Polycentric mission leadership: Toward a new theoretical model: OCMS Montagu Barker Lecture Series: “Polycentric Theology,Mission,and Mission Leadership”

Abstract

As the world faces rapidly increasing cycles of disruption, challenges, and disorder, mission leaders are stretched to adapt, trying to catch up with the pace of change and provide leadership to further the mission God has given his Church. This paper, presented at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies Montagu Barker Lecture Series: “Polycentric Theology, Mission, and Mission Leadership,” focuses on ways leadership is changing, suggesting a new theoretical model for mission leadership. It reviews the idea of polycentrism through mission history, mission and church organizations, movement theory, and governance, identifying themes of an emerging theory of polycentric mission leadership.

Keywords

leadership polycentric global mission polycentrism governance network

Introduction

My personal mission leadership journey catalyzed an exploration for a new approach to mission leadership. I had become increasingly discontent with the changes in our world and how we as leaders were facing them and guiding the churches, organizations, networks, and movements that engaged them. The model I propose, in many ways, was shaped by my own leadership journey. I was raised in the context of a small family business where my father ran his crews in a semi-team-oriented model. Along the way, due to our unique family dynamics, we actively attended multiple churches encompassing a variety of denominations and church structures, giving me a wide lens of leadership approaches and styles. When thrust into mission leadership at an early age, this diversity served me well. My approach drew from the various traditions and experiences, showcasing a collaborative framework from the beginning. While working at Azusa Pacific University, initially leading a mission congress, which was at Urbana for high school students, and soon thereafter their Office of World Mission, this communal approach began to take shape. It was further enhanced while I served as the lead mission pastor at Rolling Hills Covenant Church, interacting with significant global leaders through the context of a unique regional church with substantial global influence.

The world we live in is facing rapidly increasing cycles of disruption, challenge, and disorder. In the face of these trials, mission leadership is stretched to adapt, trying to catch up with the pace of change and provide wisdom to navigate these challenges and further the mission God has given his Church. We live in a time of significant global complexity. Political upheavals are occurring in a number of countries and the speed of change magnifies these challenges. New technologies designed to connect us seem to actually divide us. Social and behavioral norms are in transition and different value systems challenge our traditions. For the Church worldwide, this era of complexity requires that we discern better ways to engage the world around us and discover new ways of approaching leadership. Reggie McNeal captures these challenges well: “We do not live in normal times. You may have noticed that we are in a vortex of transitional forces that are creating a new world. We need great leaders to help us get through the wormhole of overlapping universes.”

Polycentrism came to my attention in reviewing the state of mission today and ways we could shift our approaches. I first encountered the concept in reviewing Allen Yeh’s research on the 2010 centenary celebrations of the 1910 Edinburgh Mission Congress. Polycentrism is an approach to governance where “the doctrine that a plurality of independent centers of leadership, power, or ideology may exist within a single political system. . . the fact of having many centers of authority or importance.”

I came to believe that Polycentrism provides a stronger leadership paradigm for leading missional endeavors in an interdependent, globally networked world. In reviewing recent discoveries in mission history¹ and ongoing studies in governance,² I discovered six important themes that comprise an emerging theoretical leadership model which I call Polycentric Mission Leadership. Given the complexities we live in today and the challenges the world is facing, I am convinced that a collaborative, communal approach to leadership that empowers multiple centers of influence as well as a diverse array of leaders is better suited to addressing the issues before us during this era of a globalization.

Trinitarian leadership

Success for mission leaders hinges on dependence on the ideal polycentric leader—God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is in this Trinitarian example that the polycentric model draws its greatest significance. God the Father collaborates in communal fashion, empowering the diversity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, releasing gifts in relationship with one another, and freeing one another to lead. In this way, the charisma of the Trinity inspires a generation of mission leaders to follow.³ It is from this example that leaders can draw their strength and wisdom, knowing that only in being connected to the vine can we bear fruit.⁴ Leonardo Boff shares that “The Trinitarian vision produces a vision of a church that is more communion than hierarchy, more service than power, more circular than pyramidal, more loving embrace than bending the knee before authority.”⁵ Similarly, in describing a Trinitarian view of mission, Lesslie Newbigin sees the Trinity as a general model for mission.⁶ It is interesting that Newbigin considers Polanyi as a key influence in his theology of mission, for it was Polanyi who first suggested the idea of a polycentric perspective.

It is fascinating that leadership conceptions are mostly plural within the biblical record, supporting a Trinitarian or polycentric approach. For example, when Moses was charged to lead the people of Israel, God appointed his brother Aaron to accommodate for Moses’ fears and deficiencies.⁷ Later, his father-in-law Jethro admonished him to appoint other leaders to partner with him in leading the people of God.⁸ After the monarchy was established, God appointed prophets or seers to serve as advisors alongside of the kings.⁹ Saul had Samuel; David had Samuel and Nathan; Solomon had Nathan. Even the Hebrew word referring to the “counsel of God” is plural in function.¹⁰ In the New Testament, Jesus sends out the disciples in teams for ministry.¹¹ In addition, Paul often traveled in teams and encouraged teamwork in mission.¹² Finally, in the establishment of local churches, elders were assigned to lead their faith communities.¹³ These examples from scripture reveal a Trinitarian or polycentric leadership model.

Len Hjalmarson explores this Trinitarian idea concluding, “Trinitarian leadership is mutual, vulnerable, joyful, and loving, a dance at once mysterious and filled with purpose. Moreover, it is genuinely participatory: we partner with God in his ongoing mission in the world.”¹⁴ He suggests this approach rejects hierarchy, using Jesus’ teaching from Mark 10 where “the greatest of you must be the servant of all” to build on the New Testament teaching about the priesthood of all believers.¹⁵ This idea is also supported by Paul Stephens who reveals the dynamic leadership relationship within the Trinity:

The Father creates, providentially sustains, and forms a covenantal framework for all existence. The Son incarnates, mediates, transfigures and redeems. The Spirit empowers and fills with God’s own presence. But each shares in the other—coinheres, interpenetrates, cooperates—so that it is theologically inappropriate to stereotype the ministry of any one.¹⁶

Strengthening the idea is Milan Homola who offers a Trinitarian leadership model in arguing against the commodification of the modern church and its leadership approach. He builds on the participatory approach of Hjalmarson, arguing that the Trinity operates communally, “the God who bestows his image upon creation is not an isolated individual, but rather exists communally.”¹⁷

Dwight Zscheile states, “While the Trinity as a doctrine nearly ceased to function in the life of the western church for several centuries in the modern period, retrieving it holds rich promise for theologically re-conceptualizing religious leadership in the twenty-first century.”¹⁸ Zscheile attempts to reimagine leadership in light of the Trinity, arguing that leadership should have the mission of reconciliation at its core, strive toward unity in diversity, and view the cross or servant leadership as key. Ultimately, he argues that “Trinitarian leadership is fundamentally collaborative.”¹⁹ Building on the theology of Moltmann and Volf, Zscheile suggests:

Leadership communities in the image of the Trinity embrace a level of mutuality, reciprocal acknowledgement of each other’s gifts, vulnerability to one another, and genuine shared life that transcends simply getting the job done. Thus cultivating a community in the image of the divine community—a community of reconciliation, interdependence, mutuality, difference, and openness— becomes central to leadership in a trinitarian perspective. This includes both the community of leaders and the community led by the leaders.²⁰

Zscheile, in this article, highlights most of the themes discovered in my research on a polycentric leadership model. Trinitarian leadership affirms the six common themes discovered for a polycentric theoretical model for leadership, themes that will be highlighted later in this article.

Polycentric leadership model

The idea behind a polycentric leadership model dates back to Michael Polanyi’s concepts about the success of scientific research drawing from multiple people reviewing data in order to find the most effective outcomes. Aglica and Tarko summarize this development and contribution of the Ostroms for polycentric governance.²¹ Their approach reveals the importance of operating from multiple centers of influence and giving freedom to self-organize.²² The common features found in these divergent industries show the strength of the idea and the validity of the approach.

Augmenting these studies are the findings regarding polycentric structures in mission history by Klaus Koschorke and the Munich School of World Christianity.²³ In addition, missiologists are increasingly reviewing the idea of polycentrism. Yeh’s book Polycentric Missiology²⁴ is a prime example, drawing from mission history and the congresses of 2010 and 2012 celebrating the centennial of Edinburgh 1910. This research on missiology examined World Christianity and the future of mission, recognizing the need to become more polycentric in nature.

Further research on polycentrism is found in studies on social movements, network leadership, adaptative leadership, and collaborative leadership. They highlight the value of diffused leadership structures that empower movements. They also showcase the importance of collaborative endeavor which draws strength from collective entities working together for a common cause. Esler refers to these as “bricolage” groups that pool their collective resources and coordinate through a coalition approach to leadership.

Polycentric leadership is an approach to leadership drawing from multiple centers of influence. This influence comes from every sphere within a movement or organization and harnesses the collective wisdom of the leaders within that network or partnership. This type of leadership embodies the following six themes discovered in this body of research.

In all the research, an emergent polycentric conception of leadership is apparent. This idea of a polycentric form of leadership, though, is still nascent and mostly untested. It clearly is something that is building momentum as Mary Lederleitner highlighted its usefulness at a recent Mission Commission Consultation for the World Evangelical Alliance:

Polycentric mission is a holistic perspective and strategy that values multiple centers of power and influence engaged in mission around the globe, and actively seeks collaboration with them in ways that address marginalization and prioritizes decision-making shaped by a growing number of diverse voices and perspectives.²⁵

Lederleitner captures the potential of polycentricity. Her description of polycentric mission encompasses the essence of what it will take to lead in polycentric fashion. In this potent summary she recognizes many of the key themes discovered about polycentrism, strengthening the idea for a new polycentric theoretical model for mission leadership.

Emergent models

To test this emerging theory, a few models are reviewed using the Northouse framework for assessing leadership theory. The contexts include missional church, a larger mission organization, and a leader development ministry.

Missional church model

J.R. Woodward suggests a polycentric model for leadership for the missional church by building on Ephesians 4:7–16. He suggests that the “[Apostle Paul] reveals to us a polycentric structure, where leaders interrelate and incarnate the various purposes of Christ in such a way that the entire body is activated to service and matures in love.”²⁶ His model identifies the apostle, prophet, evangelist, prophet, and teacher, which he describes as a storyteller, as equippers of the church who function based on their giftedness.²⁷ He describes this model as a shift from a hierarchical model to a polycentric approach where the equippers empower others to foster the mission of the church.²⁸ He refers to Roland Allen’s view of Paul’s approach to ministry to undergird his theological approach. For him, the model is not dependent solely on the equippers though, but also on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.²⁹

In laying out this model, he shares how equipping teams lead like geese, sharing the leadership load, and taking turns based on their giftings. In describing the relational dimension of a team, he offers the Trinity as a model, which “is interdependent, communal, relational, participatory, self-surrendering and self-giving. This is how the equippers should lead. In addition, it is important for the equippers to have mutual respect for one another, appreciating the gifting and experience of each person, giving weight to each.”³⁰ He suggests using this communal approach to decision-making, which relies on the collective rather than an individual point of view. This creates a participatory element of leadership. This decentralized approach also informs how the church leaders capture vision, which should come from the Spirit’s leading rather than their own initiative.³¹

Woodward uses a Quaker congregation to describe his model. He notices that the leaders gather for worship, noting that leadership, meetings, and decision-making are, in essence, part of their communal worship. In this particular congregation, twelve leaders gather, building community, worshipping together, and spending time in silence before discussing issues related to the work of the church. No issues move forward without unanimous support. Running a church this way may be inefficient; however, ownership is high due to the participatory nature of having everyone involved in leadership.³²

Mission organization models

Another example of a polycentric model is Kirk Franklin’s missional leadership model, which he proposed for the reshaping of the Wycliffe Global Alliance (WGA). Although this model is multifaceted, drawing from an eclectic array of research, it includes a polycentric approach. He developed an emerging model called a “new paradigm for global mission leadership” that uses polycentrism as an important component.³³ The WGA moved from a centralized leadership institution to a model encompassing leadership across the globe, forming an alliance of 100 organizations sharing a decentralized form of governance.³⁴

This communal approach to leadership moves power away from a centralized location, shifting it to the margins of the alliance.³⁵ One of the features of their model is providing equality of leadership and revolving point people for the community as a whole. There is an interconnected, diverse community of leaders across the alliance. It’s a model that is decentralized with limited controls and structures.³⁶

Franklin and Niemandt describe their approach:

Through polycentrism, there is a movement to lessen the potential autocratic effects of established centres of power, in terms of structure and centralisation in the midst of decentralisation, by means of a bottom-up approach with some degree of control. The results are: (1) one leads from among and with others; (2) one leads from creatively learning together in community and to attentiveness to the others in the community; and (3) one leads within the margins of the global church.

As they state at the outset of the same paper,

Structures for mission have been under review as a result of many factors. In particular, [there] have been the widening influences of globalisation, and to a lesser degree, glocalisation. Various models of leadership praxis and structures have been proposed along the way. As Christianity moved farther away from the Christendom model of centralised control to other models of structure and leadership, other paradigms have been proposed along the way. However, one possibility, called the concept of polycentrism, has not been considered with any significant effort.³⁷

Another mission model that uses a polycentric approach is the mission movement called Asian Access. Asian Access aspires to operate more like a movement than an organization. We adapted the distribution of our leadership using a polycentric model to foster further collaboration, participation, freedom, and diversity of perspective.

Our core leadership involves several diverse teams including a ministry team, an infrastructure team, and a missionary-focused team. These teams are made up of both staff and volunteer leaders and seek to represent every region within our network. In addition, our advisory systems include a Vision Council, which is represented by leaders from many of the countries we serve. Decisions are made in a collaborative fashion through a deeply communal process. Each team has freedom to make decisions based on the vision, mission, and values of the movement.

Every country makes their own decisions in a communal fashion with working teams, which were initially formed in consultation with the movement. Future vision is determined in a very collaborative and prayerful discernment process as well. Over the past year, all of these teams, as well as many of the on-the-ground participants, volunteers, employees, and missionaries have had opportunities to speak into the formation of our next multi-year strategic plan. In this way, God speaks through the community and inspires the vision and direction from within our midst as we listen to him, collectively discerning our future.

To illustrate the model, here is a picture of how the Asian Access movement operates:

In essence, a polycentric model of leadership is a collaborative form of leadership. It is leadership that forms in community, drawing from the diversity of the movement to provide wisdom, guidance, and direction. It fosters freedom for each location (region, function, location, etc.) to lead based on the collective commitments made by the community and shaped by the presence of our Trinitarian Lord.

Polycentrism among Lausanne leaders

Further strengthening the pursuit of a new theoretical model, I interviewed Lausanne Movement leaders to ascertain the validity of this theory. The hypothesis was that leaders would be more effective in their networks and have more global influence by fostering nonlinear relationships among other network and movement leaders as they fulfilled their particular call and purpose within the Lausanne Movement.³⁸

The most prominent theme that surfaced in the interviews was “charisma.” Nearly all of the leaders interviewed mentioned something related to this topic. The way the GLOBE study defines this term, this theme has more to do with character than simply a charismatic personality. In fact, they found that leaders don’t always have charismatic personalities. According to their findings, this single characteristic, charisma, is most determinative in leadership success.³⁹ This trait includes other important dimensions, but the component deemed crucial for the Lausanne Movement was being spiritually grounded. They valued leadership formed with a spiritual foundation rather than merely exhibiting outward charm or a dynamic personality. For the Lausanne Movement, this is crucial since it is a mission movement, one that is spiritually driven from a Christian ethos. As Leighton Ford, former chairman of the movement simply said, “Seeking God’s agenda [is of utmost importance].”

Chris Wright, former Chairman for the Theology Working Group, captured this well when he praised John Stott, one of the Lausanne Movement founders and someone he heralded as “I suppose, the most effective leader I’ve known.” Wright believed that “part of his effectiveness was a lack of personal ambition but a very strong Christ-centered ambition.” Much of what is seen in the literature and the interviews can best be captured by this same spirit or charisma: “a strong Christ-centered ambition.”

The second most mentioned theme in the interviews was being “collaborative,” which is associated with these traits: networking, participative, shared, and collective. This theme was prevalent throughout the literature reviews as one of the core components for a polycentric approach to leadership. For example, Yeh suggested that a broader diversity of perspectives was needed for the future of mission and in Woodward’s plurality of five-fold gifts from Ephesians 4 for missional churches, collaboration is key. Franklin’s paradigm shift for the Wycliffe Global Alliance, as well as the research from the Bloomington School into polycentric governance, strengthen these findings. In addition, the Munich School’s insight into the historical growth of mission pointed to a more collaborative, collective leadership effort where governance is a shared experience. For Lausanne, Nana Yaw Offei Awuku’s comments on the next few pages affirm that collaboration is happening and strengthening the movement.

The third common theme was the “communal” nature of leadership. This is where the more missionally focused literature concentrated on the community working together. Instead of just collaboration, the focus here is more on a community’s body life and how the members complement one another rather than just how they might partner. The governance literature focuses more on the cooperative or even a contractual relationship but underscores ownership within the collective. All the literature noted the importance of having a mutual vision, shared purpose and working together as a team. Phill Butler, Catalyst for Partnership, captured this idea well: “[Leadership today] is much more engagement [oriented and less] hierarchies. It’s much more in teams and collegial, listening to people, engage people in the process, give them ownership.” Lindsay Olesberg, Catalyst for Scripture Engagement, conveyed this “communal” theme best: “In Lausanne, good friendships are the coin of the realm. [The] priority of deep relational investment [is important]. Are you going to be part of real community here or not?”.

The fourth theme, diverse, received as much attention from the interviewees as the communal theme. Whether it was the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures or regions, this subject kept surfacing. Joseph Vijayam, Catalyst for Technology, captured the crucial importance of this diversity theme best when sharing about the changes in the world of mission today:

The rise of the leadership in missions from the Global South [is one of the most important issues we are facing.] The rise of women in Christian leadership. The rise of younger leaders all over the world that are taking a more significant role. One of the big surprises is that the church in the majority world is both younger and has a higher representation of women than in North American and Europe.

We will continue to face this issue of the diaspora and migrant peoples. I went to the Global diaspora conference in 2013. I was hugely impressed with how much change has happened in the world that we live in. Even people crossing borders or even within a single nation: millions moving from rural to urban areas: they are all migrants.

The first is always keep it a priority to engage people from all over the world. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. I have a unique vantage point: I live in North America and equally spent time in India. I get to see the different lenses than most people do. For us (you and I) it’s easy to see the differences and recognize the importance of cultural sensitivity to people’s priorities. If we don’t continue to just harp on the need to involve people from different parts of the world, we can quickly become irrelevant where the church is growing at its most rapid pace.

Nana Yaw, affirmed the insight provided by Vijayam:

My experience in Boston (as a student at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary) over the past 3 years has deepened for me the reality of mission from everywhere to everywhere. It will be important for us to have a new understanding of the Global Church working cross-culturally. It will be so, so deeply important for the Church in Sub-Saharan Africa to know how to work with the church in North Africa. And for North Africa to know how to work with the Church in the Middle East. For the Middle East to know how to work with the Church in Asia. We need close neighborliness, I believe, for the final challenge ahead of us. Very few Christians do understand what it means to relate to people of other faiths. From Gordon Conwell where I was the past 3 years with Todd Johnson and Center of Global Christianity. I am concerned that 86% of all Muslims and Hindus indicate they do not know a Christian person.

From where my heart beats most, in Lausanne we do not talk only about younger leaders. We talk about connecting across generations. I seem to think that very, very closely related to the significance of partnership for global missions is partnership across generations. How will Joe’s (he is referring to Joe Handley) generation intentionally partner with the generations that are coming?

God is raising a new generation of next leaders from the Global South who may have all kinds of background stories. I see a new generation of emerging leaders from the Global South who are becoming more and more aware of the Global Mission of the Church. We have a new generation of young leaders who global is their world. They are more willing than ever to leave and serve in God’s world than it used to be.⁴⁰

Figure 1.

Themes discovered from the literature reviews.

It is important for Lausanne to nurture and promote diversity. To be most effective in the future, leaders would be wise to employ these lessons from polycentric leadership: being inclusive; listening across the spectrum of their networks; platforming younger, regional, trans-sector and both men and women in the future.

Freedom is the fifth theme, encompassing the more entrepreneurial aspects of leading polycentrically. There were fewer comments from the interviewees on this subject, which could imply that either leaders are content with the status quo or that freedom to innovate is missing within the movement. It could also be that the sample selection of interviewees simply was too small to ascertain fresh expressions that might be emerging within the movement. It is interesting to note, however, that this trait or theme was prevalent in the polycentric governance literature. An extensive body of material from those studies concentrated on the freedom to structure operations in a way that is most conducive to a local setting.⁴¹ Interestingly, “Polanyi argued that the success of science was mainly due to its ‘polycentric organization.’ In such organizational systems, participants enjoy the freedom to make individual and personal contributions, and to structure their research activities in the best way they considered fit.”⁴² Mac Pier, Catalyst for Cities, captured this theme well for Lausanne: “[We need] starters, incubators, planters. What makes them effective: risk-takers, Ephesians 3 view of the world [believing that] God can do more.”⁴³ Likewise, Phill Butler, Catalyst for Partnership, suggests, “[We need to be] risk comfortable and adopt the innovation curve.”⁴⁴

Figure 2.

Asian Access Polycentric Leadership Model.

The sixth and final theme, relational, overlaps with the communal theme. This theme is expressed through relationship, encouragement, and empowerment. The GLOBE study highlighted the importance of this dimension, labeling it “humane-oriented” and defining it as “emphasiz[ing] empathy for others by giving time, money, resources, and assistance when needed. It reflects concern for followers’ personal and group welfare.”⁴⁵ Patrick McDonald, former Catalyst for Children at Risk, noted the importance of being relational when reflecting how leadership is different today than in years past. He thinks that “leaders today need to be more emotionally intelligent. [People need] to read who they are working with.”⁴⁶ Chris Wright, in honoring his mentor and early founder of the Lausanne Movement, responded that

John Stott [had] a very strong capacity for friendship. He had a great intentionality about developing friends. He didn’t just get to know people: he knew their names, children, families, and prayed for people. He was very relational. That is an element of effective Christian leadership: warmth and fellowship.⁴⁷

While this theme received less attention than the others, both in the literature reviews and interviews, that doesn’t diminish its importance and relevance. It reminds me of the prophetic call from Edinburgh 1910 when Bishop VS Azariah declared, “You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends!”⁴⁸

The interviews with Lausanne leaders provided a strong data affirming the six themes that appear in the literature about polycentrism. In all of this are signs of an emerging theory about leadership that deserves further research. In my estimation, it is also imperative for mission leaders of the future to begin employing. This emergent theory encompasses traits from other theories on leadership, but in a manner that could be pivotal for leading effectively in a global post-modern ecosystem. Understanding and applying the six themes—charisma, collaborative, communal, freedom, diverse, and relational—are critical to leading well for those involved in global mission leadership today.

Toward a new theoretical model

As I reflect on these findings in light of current mission leadership, I believe that this study offers a strong model for effective global leadership. In a world that is ever-changing with what appears to be increasing polarization, effective spiritual leadership is paramount. A number of helpful resources are available to mission leaders, including a recent book released by my dissertation advisor as well as the book following Franklin’s research. All of these studies are a significant resource for mission leaders. Three of these resources provide substantive spiritual and cultural insights for leadership today. The fourth, Franklin’s study, provides a fresh model drawing from missional church studies. These studies also affirm many of the themes discovered in this study.

Adding depth to these studies is the ongoing research on Global Leadership in the GLOBE study. That series of studies has a strong data set verifying a number of important traits that effective leaders embody. Their research adds value to these studies for mission leaders by building on these resources, adding further perspective from the ongoing studies on polycentrism as well as social movements. The combination of cultural insights from the studies by mission leaders and academics, alongside the findings from polycentrism and the Lausanne leaders’ interviews, as well the GLOBE study, reveal a viable model of leadership for mission leaders to examine and practice.

Mission leaders would benefit if they applied these findings to their praxis of leading in mission. For example, many missions today are still operating in a paradigm similar to what McChrystal described in his review of the modern U.S. military. They have become institutional in approach rather than adaptive. The findings from polycentric governance about self-governance and freedom of local leadership as part of the model can be particularly helpful. As Franklin learned from the WGA, empowering the various centers of influence and diverse array of peoples within a movement can lead to enhanced decision-making and more effective operations.

This research also highlights a polycentric model to better empower mission leaders throughout movements and networks. By leaning further into the diversity of God’s provision of leaders and their cultural wisdom, a movement can thrive. The Lausanne Movement is moving that direction which is encouraging to leaders within the movement. In the mission I serve, Asian Access, we have been experimenting with this polycentric model the past seven or eight years and seeing good results. Global leaders feel more empowered and have greater ownership of the movement as a whole. Given that they are all volunteers, this is crucial for our success as a mission. Each of them, as well as the regions they represent, play an important role in the movement and their voice is given a platform. The world needs to hear their voices because they have wisdom that is not being heard. That is why we launched a series called Eastern Voices.⁴⁹ Platforming global voices is vital for God’s kingdom. At the end of time, the nations will unite, worshipping God and showcasing the ideals Christ has for the life of the Church.⁵⁰ Just as God’s main purpose in choosing Israel was so they could be a light to the nations, in the same way, the Missio Dei was intended to reach every nation, tongue, and tribe.⁵¹

MissioNexus, a network of North American mission leaders, appreciated the merits of this polycentric approach, deciding to publish early lessons from the model. If mission leaders employ this collaborative, communal model, it should enhance their effectiveness. If they capitalize on the diversity of perspectives, regional outlooks, and local expressions within their networks and movements, they would better empower those God has gifted within their spheres of influence, fully deploying them to achieve their mission, vision, and goals. Just as Asian Access has profited from applying the polycentric model, I’m convinced other mission leaders and organizations could as well.

Giving freedom to each leader, region, and country to make decisions in their own settings allows the adaptive and creative energy to flow based on the local context and situation. This move, at least by Asian Access, has engendered deep levels of trust and fostered a level of volunteer ownership like I have never seen. The community unites as these relationships are fostered and that unity extends to the movement as a whole. It’s not something that just operates on a local level. Rather, this spirit pervades the entirety of our movement. Miroslav Volf speaks of the value of diffusion of power and unity in diversity: “With regard to the distribution of power, one can distinguish between symmetrical-polycentric and asymmetrical-monocentric models; with regard to cohesion, one can distinguish between coerced and freely affirmed integration.”⁵² As mission leaders empower the various centers of gravity in their networks and organizations, deeper levels of ownership are fostered, leading to greater unity in the diversity and effectiveness in mission.

In looking to the future, Jehu Hanciles captured the vital importance of this new model stating, “[Movements] do not have a commander and chief. There is no one person who can claim to speak for the movement as a whole, any more than there is one group that represents the movement. Movements are actually ‘polycentric’ or ‘polycephalous’ with multiple leaders.”This emergent theoretical model, Polycentric Mission Leadership, shows promise and I trust will lead to further research in multiple domains, primarily here through the lens of global mission leadership.

Footnotes

Author Note

This paper draws from the dissertation: Handley, Joseph W. 2020 “Polycentric Mission Leadership.” PhD Diss. Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Intercultural Studies: ProQuest; 27745033.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Joseph W. Handleye

Notes

Author biography

Rev. Joseph W Handley, Jr., Ph.D. () is the president of Asian Access. Previously, he was the founding director of Azusa Pacific University’s Office of World Mission and lead mission pastor at Rolling Hills Covenant Church. He co-led one of the first multi-national high school mission congresses in Mexico City in 1996 and is a contributing blogger for the Billy Graham Center’s Gospel-Life Blog. Joe serves on the International Orality Network leadership team and on the advisory teams for ELEVATE, BiblicalTraining.org, and DualReach. Joe strives to develop leaders for missional movements.

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13.

Ford

former Executive Chair. 17 December 2018 interview via Skype.

14.

Forsyth

Johnson

(2014) Elinor Ostrom’s legacy: governing the commons and the rational choice controversy. Development and Change: Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, August 24, 2014.

15.

For those seeking to discover more and contribute to the develop of this theoretical model, visit the website: https://asianaccess.org/polycentric/

16.

Franklin

Niemandt

(2016) “Polycentrism in the missio Dei.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 72(1): 2.

17.

Franklin

Crough

(2017) Towards global missional leadership: a journey through leadership paradigm shift in the mission of god. Regnum Practitioner Series. 2017. Kindle loc 597, 612.

18.

Global Trends (2030) Citizens in an Interconnected and Polycentric World report of the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System. 2014.

19.

Hanciles

(2008) Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

20.

Handley

(2018) Leading mission movements. EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly) MissioNexus. 20–27.

21.

Handley

(2020) Polycentric mission leadership. PhD Dissertarion, Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Intercultural Studies: ProQuest; 27745033.

22.

History -Ahn, Kyo Seong. “Korea as an Early Missionary Center.” Polycentric Structures in the History of World Christianity. Polyzentrische Strukturen in der Geschichte des Weltchristentums. (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014). 100

23.

Hjalmarson

(2013) The Trinitarian nature of leadership. Crucible Theology and Ministry 5: 2.

24.

Homola

(2008) Unitarian relational leadership: the myth! Available at: http://consumingjesus.org/wp-content/milan_homola_-_trintarian_leadership.pdf (accessed 23 February 2020).

25.

House

Hanges

Javidian

, et al. (2004) Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

26.

House

Hanges

Javidian

, et al. (2013) Strategic Leadership Across Cultures: The GLOBE Study of CEO Leadership Behavior and Effectiveness in 24 Countries. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

27.

Knud J “Edinburgh, Tokyo and Cape Town: Comparing and Contrasting on the way to 2010.” The Lausanne Movement: A Range of Perspectives: Margunn and Lars Dahle along with Knud Jørgensen: Regnum Books International: Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, 2014. Ross, Kenneth. Edinburgh 2010: Mission Then and Now. 2009, 315.

28.

Koschorke

Hermann

(2014) Polycentric Structures in the History of World Christianity. Polyzentrische Strukturen in der Geschichte des Weltchristentums.

29.

Logan

King

Fischer-Wright

Movement Theory. Tribal Leadership. Kindle, 14.

30.

Lausanne - Dahl L “Introduction.” The Lausanne Movement: A Range of Perspectives, 20–21.

31.

Lingenfelter

(2008) Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

32.

Maxwell

(2017) The Journal of World Christianity 6(1): 2016.

33.

McChrystal

Silverman

Collins

, et al. (2015) Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, Kindle location 220. New York: Penguin Random House.

34.

McConnell

(2018) Cultural Insights for Christian Leaders. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

35.

McDonald

(2018) Former Catalyst for Children at Risk. September 25 interview in Oxford, England.

36.

McNeil

(2006) Practicing Greatness: 7 Disciplines of Extraordinary Spiritual Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

37.

Morse

(1998) Five building blocks for successful leadership. In: Hesselbein

Goldsmith

Beckhard

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38.

Movement Theory—Logan, Dave, King, and Fischer-Wright, Tribal Leadership. Kindle, 14.

39.

Schreiter

(April 2011). From the Lausanne movement to cape town commitment. International Bulletin of Mission Research 35(2): 92.

40.

Newbigin

(1995) The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, revised edn. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

41.

Northouse

(2013) Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

42.

Olesberg

(2018) Catalyst for Scripture Engagement and Scripture Engagement Director for InterVarsity. 20 July 2018 interview via Skype.

43.

Ostrom

(June 2010) Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review. American Economic Association. 100(3): 641–672.

44.

Pier

(2019) Catalyst for Cities. July 19 interview via phone.

45.

Pillette

(1996) Paul and his fellow workers. The Emmaus Journal 6(1): 119–128.

46.

Plueddemann

(2012) Leading Across Cultures. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

47.

Polanyi

(2013) The Logic of Liberty.

48.

Scholte

(2004) Globalization and Governance: From Statism to Polycentrism. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. London, UK: Red Globe Press.

49.

Stevens

(1999) The Other Six Days. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

50.

Vijayam

(2018) Senior Associate for Technology and CEO of Olive Technology. 2 August 2018 interview via Zoom.

51.

Volf

(1998) After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

52.

Weber, Klaus and Brayden King. Social Movement Theory and Organization Studies. Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory and Organization Studies, Paul Adler, Paul du Gay, Glenn Morgan, Mike Reed (eds.) 2013.

53.

Woodward citing the work of Roland Allen, Mission Activities Considered in Relation to the Manifestation of the Spirit (London: World Dominion, Press, 1927), p. 30.

54.

Woodward

(2013) Creating a Missional Culture. Kindle edn. 58.

55.

Wright

(2016) Former Theology Working Group. January19 interview via Skype.

56.

Yeh

(2016) Polycentric Missiology: 21st Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

57.

Zscheile

(2007) The trinity, leadership and power. Journal of Religious Leadership 6(2) Fall 2007: 43, 52–57.

58.

Zald

Ash

(1966) Social movement organizations: Growth, decay and change. Social Forces 44(3): 327–341.