The juxtaposition of Advent and the New Year celebration provides a useful time of reflection for followers of Jesus as we seek a deeper, more transforming impact on our life context. During these days we celebrate Immanuel, God come down among us, with the magnificent incarnation of a new born babe–Jesus the Messiah. New life, [...]

In a recent Doctor of Ministry class discussion, here at Biblical Seminary, the class was wrestling together with the costs of leading an established church toward a more missional focus. As observations were offered, I recorded them on a flip chart. As the page began to fill up, a student from the back of [...]

By Dr. Mick Noel
“He took the time to be kind to others when he didn’t need to and did lots of good things for people that no one knew about.” –Tribute to Journalist Tony Snow after his demise to cancer
This past week marked the passing of journalist Tony Snow. Snow had served as President Bush’s [...]

by Dr. Mick Noel
One of the significant transitions evidenced among missional leadership is the movement from “me” to “we.” Refusing to be the hub around which congregational ministry orbits, missional leaders move relentlessly in the direction of shared responsibility and accountability. Ministry leadership is shared, always with a view to identifying gifted anointing and developing [...]

Traditional church leaders function as CEOs of the organization. Their focus is primarily on administration and management of staff, resources, programs and the strategic plan. Often this is the expectation of the Church Board which, in turn, has learned leadership from their places of employment. The difficulty with this approach is there are several points [...]

Missional leaders work hard at the capacity of listening. Let’s face it, most of us are not skilled “listeners.” This is a curious thing because it appears that we are born into this world with highly tuned ability to listen to our environment. Neonatal specialists believe that the baby in the womb is actively processing [...]

What does it mean to be a “missional leader?” This is probably the most frequent question I receive. It is the continuing focus of our work here at C4ML and certainly can not be answered in one column. Over the next few months, I will focus on one element of missional leadership. This month the [...]

This month, the Biblical Doctor of Ministries program welcomes its second consecutive cohort to campus. It is the second class to join Biblical’s innovative DMin in Advanced Missional Leadership. This program began in 2007 and is designed with the ministry professional’s busy schedule in mind. It seeks to minimize the amount of time the student [...]

January is the time of year when many of us set out to reform our perceived misbehaviors and shortcomings of the previous year with various statements of resolve to “correct” the situation. This takes place individually and corporately. Marketers know that in the month of January, diet programs and gym memberships will be heavily invested [...]

Complications with the use of the CECL name have emerged over the last few months necessitating a new identity for the Biblical Ministry Leadership Center formerly known as CECL- the Catalyst for Emerging Church Leadership. We won’t bore you with the details, except to say that another ministry has a very similar name and [...]