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First, Love Your Congregation Where They Are episode artwork

Aug 25, 2025 12 min

First, Love Your Congregation Where They Are

from Mindful Leader Hosted by Dennis Shaw

Dennis Shaw offers a short reflection on a guiding principle and is the start of a series on more personal observations on church leadership. The session is a reflective leadership discussion, centered on a core guiding principle: love your congregation where they are. The discussion challenges the notion of “fixing” a congregation, emphasizes the plurality of community, trust-building, and leadership as presence and listening rather than control. Dennis can be reached at dennis at mantuan dot org (for the Apple users) or HERE for others. Smile. Richard Rohr website is HERE and is excellent. There is a daily meditation available and the comments on this podcast were drawn from the meditation for August 25, 2025. Dennis apologizes for having "been away" but he is back. The podcast is still a work in progress. Peace.

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What this episode covers

Local church leadership starts with loving the congregation where they are. Listening and being present are critical.

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First, Love Your Congregation Where They Are

0:00 12:52

Chapters

  1. 0:00 Welcome and Purpose
  2. 1:00 Statement of Theme
  3. 2:05 Congregation ARE people
  4. 4:15 Engage Like Jesus
  5. 6:00 Be a Guide
  6. 6:45 Be Present
  7. 9:45 Cloud Cuckoo Land
  8. 10:45 Populists and Elites
  9. 12:15 Build Trust First

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How long is this episode of Mindful Leader?

This episode is 12 minutes long.

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This episode was published on August 25, 2025.

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