The concept of missional church represents a confluence of ideas on spirituality, discernment and leadership. The very idea of participating in the missio Dei implies a spiritual journey and underlying spirituality, and discernment is widely described as the “first step in mission.” The missional church recognises the importance of leadership to envision, shape, and facilitate missional transformation. This chapter acknowledges the urgency and importance of discourses on spirituality and discernment, because of the context of the church finding itself in a (...) complex world. The church is a complex system and finds itself in a dynamic reality where the dynamism also entails complexity—to the extent that Friedman typifies our age as the “age of accelerations.” The research will introduce the idea of missional leadership and its relevance in the light of the renewed attention to concepts of missional church in South Africa, in many other contexts, and in ecumenical organisations. Defining missional leadership as the Spirit-led transformation of people and institutions by means of meaningful relations to participate in God’s mission, the chapter will attend to an appropriate understanding of spirituality. This will be against the background of a shift of spiritual formation from knowing and believing, to hungering and thirsting. In the final section, discernment will be described as entering into a trialogue: the discerning interaction between church, culture, and biblical narrative—to seek, discover, understand, and share in what the Holy Spirit is involved in the close-to-the-ground particulars of the church’s engagement in, with, against, and for the world. (shrink)

We live in a superdiverse and supermobile world which is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Diversity management, social cohesion, mediation and negotiation skills are needed in such times. In all discourses, within the context of leading and facilitating the resolution of disputes metaphorical frameworks of meaning are created. The challenge for the mediator is to become aware of, and keep in mind how metaphors affect the process of mediation and the mediator’s own role in it. Those unaware of the dynamics (...) of metaphor theory might implicitly be limited in the mediation process due to the socio-cognitive confines and frames of the metaphors being used in a given mediation context. By becoming aware of the dynamics of metaphor, by means of critically reflecting on metaphor theory, that which is often overt in the mediation dynamics, could be reflected upon covertly. This in turn will empower not only the mediator, but also the parties to a conflict or dispute as they reflect critically on the “metanarraphors” they mediate or are influenced by. (shrink)

This open access book brings together works by specialists from different disciplines and continents to reflect on the nexus between leadership, spirituality and discernment, particularly with regard to a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The book spells out, first of all, what our VUCA world entails, and how it affects businesses, organizations, and societies as a whole. Secondly, the book develops new perspectives on the processes of leadership, spirituality, and discernment, particularly in this VUCA context. These (...) perspectives are interdisciplinary in nature, and are informed by e.g. management studies, leadership theory, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

The book was inadvertently published with incorrect authors for the below listed chapters.