In September of 2013, St. Paul School of Theology (United Methodist) moved its campus from the long-standing Truman Road location in Kansas City to the campus of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. I remember the “start” of St. Paul around 1960. I was in college. But I remember because a much beloved clergy member of my home church left to become a member of the new St. Paul faculty. My parents were deeply disappointed when he left.
St. Paul has now moved from a very traditional type of institutional city campus (where building costs and maintenance were escalating dangerously) to the site of an exciting and thriving suburban campus of a mega-church in the United Methodist tradition. Not everyone was pleased with the decision or the change.
On the occasion of the 2013 re-location, Dr. Dan Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools, gave the major address. I found these words in his address highly descriptive and instructive : "The future needs leaders who are willing to lead when the way is not clear, when the culture is not supportive, when the work is hard, and when the results are ambiguous.”
As the Coordinator of Leadership Development in the Western PA United Methodist Conference, I find this statement to be precisely the challenge of this new day. The way into the next few years is clearly different than it was just a few years ago.
Dr. Aleshire then went on to say, “[The church now] needs leaders whose internal compass is oriented to the love, grace, and justice that constitute the true North of the Christian Faith.”
I find these words to be an extraordinarily helpful description of what leadership looks like in this day.