This is my MAGL cohort at Fuller. MAGL stands for Masters of Arts in Global Leadership, which is somewhat of an arrogant title, if you ask me. It's just a couple of notches below an M.A. in Benevolent Dictatorship, I think. We've all spent the last 2 years together in a learning and praxis community. Praxis is a fancy word for reflection and action... All of the people in this group are in ministry somewhere in the world - from Turkey to Chicago to Israel to Cambodia. What a phenomenal group of people!

The last week of classes went well. I've also got a couple of 30 page papers to write between now and December, as well as a few book reviews to complete.

Here's a picture of the books I've either read or will read and review for the classes that I'll be finishing up over the next few months. The stack on the left is for the course called Global Leadership: Implications for Ministry, and the stack on the right is for a course called Organizational Dynamics. The stack in the middle is my beautiful wife on the computer...

We have to write a 30-40 page paper for each course, and I'm actually a little excited about both (don't tell anyone I said that)... I think I'm going to write my paper for Org. Dynamics on how to apply Emotional Intelligence theory to the organizational change process, and specifically use the Austin Stone Community Church as my reference and case study. Since we're going through a church-wide change process, I thought this would be the best use of time and energy. My second paper is an integration paper - I have to integrate everything I've learned so far in the last 2 years, so I think I'm going to write on what it will take to build a movement of missional communities. You know... fun stuff.

Labels: leadership, missional, missional church, organizational dynamics