Rev. Dr. Dave Odom, who leads Leadership Education at Duke Divinity, works with hundreds of congregations and leaders from multiple faith traditions across the country. As such, he has a unique vantage point to view the realities of the church and what is needed for leaders today. In this week’s podcast episode, Dave shares that a new kind of support is needed for the work of ministry today – specifically, catalytic leaders and organizations (even congregations!) who are discovering and supporting leaders and ministries doing God’s transformative work in the world. Catalysts multiply the witness! May this conversation be catalytic in your work. May it spark a new imagination and perhaps a new collaboration that multiplies your impact. If it does, we hope you’ll let us know. Email us, share with friends, leave us a review. Thanks for listening!

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• The challenges of polarization in the church today and what leaders can do.
• What catalytic leadership is and why is it so important.
• Why being a healthy church is not the point.
• A story about a congregation that gives Dave hope for the church. 

About Dave Odom 

Rev. Dr. Dave Odom joined Duke Divinity School in August 2007 to launch Leadership Education at Duke Divinity and now oversees all of its programs and publications, including Faith & Leadership. He regularly teaches and facilitates events and both writes and solicits content for Faith & Leadership. Since 2014, he has directed Alban at Duke Divinity School.

In addition, Odom supervises select initiatives at Duke Divinity School, where he serves as an associate dean and consulting professor. He teaches courses on strategy and leadership along with consulting on program and staff development.

Before coming to Duke, Odom was the founder and president of the Center for Congregational Health in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which supported healthy communities of faith through consultation, leadership development, interim ministry training and vocational discernment.

For more than 20 years, he has been active in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. He is an ordained Baptist pastor and graduate of Furman University, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary.

To learn more about Leadership Education, visit their website: https://leadership.divinity.duke.edu/

To view videos of podcast episodes, please go to the Igniting Imagination YouTube.

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To view videos of podcast episodes, please go to the Igniting Imagination YouTube.