Chapter 16 – Notes on Church Leadership from One Certified Nobody to Another

1. The chapter opens with Dan asking himself, “What have I gotten myself into?” He likens his decision and the way he feels about it to his decision to marry Carol. How does a marriage commitment mirror Dan and Carol’s decision to stay connected to Potomac Community Church in a new way? How does commitment change the nature of relationship with another human being as well as with a community of people?

2. For the first fifteen chapters of the book, we eavesdrop on a conversation between Neo and a white, middle-aged male pastor form a modern, evangelical Protestant church. Casey is a young, female African American youth pastor from a high church tradition. Does the nature of this conversation change at all when the person is of a different gender, age, race and tradition? Why or why not? Respond to Neo’s description to Casey of Dan’s meltdown. Did you perspective change when hearing it related from a different point of view?

3. Casey wants to move on from youth ministry into ministry to adults. Neo says “. . . working with teenagers is generally more important and more strategic than working with adults.” What would lead Neo to say this? Do you agree or disagree? What is appealing about working with adults?

4. As she considers changing the focus of her ministry, Casey is compelled to continue her education. Neo is tentative about recommending seminaries, however. Neo believes that most seminaries work on a modern model and are more able to prepare students for ministry in the 1940s, not 2040. List the reasons seminaries are ill-equipped to deal with the kind of education needed to train leaders for ministry in 2040 (p. 145, 156, 150). Describe Neo’s vision for a new kind of seminary.

5. Describing the difficulty of transitioning a church from a traditional, modern framework to a postmodern, missional framework, Neo employs some pretty sobering statistics (p. 147). Have you ever been a part of an organization that has undergone significant change? What was that experience like? Did the organization survive the transition? Is it easier to start over from scratch?

6. Neo lists several options leaders have when facing change. First, he says, you can scare people or inspire them. Second you can move incrementally or innovatively. Third, you can seek to minimize or maximize discontinuity. Explain what Neo means by each of these distinctions. Are these options mutually exclusive or is there a third, higher way of operating “above the line”?

7. Reread Neo’s quote about “Nobodies” who change the world (pp. 149-150). Do you agree that those on the margins initiate the leap into terra nova? Does his thesis about “Somebodies” and “Nobodies” inspire or frighten you? As it relates to the subject of this book, are you a “Somebody” or a “Nobody”?