Unlock Your Purpose.
Expand Your Impact.
Are you a Christian professional working in business or ministry (non-profit or church)? Perhaps you seek to learn more about what work as worship or business as mission could look like in your life. Or you’re ready to go beyond the theological foundations and make an impact in your city. Leadership Circle offers you an opportunity to take the next step on your disciple-making journey.
Leadership Circles have already equipped nearly 400 alumni from all denominational and demographic backgrounds around the world to integrate their faith throughout their life, engage across societal spheres of influence (economics, education, government, family, media, celebration, and religion), and initiate impact projects through their communities in fellowship with other leaders. Watch this video of testimonials.
The Leadership Circle is a 9-month journey that brings participants’ faith and work into full integration. Join other leaders and culture-makers on a deep exploration of faith, culture, and God’s story of redemption, finding your place in it all by clarifying your calling and gaining practical tools to bring restoration to your city.
Global Leadership Circle
To learn more about the upcoming Global Leadership Circle, click on this pdf.
Denver Leadership Circle
To learn more about the upcoming Denver Leadership Circle, click on this pdf.
Highly Tailored Experience
Just as no two people are the same, no two cohorts are the same either. Our facilitators shape discussions around the background of participants and the unique view that each can contribute. The result is rich conversations and insightful realizations.
Network of Local and Global Collaborators
Leadership Circle is the only program of its kind with global reach. Collaboration is a powerful force behind change, and the ever-growing network we offer spans across the world.
Practical Tools for Transformation and Impact
Head knowledge is one key component of change, and heart transformation is another. We guide you all the way to fruitfully engaging with your community in a practical way. This is not only an educational experience; it’s a lived one that provides a framework for action.
The Leadership Circle Difference:
A Hebraic Model of Teaching
Most university, professional development, and further education programs are modeled on Greek teaching methods—that is, they treat the mind as a container to be filled with knowledge and trained to rationally engage the world using that information.
We adopt a more Hebraic model. Each person is full of a wealth of experiences and holds a unique perspective, and by deepening their understanding of certain core biblical principles, the abilities they already possess are multiplied. Think about the parable of the talents in Matthew 15: we’re not here to replace your talents or give you more; we’re here to help you do the most with what you already have, because we believe God’s purpose for you comes at the unique intersection of your experience, abilities, and opportunities.
We engage the mind with theological lessons, but we also engage the heart by developing a rich everyday apprenticeship of Jesus. Our program model also emphasizes relationships with other cohort members, mirroring the way Jesus and his disciples would have engaged with one another. This all results in a practical and remarkable transformation, enabling participants to orient themselves to their communities in new ways and impact their cities on a higher level.
What topics does the program cover?
The Leadership Circle is a journey that integrates your faith and work life through nine topics divided into three phases:
Our city today
- Living in Exile: Over the years our cities have changed to the point where the Church has lost cultural influence and Christians feel like outsiders. But what is God’s larger story? And how can we reweave God’s Kingdom throughout our city in ways that promote kingdom culture and flourishing?
- The Kingdom of God: God’s kingdom is here and now, and yet we long for it to come in its fullness. How does God’s full story—Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration—give us a larger context for our city and our lives? And if God cares about all things and people, what does that mean for each person’s distinct part in God’s story?
- The City: The city is a diverse community; in it we see a higher concentration of people displaying a greater breadth of God’s image—and we also see a greater degree of brokenness. But if the city is where we live our our unique roles, and if God has a plan for each city, what does that mean for how we should engage with our workplaces? Where are our unidentified opportunities to introduce God’s shalom right where we are, and how big could our impact be?
Our lives transformed
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Integrated Lives: Many Christians, consciously or unconsciously, divide life into separate compartments: “faith life,” “work life,” “family life.” But God designed us to live singular, integrated lives. What does that look like, and how do we move towards it? And, if our lives are interconnected with others as we all share in God’s common grace, how should we contribute to everyone’s common good?
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Vocational Calling: Each person has a unique role in God’s larger story, and, like a Divine Conductor, God orchestrates the collection of these roles to accomplish His purposes. So how can we better understand God’s purpose for our individual lives? And how can we appreciate the unique roles of others?
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Whole-Life Discipleship: We are called to be modern-day apprentices, modelling our lives on Jesus so that we can grow in all ways. Together we form a community of disciples that carry out God’s desires for the world. How can we each deepen our everyday practices of listening to and being guided by the Holy Spirit? What does it mean to truly take responsibility for the entirety of our own discipleship?
Our city renewed
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Collective Stewardship: We can have tremendous impact in our world as we embrace God’s call to tend all things in creation. How can the unity displayed by the collective efforts of God’s people help observers see Jesus as the one sent by God?
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Public Square: God is in the midst of our city and desires shalom. Oftentimes, we are called to work with those of different worldviews and backgrounds in pursuit of the common good. How do we do this with a posture that displays exilic discernment along with compassion and godly wisdom?
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Societal Impact: God has placed each person in a particular city at a particular time, and God shapes the future of each city through the positive influence of networked individuals and institutions. How can we shape institutions to serve the city so that people experience the presence of God’s kingdom and are moved towards flourishing and rejoicing?
Tangible outcomes on completion?
By the end of the nine months, you will:
- Have the tools to practice living an integrated life
- Have clarity about your role in God’s kingdom
- Be more greatly attuned to the stakeholders in your place of influence (work, community, city, etc.)
- Be able to describe those stakeholders’ needs and motivate or work with people toward measurable change in those areas of need
- Have access to a centralized resource as a result of your cohort’s work
Graduates will also be certified to recruit, facilitate, and train future Leadership Circle cohorts thereby creating exponential impact in other lives and cities, and many have already been led to do so.
Capstone project: Renewal Project
Before graduating, each participant will produce an actionable plan (called a City Renewal Project) to address a top-level need of your city or workplace. With the skills gained throughout Leadership Circle, graduates are equipped to invite and partner with others, no matter their faith background, into that project, potentially depositing meaning that lasts into the future of the world.
We provide a framework for planning and executing City Renewal Projects, and participants will present their projects as part of graduation. Past projects include efforts toward cultural and systemic restoration such as combatting poverty through serving the underbanked, providing affordable housing, and more.
A Renewal Project is consistent with its name; it’s a project that helps aim us toward renewal of some kind.
We often ask: what is it around us that breaks God’s heart? If it breaks your heart, too, then it is because God has designed part of himself into you, so that you feel what he feels about some things around you. The same sense also works on the positive side. When things are working as they ought to work, we are pleased just as God is pleased.
There are three areas where Renewal Projects can focus: (1) in the community or city around us; (2) within our personal workplaces; and (3) for others to benefit from the Leadership Circle itself. When these projects get implemented, we call the resultant entity an Impact Group.
Who is This Program Right For?
The Leadership Circle is often best fit for mid to late career leaders who can commit the time to participate. But don’t let the term “leader” deter you if you’re not sure that describes you.
While the term “leader” may describe someone who holds an executive title or senior level position, we also define a leader as someone who is well positioned for potential impact. We talk about workplace impact often, but your potential for impact in a non-work-related community (such as your church, school, association, etc.) is equally valid.
We have had entrepreneurs, artists, coaches, public servants, and people from many different backgrounds come through the Leadership Circle and find it very enriching.
We look for a balance of men and women from a broad range of professions and diverse cultural backgrounds with varying levels of leadership and responsibility.
If you’re not sure, please apply anyway – you will have the opportunity to speak to one of our facilitators to explore your questions further.
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