March 9, 2012
Friday
9:30 am – 2:30 pm

Prosser Auditorium, HUB
Moravian College
Locust & Monocacy Streets

Program Fee: Free

Contact Hours: 3.5 (.35 CEU)

Streaming video available

A wilderness time, when there are few clear answers and fewer sure solutions to both the cultural and economic challenges facing the church, nonetheless demands both answers and solutions from its leaders. American Christianity, particularly the Mainline church, is in such a wilderness moment. To move ahead will require courage from leaders who will need to challenge people to turn away from known solutions and enter into unfamiliar conversations. Conversation, holy conversation, can be a vehicle of discernment of God's will. What is needed in the church, both congregationally and denominationally, are better conversations for people to have. Needed are conversations focused on the purpose instead of on the institution of the church. Courageous conversations can lead us to new clarity of ancient alternatives.  The task of leadership in a post-Enlightenment time is not to keep digging for known answers but to begin conversations around new questions that can herald faith as an alternative way of living.

Streaming video for this event is available via a high-speed Internet connection. Watch the lectures live from your own computer, and interact with the speaker by email, IM or text message. Details

Gil Rendle serves part time as senior staff with The Texas Methodist Foundation in Austin Texas and as an independent consultant working with issues of change and leadership in a number of denominations. Prior to this position he served the Alban Institute as an author, seminar leader and senior consultant for twelve years. An ordained United Methodist minister, Rendle served as senior pastor of two urban congregations in Pennsylvania for sixteen years and as a denominational consultant for The United Methodist Church for nine years.

Rendle has an extensive background in organizational development, group and systems theory, and leadership development. He is the author of seven books, a contributor to four books, and the author of numerous articles and monographs. His most recent books include Journey in the Wilderness: New Life for Mainline Churches (2010) and Back to Zero: The Search to Rediscover the Methodist Movement (2011) published by Abingdon Press. Gil is a resident of Pennsylvania where he lives with his wife, Lynne.