NOWLeading

What happens when your church helps launch an actual coffee-roasting business? This is something that Nick Larsen, pastor of Living Water Church in Clark Fork, Idaho, knows all about. A few years ago, Scotchman’s Coffee was launched as a partnership between the congregation, a couple of members, and the church community. Listen to the latest episode of the NOWLeading Podcast to hear more about this exciting adventure.

COVID-19 has challenged ministries and leaders to make adaptive changes across the board. Pastor Matt of Our Savior Lutheran in Tacoma, WA, shares thoughts on how the staff of OSLC pivoted to support people over programs, kept the target on relationships, built healthy spiritual habits into their leadership calendars, and as a team is working together to strengthen their faith community every day of the week.

Paul and Dust talk about the role of mentors, Paul remembers his father's lasting influence, and they discuss how to be mentored and find a mentor. This one's good to share with anyone you know looking to grow in a particular area and not sure how to find a mentor!

President Linnemann provides an update on key changes in the calendar for the District Convention for June of 2022, and we celebrate NOW District Communication Director Vicki Knutsen's many decades of ministry leadership.

Tom and Matt share the values, leader behaviors, and steps to launching a new church plant. Take-aways include the need for trust between leaders, collaboration, knowing your community and its values and culture, and most of all, having a sense of joy and humor! This podcast is a hosted conversation (edited for time constraints) by the NOW Start Network (nowstart.net) on the launch of a church plant in Kuna, Idaho, by Friendship Celebration Lutheran Church of Meridian, Idaho.

Adaptive challenges are ambiguous, systemic challenges that do not have single, technical solutions. We cannot "arrange the deck chairs" and expect to solve adaptive challenges. This conversation with Amy Schweim unpacks a critical issue in her community that was amplified by COVID-19, and how she creatively faced this adaptive challenge. Amy shares how she and her team of leaders help families and children in their community through a new child-care support program that helps children do homework and have fun. Insights include foundations for understanding your community, dealing creatively with adaptive challenges, and the layers of influence that result from facing an adaptive challenge.

The NOWLeading Podcast launches 2021 with a double focus for helping leaders do their best work: "sustaining healthy ministry" and "starting new." This episode captures a far-ranging conversation hosted by the NOW Start Network (nowstart.net) with Pastor Matt Peeples of the Kairos Network (thekairosnetwork.com) on the "why" behind church planting and starting new, and how to connect your "why" to tangible leadership behaviors as a start new leader.

How do we start new, even in the midst of our current challenges? Dust has a conversation with Pastor Mike Von Behren, a founding member of The NOW Start Network, on how Jesus re-oriented his heart as a shepherd, and his change from “housekeeping” to community care in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along the way, they re-cap the recent online NOW Start Network video-conference attended by almost 50 participants from across the Northwest, Pastor Mike shares powerful stories from guest speaker Pastor Nate Schaus, and they discuss encouraging stories of starting new from across the Northwest.

How do we measure the influence of a century-old university when it closes? In the second part of this two-part episode, Dust returns to a personal conversation with Dr. Linda Borecki, adjunct faculty at Concordia, University—Portland, about its influence in her life as a student in the 1980’s and as an instructor of “Millennial" and “Gen Z” students in the last decade. If you’re into conversations that are more about people than institutions, more about relationships than programs, then you’ll find this podcast worth listening to! (This 2nd conversation occurred in the final week of Concordia’s closure at the end of April 2020.)

How do we measure the influence of a century-old university when it closes? In this two-part episode, Dust has a personal conversation with Dr. Linda Borecki, adjunct faculty at Concordia, University—Portland, about its influence in her life as a student in the 1980’s and as an instructor of “Millennial" and “Gen Z” students in the last decade. If you’re into conversations that are more about people than institutions, more about relationships than programs, then you’ll find this podcast worth listening to! (This 1st conversation occurred in the final week of Concordia’s closure at the end of April 2020.)