Center for Contemplative Leadership

Mission

The Center for Contemplative Leadership (CCL) exists to support leaders inside and outside of the church through contemplative practices ancient and modern, by offering training and resources for cultivating vision, resilience, and joy. We believe in the robust integration of deep spiritual roots with the wider work of liberative justice in the world, and lovingly create/nurture communities of trust and active listening for the Spirit together.

Vision

Among its aims, the CCL seeks to:

1) Train leaders in the art of contemplative group listening and spiritual peer mentoring.

More specifically, the CCL seeks to create a new and dynamic kind of leadership training model that is more collaborative than traditional models. This pathway teaches leaders to listen for the Spirit and the Spirit’s wisdom together, through the experience of listening circles and communal discernment among leaders of organizations (e.g., ecclesial, nonprofit, corporate, etc.). Rather than conforming to authoritarian approaches, leadership is shared in these circles of trust. The intended outcome is to sustain strength, joyful perseverance, and longevity in one’s vocation, by cultivating authentic, vulnerable, and Spirit-centered communities for ministry leaders who often lack spaces to be known and supported by peers. Through participation in CCL trainings, leaders will be better able to nurture vibrant, intimate relationships with one another and with the God they serve.

2) Resource (by intentionally identifying and recruiting) ethnic minority leaders, who are often under-resourced and under-served.

We provide support to ethnic minority leaders even as they work overtime to respond to the effects of the multifaceted pandemics of our day; and to work collectively — and contemplatively — toward social and racial justice in our world. This emphasis is crucial to the flourishing of our communities and larger society.

3) Reach leaders beyond traditional audiences through cohort-based learning and experience.

Employing the methods stated above, the CCL will offer training to marketplace (and other) leaders who desire to grow in the crucial skill of listening well to others. The intended outcome is to cultivate a different kind of corporate environment, in which market-driven aims are imbued with care for the human person and by a genuine interest in promoting the health and wellness of our human family and our shared planet. By engaging and coming alongside leaders to pause and listen together in love, we believe the CCL can offer participants a new way to lead.