{"id":2129,"date":"2010-03-02T11:24:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T16:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeasprayer.wordpress.com\/?p=2129"},"modified":"2010-03-02T11:24:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T16:24:58","slug":"featured-guest-writer-john-okeefe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/featured-guest-writer-john-okeefe\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Guest Writer – John O'Keefe !"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m thrilled to have John O’Keefe as our featured guest writer. John is at the tail end of finishing his\u00a0dissertation, and is writing a book about vision for Christian ministry and leadership in this century. Some exciting times are just around the corner, and I do believe John has some valuable insights to share. Below is a brief bio, and then his post. It’s sure to whet your appetite for what’s to come. Feel free to\u00a0ask him more about it, contribute your thoughts, and give John a shout out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bio:<\/p>\n

John<\/a> \u00a0is a doctoral candidate at George Fox Seminary, and has been called a “creative futurist ,\u201d by people other than his mom. For 15 years has been\u00a0an active voice in the emerging\/evolving conversation regarding Christian Spirituality. As Senior Pastor and Church Planter with 15 years experience, he is leader, and a dynamic, honest, up front speaker and consultant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides being the founder of\u00a0ginkworld<\/a>, John has written for a number of other ezines: the Ooze , dtour , Next-Wave , and others. John has also written for homiletics and other publications. He likes to take pictures of himself driving, such as you see here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John O'Keefe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Conceptual Church: A Vision<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

-by John O’Keefe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When I was asked by Lisa to be a guest blogger, I was excited.\u00a0 I was excited because in her request she told me I could share with you what was on my heart and for me, as of late, that has been the idea of leadership in the emerging church. \u00a0 First, I want to say that I am beyond the term \u201cemerging.\u201d\u00a0 Not because I see it as a \u201cbad\u201d word, but because I am beyond thinking in terms of \u201cemerging\u201d and think more in terms of being a conceptual church \u2013 let me explain.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we think in terms of \u201cemerging\u201d I think in terms of \u201ccoming from.\u201d\u00a0 That is to say, a flower emerges from the plant.\u00a0 While the flower \u201cemerges\u201d it is still very much the same as the plant it emerged from, with minor variations in color and size.\u00a0 The flower will go to seed and produce a plant pretty much the same as the plant it comes from \u2013 the cycle continues; even though they emerge they carry the DNA to the next generations.\u00a0 So I have found with the leadership concepts of the emerging church.\u00a0 Those in leadership are products of what I call the \u201cindustrial church\u201d (what many are still calling the modern church).\u00a0 Because of this, many emerging churches are simply younger offspring of the industrial church model.\u00a0 While the church may look different, at its core leadership there is very little difference.\u00a0 So, what I am calling for is something very different, and something very right brained \u2013 something I am calling a \u201cconceptual church\u201d (a church for the 21<\/span>st<\/span><\/sup> Century).\u00a0 For the conceptual church we need to develop a \u201cconceptual leader\u201d \u2013 a shift from the left brained industrial church to the right brained conceptual church.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am in the process of writing a book for my doctoral dissertation based on that very reality.\u00a0 The idea to reach out to a conceptual people we need to develop conceptual churches lead by conceptual leaders.\u00a0 Right brain thinkers who are creative, empathic, dynamic, and understanding people who see the world with new eyes, and lead in new (yet very ancient) ways.\u00a0 Without going too deep into the book (not willing to give away the surprise) I will share that one of the keys to understanding a conceptual leader is to see people as people \u2013 in the industrial church people are seen as resources and assets and are placed in the \u201cexpendable\u201d category when it benefits the organization.\u00a0 Yet, in a conceptual church people are seen as people and add to the diversity of the of a community of faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

My prayer is that the book will be ready by the middle of 2010 \u2013 let me know what you think.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featured Guest Writer, John O’Keefe, introduces his vision for ministry and leadership, in the 21 Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,76],"tags":[108,205,206,274,718,770,779,830,855,19,997,1108,1109,1110,1455,1520,1775,1776,1866,42,1990,2225,51,2243,2492,2599,2614,2857,2886,74,75,85,90],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-spirituality","tag-21st-century-church","tag-ancient","tag-ancient-practices","tag-assets","tag-church-planter","tag-community-of-faith","tag-conceptual-leader","tag-core-leadership","tag-creative","tag-devotions","tag-dissertation","tag-emergent","tag-emergent-conversation","tag-emerging","tag-ginkworld","tag-gospel","tag-industrial","tag-industrial-church","tag-john-okeefe","tag-leadership","tag-left-brained","tag-ministerial","tag-ministry","tag-modern","tag-pastor","tag-pomo","tag-post-mmodern","tag-resources","tag-right-brained","tag-spiritual-growth","tag-spiritual-practices","tag-theology","tag-worldviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}