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Every year college seniors graduate and leave the campus world. Those who were student leaders in Christian campus organizations will be looking to have the same impact once they enter the "real world." Local churches and campus organizations also want to see these developing leaders continue their dramatic impact. Emerge is the resource to make that happen. It contains the teaching to help student leaders transition into the real world, as well as the formula to teach the local church to help them do that. The three areas of focus are: Leadership Development Transition Emotional Wellness
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Chapter Content:
Chapter 1: The Emerging Leader
As young Christians grow through stages of follow-up and discipleship, some will become laborers and others will ultimately become leaders. This chapter is foundational in defining that process.
Chapter 2: Know Your Friend, the Emerging Collegiate Leader
Emerging Leaders in a college world have certain attributes and behaviors. They tend to develop quickly, and have strengths that follow fairly predictable patterns. These sorts of things seem to be way more mysterious than they need to be. This chapter explores who they are, what they want, and what they have to give.
Chapter 3: Who am I and What Makes Me Tick
Wouldn’t it be great to live in the strength of knowing yourself well? This chapter covers the basics of personality assessment, and how to grow to know who you are.
Chapter 4: Transition to the Local Church
WOW! The Local Church doesn’t look much like the campus world. In fact, NOTHING seems to look like dorm life. How does a college leader find their place in the world after graduation? Life will be different, even if staying in campus ministry. This chapter illuminates that crazy transition stuff.
Chapter 5: Finding Your Sweet Spot
So, where are you going? How are you going to get there? Wouldn’t it be great if you had some clue where you would be in five years? Maybe you’d like some ideas on how to get closer to that sweet spot – that candy store of finding your purpose amidst an ocean of choices.
Chapter 6: The Father Heart of God
As you look around, does it seem that broken family life is the norm, and not the exception? What do we do about that – when the image of Father has been distorted? Could it be that God loves you in a way you cannot even imagine? What would it take for you to accept that love?
Chapter 7: Emotional Wellness
Have you ever used a fork to butter your toast? What do you do when you are out of clean underwear? Have you ever tried to load your bicycle into a sub-compact? Trying to accomplish the job with the wrong tool can be pretty challenging. On the other hand, having the right tool for the job makes difficult work seem like fun. This chapter introduces four tools for improving emotional health.
Chapter 8: LEAD Team – A Model
Here it is! This is the formula for how a local church can invest in Emerging Collegiate Leaders. This could be the foundation for leadership development for that incredible 20-somethings group that is so hard to influence. This is a formula for serving them that will capture their hearts. And if they bring their hearts to the local church – they will have gigantic influence, especially on their own generation. This chapter describes the infrastructure to make the whole system sing.
Chapter 9: Building the Environment for Emerging Collegiate Leaders
To take the model one critical step further, there must be an environment of trust between local church and campus ministry leadership. This last chapter describes what this could look like.
My dream is that someday emerging collegiate leaders will transition well by default. The language of transition will be well known, and the well beaten path of leadership development within the campus groups would continue off the campus and into the local church.
emerge ONELaunching a LEAD Team with a bunch of students and a ministry team is a pretty big venture. I would highly recommend starting with ONE student. If you can help one transition better, you will find the many much easier.
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Who do I hope would benefit the most from reading this book?
Who is my audience?
This was actually a little more complicated that perhaps it should have been. I eventually concluded that there are three primary audiences. I'll list them first, and explain why later.
1) Emerging Collegiate Leaders. The campus groups build up and rely on their student leaders to fulfill their calling. These student leaders must graduate and leave the protective environment of the campus world. They are my primary audience. My hope is that they will transition well and continue to influence the world.
Actually, ANY Christian student could benefit from this book. My personal calling is for the student leaders, but the book is more generic than that.
2) Local Church Leadership. The Local church is often missing out on the great potential of these leaders. Churches don't tend to have very much leadership in their 20's or even 30's. My hope for them is that local church leadership will see the student leaders as a strategic resource and try to serve and attract them. This will influence the local church's ability to attract others in the 20's and 30's - that big generation gap of "church is not for me" young people that we keep hearing about.
3) Campus Group Leadership. The campus groups (sometimes referred to as para-church organizations) build into the leaders and want to see them thrive. If they do thrive, they will bless the local church. This blessing should turn around and encourage and support the campus group staff.
I picked three audiences because the big dream is that they would all work together to benefit the kingdom. The synergy of them collaborating is way better than if one group tried to do it alone.
One last however, however... The different people that I have asked to read my book have really found the book impacting, even though many do not consider themselves as "leaders", and quite a few of them are not college age. I've had several suggestions to write another book with church leaders in mind. Well, I guess God knows when or if that will happen.
The EVVY Awards
Last fall I was honored to be nominated for an EVVY award. My publisher, Outskirts Press nominates about 5% of the books they publish to participate in the Colorado Independent Publisher's Association book awards each year. It is an honor in itself to be nominated. Here's the link: EVVY award nominees.
Emerge did well, I believe, especially for my first book! I ended up with third place for the category of religious. See these links for details: Colorado Independent Publishers Association and Self Publishing News.
Winning an award from an independent source is a testament to the quality of the book. I have no connection with CIPA, and they have no specific interest in the subject of my book. As a result, the book must stand alone as a work of literature. I feel honored for having been selected.
Sample text from several different chapters.
I have provided excerpts from several of the chapters of emerge. Please select this link if interested: Excerpts from emerge chapters