I attended a breakfast meeting recently with
the president of St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison. Once a month he invites two
dozen community leaders to meet for conversation, coffee and croissants.
A few decades ago, “community leaders” likely
would have meant CEOs, bank executives and Chamber of Commerce presidents.
Today, “leaders” also include:
The founder of 100 State, a non-profit “co-working”
cooperative where building tenants not only lease space but collaborate on
creative ideas regardless of their particular business.
The owner of Madison-based Red Star Pictures, which provides mobile lighting for President Obama's public appearances.
A Merrill Lynch financial adviser who also
happens to be an Air Force pilot with a law degree and who travels regularly to
Germany to advise the U.S. military on developing five-year plans to deal with
emerging geopolitical conflicts in Africa.
Frank Byrne [pictured], St. Mary’s president, sees the
value in bringing these seemingly disparate interests together: Synergy.
Today, leadership is not just about in-house
technical knowledge – although that’s critical – but about meeting challenges
holistically by inviting all sorts of thinkers and problem-solvers together to
dream and strategize.
Church folk often see themselves as protectors
of tradition instead of entrepreneurs. But this creative synergy is a
biblically sound concept.
We are one body with many parts, as Jesus said,
so we can bring different perspectives to modern challenges. We face many:
poverty in the midst of societal affluence, cynicism toward organized religion
in the midst of spiritual hunger, self-interest in the face of Jesus’ prayer
that we would all be one.
Rather than following the crowd, I pray the
church might seize its power to creatively face the world and find new ways to
energize it with peace, joy and promise.
