Reggie McNeal serves as the missional leadership specialist for Leadership Network. Previously, he served for more than two decades in local congregational leadership, and was the founding pastor of a new congregation. He has also been a denominational executive and a leadership development coach. Reggie has lectured and taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, and has authored nine books addressing leadership issues. He has served as a speaker and consultant to every major church denomination in North America.
Key Questions for Reggie McNeal:
– Why is the idea of Kingdom so necessary to understand for leaders in ministry today?
– Sometimes the church as an institution feels like it’s constraining kingdom life. How do pastors move into kingdom life in the church?
Key Quotes from Reggie McNeal:
“The church is a part of the bandwidth, but it’s not the full bandwidth of God’s work on planet earth—his kingdom is.”
“Since the Reformation…ecclesiology has been the dominant theme…you know, who gets to do what and when and whose authority and can they wear a skirt…”
“The Reformation was powered, in many ways, by the third information revolution in human history.”
“How do we build great churches?… Maybe the better question is how do we develop viral kingdom agents?”
“For so many of our pastors, they are caught in a losing proposition because the number of people who are susceptible to being congregationalized in our culture is a dwindling number. It’s like [pastors] are being asked to play a game with a scorecard where, at the end of the day, most of them are going to lose. How motivating is that?”
“We don’t need to take earthly kingdoms and hammer the heavenly kingdom back into our earthly kingdom archetypes.”
“How Jesus moved around, what he did, how he did it. All of that stuff is important–not just the words that fell out of his mouth, but his entire life was an example of what the kingdom is.”
“First-century believers, even before they were called Christians, would understand what it means to ‘be church.’ For them, it was a relationship. In fact, they wouldn’t even understand our language when we say ‘go to church’… Church was their relationship with Jesus.”
“Jesus established a kingdom outpost in the world.”
“The kingdom narrative is much more robust and powerful than a church-centric narrative.”
“If you’re feeling ill-equipped, hey, that’s the beginning of wisdom!”
Links Mentioned in the Show:
Reggie.McNeal@leadnet.org
Reggie@GoodCities.net