social culture, we’re championing a certain type of hero—the highly trained professional leader. I’m writing to restore the hero of the everyday leader.” Pg. 2

“We’ve created expectations of our leaders that no person can satisfy.” Pg. 2

“We need everyday leaders who bring people together to break new ground—crafting local solutions for local challenges.” Pg. 3

“Everyday leaders are marked by three simple qualities. First, they have a love for the local expressed in an urgency to help neighborhoods, workplaces, or churches succeed and flourish. You could say they ‘own’ the local…” Pg. 3

“Second, everyday leaders display Jesus in their lives. They value character over competency. Who they are is more important than what they can do.” Pg. 3

“Finally, in small and large ways, everyday leaders provide direction. They want to influence their workplaces, make their neighborhoods better.” Pg. 3

“This book will not provide you with solutions or answers, but it will give you tools you can use to wisely develop your own strategies and solutions for local challenges.” Pg. 3-4

3 Fastballs of Change: 1. We Live in the Fast Lane 2. We Live with Black Swans 3. We Live in a Culturally Diverse Nation

“Change is outstripping our ability to keep pace.” Pg. 4

“Life in the fast lane values screen time over think time.” Pg. 5

“Research has shown that people think more creativeluy when they are calm, unhurried and free from stress, and that time pressure leads to tunnel vision.” – Carl Honore pg. 5

“Staying in the fast lane creates superficial thinking; we end up ‘skimming the surface, and failing to make real connections with people in the real world.’” Pg. 5

“For everyday leaders, moving out of the fast lane means countering the fastball of speed.” Pg. 5

“Two challenges are becoming obvious. The first is that standard solutions are losing their ability to meet these fastballs of change.” Pg. 8

“The second challenge is that the expertise of traditional solitary leaders is no longer adequate for the rapid changes in our culture.” Pg. 8

“The solution is pretty simple; Everyday leader must practice God’s way of wisdom, employing four-wisdom generating practices.” Pg. 9

4 Wisdom Generating Practices: (Pg. 9)

1. The Way of Learning – The practice of lifelong learning

2. The Way of Collaboration – Drawing upon the wisdom of the group

3. The Way of Cultural Wisdom – Becoming cultural detectives

4. The Way of Innovation – Strategies to meet local problems.

“Cultural wisdom is the natural outgrowth of individual and collective learning about the context in which we live, work, or minister.” Pg. 10

“Cultural wisdom shapes and provides context for innovation to happen.” Pg. 11

“You have to fit the farming to the land.” Wendell Berry Pg. 11

Chapter 2 – Wisdom is the Ultimate Way

“Lady Wisdom has three paths for the everyday leader: the fixed path, the principled path, and the experiential path.” Pg. 20

3 Types of Wisdom:

1. Fixed  Obey the commands

2. Principled  Practice Applicatory Thinking

3. Experiential Learn from life: observe, reflect, and interpret. Pg. 20

“Applicatory thinking thoughtfully identifies biblical principles that will lead to the greatest good and the least evil.” Pg. 22

“Principled thinking assists us in making good decisions in those areas without explicit instruction.” Pg. 23

I have a point of view and you have a point of view, but God has view. – Madeleine L’Engle Pg. 25

Chapter 3 – The Way of Learning

“Learning happened through the intersection of the Scriptures, books, and life experiences.” Pg. 30

“The life of wisdom is a life of constant learning: constant evaluating, constant discerning, constant extension of one’s understanding.” – JI Packer and Carolyn Nystrom Pg. 31

“…one source of wisdom is life itself.” Pg. 33

“The ordinary activities I find most comparable with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.” -Kathleen Norris Pg. 33

“Learning is an ongoing process of acquiring God’s wisdom—the ability to do the good and the right—that deeply shapes our hearts, minds, and wills to be like Jesus.” Pg. 35

“Imagine the potential in a church or ministry if we were to teach people how to learn from God’s presence in life’s experiences! IN our churches and ministries we have experts in small group leadership, money management, effective parenting, and even the initiation of faith conversations with neighbors. When we lead as lifelong learners, we purposefully help people identify and unleash all this wisdom.” Pg. 37

Four Pathway Markers to Wisdom:

1. Stop

2. Explore

3. Save

4. Do

“…as speed increases, care declines….We know that there is a limit to the capacity of attention, and that the faster we go the less we see.” -Wendall Berry pg. 40

“Speed robs me of fascination and pleasure.” Pg. 41

“…meditation is much like contemplation; it attempts to approach the truth beneath the surface, to penetrate to the centre (media means middle) of things.” – Luci Shaw, pg. 42-43

“We explore and think by searching the Scriptures. Life is not infallible.” Pg. 42

“Everyday leaders must be lifelong learners.” Pg. 47

Chapter 4 – The Way of Collaboration

“Collaborative leadership is one of many styles and is most appropriate when one or more of these conditions are present: A big challenge is encountered, a new approach is required, nothing is working, ownership is needed.” Pg. 53-54

“First collaboration is not coordination. Coordination simply means that we talk together about the best dates and resources, coordinating times and application. Second, collaboration is not cooperation. In cooperation, we’re sensitive to one another’s goals, resources, and schedules so that we’re not in competition with one another—a competition that could doom one or both of us. Collaboration includes coordination and cooperation, but it’s something more.” Pg. 54

“Collaboration starts with a piece of paper.” Pg. 54

“Collaborative leadership is the art of helping people work together to accomplish a commonly owned goal or vision in a way that promotes equal ownership and equal contribution.” Pg. 55

“…a fundamental argument for collaborative ministry is that God collaborates with us and that this is the pattern we are offered in the New Testament.” Pg. 56

“Collaborative leaders are focused; they’re single-minded about the process but hands off on the outcomes.” Pg. 59

“They purposefully lead from a commitment to indifference. Collaborative leaders practice and expect the Great Surrender.” Pg. 59

“Collaborative leaders engage everyone in the problem-solving process and the creation of a practical strategy.” Pg. 59

“Collaborative leaders want to take action.” Pg. 59

“How does the Great Surrender start? With two acts of prayer. The first prayer is what author Ruth Haley Barton calls ‘the prater for indifference.’ In this prayer we ask God to work in our hearts to make us indifferent to anything but the will of God….The second prayer is a request for wisdom.” Pg. 63

“Collaborative leaders need a game plan in order to be effective. Five simple steps make up a collaborative leader’s game plan: Select, pause, focus, explore, and plan.” Pg. 64

Three qualities have guided how I choose who to work with: 1. People of great character who have made the Great Surrender 2. They are people of contribution 3. They have chemistry with us. pg. 65

“Collaboration is a team trusting God together to create that which doesn’t exist.” Pg. 67

“An important element of focusing is taking inventory of the challenge and the team. This means taking stock of the resources you have and identifying the contribution of each team member.” Pg. 68

“Deciding on a plan of action is the most important part of the collaborative effort.” Pg. 69

“How do we discern his voice in developing our action plan?” pg. 71

Four Principles to discerning God’s voice—1. He leads us as we share the mind of Christ 2. He leads through insights and discoveries 3. He leads through a Bible-inspired process 4. He leads through “the sound of a low whisper”. Pg. 72

“Solitary leaders are like the myth of solitary artists; sometimes the reality is something different.” Pg. 73

Chapter 5 – The Way of Cultural Wisdom

“Trying to define culture is like taking a drink from a water hose; we’re blown away by the complexity and the enormity of the task.” Pg. 81

“Here’s my simple definition: A culture is a group of people who share a common language, values, story, and practices.” Pg. 81

“Culture can be what I call a microculture—the ‘big’ culture of a nation (a French culture), an ethnic group (African American culture), or a regional area (southern culture).” Pg. 82

“Everyday leaders mostly live, lead, and minister in microcultures—workplaces neighborhoods, churches, or families.” Pg. 82

“Cultural wisdom gives us the ability to wisely relate to, understand, and adapt to culturally diverse situations and a variety of people.” Pg. 83

“Everyday leaders need cultural wisdom to effectively live and minister in the context or cultures we’re placed in.” Pg. 84

We need cultural wisdom so that we can connect and communicate, be enriched and developed, and so that we can influence while guarding against being influenced.” Pg. 87

“But first, since character trumps competency, we must examine ourselves to ensure we have the required character.” Pg. 88

“Character trumps competency, and humility is a mark of character that’s critical for culture detectives.” Pg. 90

“When you ask questions, you respect people.” Pg. 93

“Questions demonstrate a humble spirit.” Pg. 93

“…the point of Jesus’ questions was to stoke curiosity rather than seeing it as an obstacle or a problem….He invited people to explore and think along with him.” – Casey Tygrett

3 Skills for Cultural Detectives: pg. 94-104

1. Make Observations

2. Ask Questions

3. Make Deductions

“Detectives of crime and culture are skilled observers….Culture detectives are looking for clues about a culture, observations that give insights into a context.” Pg. 94

“Familiarity can lead to blindness; we fail to see because we have stopped paying attention.” Pg. 95

“One of my first steps in ministering to churches is to visit the church and the staff….As we tour the facilities, I ask a lot of questions. Here’s a sample:

• When was the church built?

• What were the original members like?

• What’s descriptive about your neighborhood?

• What do you enjoy about this building?

• Are there any changes you would like to make?

• What is a worship service like in your church now?

• How has this changed over the years?

• What are the characteristics of a typical attendee at your church?

• How has the typical attendee changed over the years?” Pg. 98

Question-Asking Triangle—Trust, Timing, and Type

“Trust creates openness and responsiveness to questions.” Pg. 99

“Honesty brokers are insiders to the culture, members of the community. They are people we trust and who trust us. We can honestly share our observations with them and solicit their critique.” Pg. 102

Culture Detective’s Investigative Grid, “The grid I built around our simple definition of culture: a culture is a group of people who share a common language, values, story, and practices. Withing each quadrant of this grid are two simple questions that you can use to get started.” Pg. 103

Chapter 6 – The Way of Innovation

“[Steve] Jobs understood innovation because he understood form and function.” Pg. 109

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Steve Jobs Pg. 110

“Jobs had learned that a hallmark of passionate craftsmanship is making sure that even the aspects that will remain hidden are done beautifully.” Pg. 110

“Innovation is something beautiful, creative, and functrional. Innovation is the breaking of new ground as we bring people together.” Pg. 111

“Everyday leaders are growing in the realization that cookie-cutter solutions are no longer adequate. We enjoy buying off-the-shelf solutions because it’s efficient and easy—little hard work is required. However the local challenges demand innovative solutions.” Pg. 111

“What could happen if we brought the mind of an artist or the imagination of an inventor to bear on leading a youth ministry, designing a worship service, or encouraging evangelism?” Pg. 112

God created is the characteristic common to God and man is the desire and ability to make things. Pg. 114

“Our human creativity should seek to mirror God’s,…to confront the formless and disordered places of our world, and of our lives, and make them places of beauty and goodness.” David Atkinson Pg. 114

“God has placed us in this world and commissioned us to unpack and unfurl all the latent potential that he has folded into creation. We’re not to consume the world, but to cultivate and care for it.” Pg. 114

5 Imagination Enhancers: Pg. 119-128

1. Encourage Loitering

2. Know Your Context

3. Recruit the Right People

4. Be a Cheerleader

5. Add some Flair

“To fuel the fires of innovation in a ministry or workplace, we must give people time to loiter—to stop and think so that inspiration can happen.” Pg. 119

“Our brains are naturally associative…our job is to feed them material to associate and synthesize.” Liu and Noppebrandon Pg. 120

“Association best happens when we slow down.” Pg. 120

“Collaboration drives creativity because innovation always emerges from a series of sparks—never a single flash of insight.” Keith Sawyer Pg. 123

4 Conditions that enable effective teams of innovation (by Keith Sawyer) Pg. 123

1. Skills match the task

2. The goal is clear

3. There is constant and immediate feedback

4. There is freedom to concentrate on the task

“Ministry innovators add flair—a touch of beauty, whimsy, or fun—to whatever they do. Flair and creativity enhance innovation.” Pg. 127

4 Innovation Tools: Pg. 129-131

1. Picture It

2. Think of the end user

3. Ask What If

4. Switch Places

Chapter 7 – The Choices We All Face

“….wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge, but knowledge applied. Yet God’s wisdom is not given to just anyone. It’s granted to those who value it abover everything else and zealously hunt for it as if for hidden treasure.” Pg. 141

“My chase for wisdom requires effort.” Pg. 141

“Chasing after wisdom involves the hard work of paying attention, asking questions, and thinking deeply.” Pg. 142

“Instead of chasing after simple formulas, wise people make the effort to grow in discernment. Wisdom is the continuous mastering of a skill necessary to do what is good and right.” Pg. 142

“Our reverence for Yahweh produces wise behavior…and all of wisdom is grounded in ultimately in one’s relationship with Yahweh.” Pg. 143 -Daniel Estes

“Humble people choose to stand small in God’s presence with their self-confidence, inflated egos, or accumulated information shrunk before an all-wise God.” Pg. 147

“Everyday leaders need time to think and reflect. Introverts need solitary time, and extroverts need groups to verbally process with. No matter your personality type, you need to slow down to think.” Pg. 148

“We are so busy making things happen that we have little time left to think about the value of what is happening. We urgently need people who concentrate on the meaning of life rather than simply the speed, the mechanization, the computerization of it.” Pg. 149 – Joan Chittister

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Find this helpful? Want to grow as a disciple or disciple maker? Check out my books: The Bicycle Illustration and The Foundation of a Disciple Making Culture. Not a reader? Check out my Podcast, “The Practitioners’ Podcast” for short, hyper focused disciple making episodes wherever you get podcasts!