 I want to welcome you on behalf of, I came to Gaston myself. We're excited to have this conversation with you about canoeing the mountains, about adaptive leadership principles and how they apply to this season and in the months to come that are full of so much uncertainty but opportunity. As well, just to give you a sense of how this zoom call will unfold. We'll go back and forth between Kami or myself sharing a little bit of those leadership principles and offering some thoughts, and then a couple of times in the midst of the call will shift into breakout rooms. So, and we have several other folks on the call from the conference staff. Thanks to them for being with us and they'll facilitate some of those breakout room conversations where we can dig in a little more deeply and reflect a little more personally about how these principles intersect with where we are and what we're learning and what they might imply for us. So what again this back and forth between some teaching and then some sharing and dialogue and learning with one another. And at the end, we'll definitely have some time for some whole group Q&A perhaps, and, you know, concluding kind of conversation. So, that's a little bit about the flow of the day. And before I pitch it to Kami for a kind of introduction, let me lead us in a prayer. We all pray with me. Holy and steadfast God. We find ourselves in so many ways in uncharted territory. In this season in which we don't have all of the answers and we're not always sure what the right steps are to take next. God, we are thankful that you are always with us, that you are our rear guard and our shepherd leading us. And all we hope that your spirit will move in our midst, help us to see new things about ourselves, about our churches and our communities, about the wider landscape, so that we may step into this uncertain and uncharted territory with a greater degree of confidence, and that we may lead our congregations forward in a spirit of adventure, in a spirit of a learning journey that will change us all, change us all for the better. God, we give you thanks again for your constant companionship along the way. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, about a few years ago, 2017, I discovered that this book Canoing the Mountains was a great resource for church leadership, and I gave the book to all of the pastors who were at that time serving in the metro district in order to give them an opportunity to read what Todd Bolsinger says about what it takes to do change agility. And as I did that offered not just the pastors but the lay leaders ship in the metro district opportunity to also go through the book and ask questions and bring up ideas that could lead us forward. So the reason why I found this particular book so engaging is because Todd Bolsinger uses canoeing the mountains as a metaphor for change leadership or leadership agility in uncharted territory. And one of the things that he says is that is that change, we can't always anticipate change, but we should anticipate needing to change in our leadership. And he utilizes Lewis and Clark's vision of exploring from the east to the west to try to find a water passageway as an example of how how leaders need to be able and willing to change, given the circumstances changing in and around their lives. And so as you recall, Lewis and Clark were a team. But as the book says they weren't always a team that one of them was tasked to be the leader, but they chose to actually share that leadership. And as they shared that leadership, they found themselves in Great Falls, what we know as Great Falls, Montana, and at a time where they needed to try to traverse something that they weren't expecting. And so they had to take the canoe and I've seen a replica of that canoe and it was no small canoe out of the water, try to traverse the Great Falls and then continue to go up Missouri River. And as they continue to go up the river, what they found was that the east did not look like, I'm sorry, the west did not look like the topography of the east and that they had to spend some time trying to figure out now what to do because they had a plan and that plan needed to change because the topography and territory changed and they utilized the people that they had in their, their team and added a few to be able to go into territory that was unknown. The topography that they'd never been around food sources and berries and things like that that they'd never seen before to know what to eat. And they utilized the person, a Native American woman and her gifts and abilities to help them traverse something that they knew nothing about. And so the lessons that I think Todd Bolsinger brings out in this particular book really lay very easily on top of our need for change management and change agility and leadership agility. And so that's why we are jumping off into this book today, given the fact that five years later here we are in a place that no one really ever expected in such a quick way. And so I want to pass that on off to you Andy as you can talk a little bit about the kind of things that we need in order to lead change. Thanks Gamy. So, in canoeing the mountains, Bolsinger outlines basically three skill sets, or three competency areas that are crucial to our ability to be a part of leading change. And the first, we're just going to touch on very briefly just a minute or two, and then we'll again dwell a little bit more on the second and the third. So the first, which you see on your screen there is technical competence. Pastors often joke that in times like these that seminary didn't prepare us for this. But technical competence, the kinds of skills that it implies they are the very things that seminary actually did prepare pastors for, preaching and teaching, pastoral care, ordering the life of the church. These kinds of skills and these kinds of behaviors. The book makes an important point that we gain our credibility as leaders by demonstrating competence in these areas. And again, I'm speaking mainly to pastors in this moment, although certainly lay leaders have their own arenas for demonstrating competence within the life of a community. For pastors, we gain our credibility by the way that we care responsibly for the gospel message, which has been entrusted to us the way we care responsibly for people's souls in the congregation and community, and the way that we order the life of the church. So we're not going to dwell at length on technical competence, but it is important to lift up that for all of us as leaders, our ability to be a part of this learning journey with our congregations, our effectiveness in that it hinges on the technical competence that we've shown to date. And in the technical competence that we demonstrate moving forward. And the last little point I just want to lift up about this is just my own thought that for the past two months, I've heard a number of pastors comment that as as you have stepped into the online space in new ways that there's been a lot of grace. Among the folks in your congregations, if things haven't gone just right. You know that's been okay there's a shared understanding that everyone is on a steep learning curve learning lots of new things at a rapid pace. And there's been a lot of grace, but it occurs to me that sometimes soon and maybe we're there, but sometimes soon our ability to be in ministry online will will become a part of the skill set that we're expected to have. The part of the skill set that we are going to be expected to demonstrate competence and it's going to move from off the map to on the map to use the language of the book. And so, it occurs to me that's probably something for all of us to see clearly, and that may guide some of the way that we move forward. Alright, so as I said we just wanted to touch on technical competence. But next I want to shift to the second of the three skill sets or competency areas, and that's relational congruence. I'm going to begin and then Kami is going to follow on with some more thoughts and ideas about relational congruence. And one of the phrases that a mantra almost that comes through in the book is this stay calm, stay connected, and stay on course. It's the middle of those phrases stay connected that relates to relational congruence. Another quotation from the book that I have underlined and highlighted and pasted in different places. This one from Margaret Wheatley, and it says this. It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. It's probably encouraging for us right now, with so many unknowns over the next month or two, the rest of this year. But she says it's possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships to how well we know and trust one another. So this ongoing time of unrest and uncertainty. And even as we emerge from our sheltering in place reality and begin to craft a new normal. It's so critical that we be intentional about staying relationally connected with with our people. So I'll just name the question here but a question I hope that will wrestle with when we move into our breakout rooms is this. How are we being intentional about staying relationally connected us with other individuals within the church, and us with groups within the church the kind of groups where there are healthy relationships that make it possible for us to process. Changes that are happening and wrestle with the implications of those changes and begin to try to prepare for what that means for us. One last note about relational congruence and staying relationally connected is that those relationships must be marked by trust. Trust is essential. Another quotation that I love from the book is from a guy named Jim Osterhaus who's a psychologist and an executive coach. And he says trust is gained like a thermostat and lost like a light switch. The significance of that to me is that trust is something that is built over time. It's built through relational congruence by insistently being the same person in whatever setting or circumstance we're in. It's built by repeatedly doing what we say and practicing what we preach. It's built through our daily actions and practices that express our character and our values against something that we gain over time. I want to as I was reflecting on this in preparation for today. It occurred to me that trust is not built through always having all the answers. It's built through the critical in a time like this. In fact, if we attempt to come across as though we have all the answers that could ironically undermine our trust because the wise ones among us know that there aren't easily found answers these days. So no one expects us to have all the answers and trust isn't built by always performing perfectly by executing everything flawlessly. When I entered a new church as a freshly appointed pastor, I came with a bit of experience to this church. But I was still pretty young and I had it in my mind that since I had had this experience and that experience that as soon as I walked in the door that everyone would be really quick to follow me. Didn't they know where I'd been and what I'd done. But that congregation helped to wake me up to reality pretty quickly and remind me what we what we know and probably what I had just forgotten and that is that my ability to lead in that place would hinge on relationships. The quality of my relationships with the people in that church. And that that would take time and it would take me consistently showing up and being who I had been in other places before I could lead there. So relational congruence is this second skill set, and it's worth all of us reflecting. Especially in these times that are calling us to move and act in different ways and have different kinds of patterns week to week to reflect on our habits and patterns and think about which of those are building trust. And which inadvertently could be eroding trust and to ensure that we're being intentional about deepening our trust in this time. David, you want to take it from there. So here we are as leaders, and we find ourselves in a place where change has been thrust upon us, or that we've decided that in order to fulfill our mission or purpose everything that we need to do in the future. We need to initiate change. And so when that happens, oftentimes what happens to our system is that the persons decide where they think and what they think and feel about the direction where we're going or, or what's happening or how the change is impacting them. So there are six different ways that we could be oftentimes find ourselves in a relationship with people. So there are right before you, that's the six ways allies. So there's other persons who will help you and others, like in the metaphor, climb the mountain. They'll figure out when you get to particularly difficult places, how to help you along the way. They, they're on board all the way and they're going to be your allies are going to walk with you. There are the confidants, these are people who are loyal to you. These are people that you show your vulnerabilities to that can help you along the way they'll support you. They want to help you be successful. Their investment is in you and along the way they will care for you and give you input so that you can succeed. They're also your opponents. And so your opponents it's important to recognize are not your enemies. These are people who are stakeholders with a different perspective. And most of the time these are the people that have the most to lose. So it's good to listen to them to consider their thoughts, but you have to watch out because they're likely to be the ones that don't want change. So you need to ask the question, are the ideas that they're offering me, taking me to the place of being able to fulfill the mission or the goals that are set before me. Folks will debate the ideas, and you can spend time debating the ideas with them with the hope of listening but also bringing them on board. And it's important as something that I think Andy just said to really as the leader to value every single person. And so the tone that you have with them with your opponents is key to hold as someone said in the book Anatomy of Peace to hold that sort of position of peace of being willing to listen and also try to help folks on board because the questions that these opponents ask are important questions that need to be answered. The next one is your senior authorities. These are people who need to know that you're climbing the mountain. They generally want to know your plan. They all have your back. They'll support you and they are people that you that we are to honor. And so those are really key people and making sure that they're on board. And then the next is the casualties. Now, anytime that there is change. There's off. There's going to be casualties. These people are. Well, they have to decide if they're going to follow you, or if they can even follow you. They may not have the ability. They either don't want to or they don't have the capacity to make the trip. These can be painful losses. But what's important is to recognize that there's going to be some casualties and being able to attend to the persons who just can't make the track with you is really important. So, you know, I find it, I've always found it interesting that in our him know, our book of worship, I believe, there is a in the book of worship there's a little liturgy for those who are going to be leaving the church. You know, oftentimes we think of those as as persons who are, you know, moving just to another city or something like that, but, but what if we considered those who can't go alongside of us as those to be blessed. And even if it's just the leader blessing them to do something different. There's closure in that. And in some instances. You know, persons really can think through what it actually means to have somebody willing to love them and bless them in a way that is full of grace. Maybe they'll even find a way to have capacity to not be the casualty that they thought they were going to be. So it's important to remember them as you as we consider change management. The last are the dissenters. It took me a while to really understand the difference between the opponents and the dissenters but I think the clarity that I got in this is that Todd Bolshinger says that these people are the naysayers who are the canaries in the coal mine who help you see how opposition will be formed. They ask very good questions. They're the voice radical ideas. And they often mention the unmentionable. I think the difference between the opponents and the dissenters is that they, they, it's not that they have a lot to lose. They just have other ideas. They see the mountain and they want to go another route. They think their idea is a better way and it truly might be a better way. They ask why are we doing it that way. And it's absolutely important for leaders to consider the why. And so they lift up questions that may absolutely be imperative and helpful for the leader to jump in and engage the dissenters and in seeing if they're really are going the right direction to fulfill the mission that you want to fulfill. So it's important to seek their engagement and as Andy said it's really important to attend to each of these relationships, not to avoid in any matter of those. Any of these relationships because they're all of valued people that need to be a part of moving forward. Now, there's a, I'm just gonna say one last thing and that is that we should all expect sabotage. I'll never forget a conversation that I had with one of the pastors in Metro district who said, Oh my gosh, I read that whole section on expecting sabotage and what sabotage that you have to almost have sabotage moments and survive that or you have to survive a sabotage in order to know that real culture change has happened. And in order to survive that it's important to engage in every part of the relationships that are listed here in the book. Andy. All right, so I think now is the time that we will shift into our first breakout discussion. All right, I think you jump in on adaptive capacity. I do I do. And friends again, well, if there's a desire to return to any of the content related to technical competency or relational congruence will have time for Q&A at the very end and definitely hold some space for that. But yeah, I think we want to move forward to the third of those three skill sets or competency areas. And this one is probably appropriate that it's saved for last when we're talking about change agility. And that's adaptive capacity. So you see the image there and some of the notes related to adaptive capacity. So another one of those mantras that leaps out of the book as you read it is this one says that we should let go learn as we go and keep going, no matter what. It's that middle phrase that is an anchor for this section to learn as we go at its core any kind of adaptive journey, like we're on now is one in which the leader and the people go on a learning journey together. And that through that learning process. It's a holy transformational kind of experience. So if we think about the scriptures and what they tell us about learning and being on a learning process, reminded of one of the stories in the Gospels, it shows up in Luke 18 in particular, where the disciples are trying to fend off the children who want to be in Jesus's presence, but Jesus welcomes them. And then there's this quotation that is familiar I'd imagine to many of us and that is, Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to people like these children. And at least part of what that means I think is that Jesus is lifting up a kind of stance of humility. The book talks about the necessity of having a humble stance of curiosity and awareness and attentiveness to what's happening. That kind of humble stance puts us in a frame in which we can learn. The whole meat of what bolsinger shares about being on this learning journey. That's a part of our adaptive capacity is he outlines an actual three step process for for this learning. I'm going to bring these down as reminded of some workshops that Owen Ross and can the guest and myself were part of leading back last year about new faces new spaces. And in that setting we talked about sort of the creative process of praying, and then preparing and piloting, and then perceiving. Then it continues in a kind of circle where after we perceive then we pray and prepare and pilot again, and again. So bolsinger has a similar kind of process that he offers to us, again to help us maybe stay very intentionally in a learning mode. And this process has three parts. So the first part is observations. And he talks about the importance of looking from the balcony of carving out time to step back and ensure that we're seeing clearly the challenge that we're facing in this moment. Very quickly, he's careful to say that our observations can only come from the balcony that gleaning observations is not a solitary exercise for a leader that as we look from the balcony we also have to listen from the floor, or another analogy he uses is we have to listen from those listen to those who were on the playing field itself. So that would, it just encourages us to be sure that as we're observing what's happening in our communities in our congregations and the lives the people that we're doing community with. It's important that we listen to and learn from a wide range of those voices. So, you know, not only our staff, if we're pastors, not only our confidence and key trusted leaders. But it's important that we listen to people in every facet of our congregation, even our opponents and dissenters as can be lifted up previously. Even those who are on the fringe of our community. And those who are not yet a part of our community. All of those voices can give us invaluable insight into what's happening. And again I want to just emphasize again, it's critical that we take in observations from people outside of our church as well as inside, if we hope to lead through this adaptive journey well. So observations is the first step. Gathering data and insight, and then the second one is interpretations. So this is the step in which we discern from among all of those observations patterns and meaning. Probably critical for us to do that discernment, not alone but with other trusted voices in our congregation. Another way to think about this is that it's the time to try to make sure we're seeing the forest for the trees. We have all of these data points but what does it mean, and what is it implying for us. And then the third step, he calls interventions. So again observations, interpretations, and then interventions. And this is where we begin to experiment. In the book Bolsinger is helpful in lifting up some principles for interventions. He says it's important to start small. Again that word experiment is helpful. We can begin small and even playfully and grow from there. The second principle he offers is that it's important that our interventions are consistent with our church's DNA. These experiments, this is not the moment for us to forward our own personal agenda that has nothing to do with the church's own values and history and sense of calling. Our experiments ought to be consistent with who our church has been and hopefully again build upon it and be that next stage of growth and development for the church. And then last is he says, with regard to interventions that we should always expect resistance. And we've touched on that a bit already. One last thing I'd mentioned about interventions is that it's probably helpful for us to be clear that we resist the desire for these interventions to be a quick fix. When we're in this time of uncertainty, when we're in uncharted waters, all of us leaders included are going to be enticed by the notion that we can find a quick fix a silver bullet that if we just do this one thing, then we'll solve all of our challenges. It's helpful for us to be clear eyed about that and resist that desire. The flip side of that is to resist things dying in committee because we talk about them forever before we ever try. So again, after adequate preparation, it's good to then pilot the start small experiment and see what happens. I think this is this three step process is critical for us. Our phase of experimentation is not over. It didn't end when we figured out how to have online presence and do ministry online. As we emerge from sheltering in place, the world will step back into will be the same world we left. So this learning process continues for us as our church figures out how to thrive in the new normal. And so I hope that we can continue to hold on to that principle of observations, interpretations and interventions. So when we're in that process of learning about what's going on, it's really important to do that through the lens of your mission and in your vision. So I mean, all of us, I think, because we've been around the church for a while had done our vision and mission work. What's the mission statement of our church and we've come up with quite a few over the years in my life. And so I've thought about that. What happens when things seem to change. So I want to just say a couple of things about mission and vision. So when you have an adaptive challenge, it's essential to clarify your mission. And read and look at it really, really closely and reevaluate how your vision and organization will fulfill your mission. So first, it's absolutely imperative to know your mission. What are you seeking to accomplish? And so I think that it's important to develop a very clear focus that will guide that will be your mission that will guide all of your decisions. So have a mission that is big enough and broad enough to connect with a varied context that you want to reach. So I was thinking about this context of canoeing the mountains and their mission was to explore a waterway passage from east to west. And in the midst of that, their vision or their mission had to change. They had to take out that word waterway because they didn't have the Missouri River did not go all the way to the west coast. So their mission changed to explore a passage from east to west. They had to look at that whole mission and clarify it with even greater understanding. So when you're up against a new challenge, how are you going to clarify your mission? And then how are you going to change your vision and organization in order to get you where you want to go? So keep that in mind that same visual of Lewis and Clark trying to get from the east to the west. And as they're making their way, they are trying to fulfill their mission and they find it. They find themselves in the middle of these mountains that they can't traverse via the essential way they thought they were going to. So I really appreciate the question that is brought up from the book. Are you willing to ditch the canoe to move forward to fulfill your mission? So I want to ask these questions. What DNA is essential and needs to be preserved in your mission statements and in your visions? Think about what essential personnel, what essential supplies that Lewis and Clark needed to take when they got out of their canoes and what needed to get from the Rocky Mountains and into the next place that they were going to be. What DNA needed to be discarded? So in their case, a vehicle that had to be discarded a canoe. What are new delivery systems or tools that you might need to put in place or create? What new partnerships might you need to have in order to get you to fulfill your mission? So in the case of canoeing the mountains, they needed to have some persons who were familiar with the native lands. They needed to have persons who had that sort of DNA of being an explorer. And I think in the same way we as a church need to discard some of our old ways of doing things and create in our own DNA partnerships with persons that can help us explore the new ways of being and offering Christ to another. As Andy said, it's really important to take a balcony view or as they might say in that book, to stand on the mountain and survey the land, see what the whole picture looks like and at the same time have those who are living in the land tell us what it can look like when we are engaging in a relationship with this new challenge. So I want to give you just a quick visual of, hopefully I can do this quickly, of something that the cabinet did. I'm going to invite you all to sit around the cabinet table for a minute, something I'm sure all of you wished you could always speak into. So we sat around the cabinet table and we came up with a couple years ago some things that we would consider to be our mission and things that needed to vision wise need to change. So I'm going to give you just a little insight to what we came up with. We said that one of the vision statements that came out of it was this lead people to know love and follow Jesus so they can transform the world with a God whom we believe is full of grace, openness, holiness and love. Then we said, we need to identify old cultural norms that need we need to leave behind so the canoe we need to leave behind. And what's the canoe we need to get into or what's the backpack we need to put on the back of our backs and create for a new culture. So so what's the old culture, what's the new culture that we want to create. And this is from the perspective of our cabinet work, so how we do our work with the churches. So we said, in the old culture, the clergy is the client, the one we were working for. In the new culture, we see the clergy as a resource. In the old culture, we see the congregation as a client, but in the new culture, we see the congregation as a resource. In the old culture, we see leading to improve or improvement work, but in the new culture, leading to create and innovate see the difference improvement work innovation work. In the old culture, either or in the new culture, both and we know we need to be two different two different ways of being the church. In the old culture, we were an attraction model where the focus was going to the church. In the new culture, it's a mission field model where we're going out from the church. In the in the old culture, we, the lady was the consumer, but in the new culture, we want to empower the lady to be ministers, which I think they've already always been. But it's a new focus on really equipping. And then I'm just going to give you a couple more. In the old culture status quo oriented. In the new culture results oriented. In the old culture, we were culturally segregated, but in the new culture, we would, we would like to be culturally diverse. Those are some of the top things that we did in order to clarify how we could move from an old canoe and leave that behind into new ways of being. And I'm going to pass it at the end. These are examples of things that you could do in your own church. When you identify what's the old culture that we've had to the new culture. Awesome. Yeah, thanks, Kami. So the last facet of adaptive capacity builds right on what Kami was talking about because when in a congregation, when we're talking about shifts and culture, developing new culture. That implies change. And change brings loss. And a sense of loss in a congregation is experienced as grief. And so there's a, there's an emotional component to making, leading through change. And it's important that we not ignore or underestimate the emotional challenge that's inherent to adaptive leadership. And so the book I think is very helpful in saying that that emotional challenge is twofold. Part of it is that we as the leader, whether we're clergy or lay, we as a leader must stay calm. We monitor our own emotional responses to the changes that we're living into, even if we're a part of leading them, we still may experience our own emotions around them. I might ask you to think about some of the emotions that you've experienced over the last couple of months as you've been a part of the adaptive work that has been before you. Perhaps you felt at times excited. And other times exhausted. As the leader, you yourself may have been sort of felt exhilarated by the new ways of sharing the gospel and connecting with people. And you may at times have had your own grief to work through. Missing standing in a pulpit in front of a congregation and connecting with people in that way as one example. So it's important for us to be aware of and monitor our own emotions in the midst of these changes. And it's helpful for us to be aware of the triggers that we may have those things that tend to hook us and then invite us to kind of lose our calm and our cool and it's helpful to recognize that that anxiety that maybe we bring to our church can be contagious and calm and cool that we bring to our congregation even online digitally as we're connected can be contagious. So knowing our triggers is helpful. And I think the book is helpful to lift up some common ones. Acceptance is one if we feel as though we are not being accepted that may trigger us to not to lose our cool and not live into our best selves. Competence could be a trigger if we find ourselves in a place where we don't feel particularly on top of things. I'm sure we've all been there the last couple of months. For some of us that could be a trigger that may then kind of invite us to move and act out of fear or anxiety. Control is certainly another one sense of loss of control could trigger us and then invite us to flail about trying to regain that control in ways that are helpful. So, part of the emotional challenge is for us to monitor our own emotions as the leader and stay calm. The other the other piece of it is to monitor and sort of regulate the the heat is sort of the metaphor the heat that our congregation is experiencing. One of the greatest takeaways in canoeing the mountains I think is this metaphor of a crock pot and what that means for our leadership. A crock pot and crock pot cooking, you typically put into a crock pot, a whole mix of chopped or diced vegetables maybe bits of uncooked meat and the base you put it in there and at first everything is hard uncooked. But with time and proper temperature, all the vegetables and the bits of meat and other elements all blend together to form something new and savory. But it takes time and the other the other variable there is the heat. If we turn the heat up too fast on the crock pot then the stuff burns to the bottom and doesn't taste good at all. If there's not enough heat, then then the vegetables and the meat never soften and their flavors don't blend. And so the challenge of leadership is to strike that delicate balance. As we lead in a congregation to have enough heat that change continues to move forward but not so much that people get burned. One of the again quotes in this section says that as leaders, we must disappoint our people at the rate they can absorb. That's, I think really worth repeating that if we're going to be leading through change it's inevitable that we will disappoint our people here and there or at some level. If we're wise will disappoint our people at the rate they can absorb that gives them the space and the time they need to grieve over the things that are changing. So maybe a question to leave you with that we might wrestle with in the breakout room is how are we in our congregations creating space for people to grieve the changes that we're all experiencing in our congregational life together. And moving forward, as we think about reemerging from sheltering in place, how will we create space for our congregation to grieve as we create a new normal in our churches. All right, so we've reflected some on the different facets of adaptive capacity. And so we have time now for some further breakout conversation again our facilitators have some questions to guide us. I think we're all back do you want to wrap this up with a few minutes we've got left. Okay, we just have a couple of minutes but I want you guys to take a look at that graphic that's in front of you. We've been talking to, we talked about technical competence so being able to lead when you're on the map. And that that map could be anything that any, anything you are overseeing and doing it well, relational congruence that had to do with how it is you are in relationship with people and attentive to those relationships, no matter how easy or hard they are. And then adaptive capacity, you know ways to help change change management. And so the center part of that is transmit transformational leadership, which is what happens when we attend to all three of those areas. And so I was going to lift up before you all the fact that the book is an excellent book. We only covered a few things on the book. But you know basic kinds of things but I think it's worth a full read. I did give you the opportunity to have a download of the canoeing the mountains Christian leadership and chartered territory. And some notes that I want to thank Sarah Calvert Reverend Sarah Calvert for putting them together she is from the Virginia conference, and she has a workbook in there that you can do personally and with your leadership, so that you can do some adaptive work, change management work for to assess where you are right now and where you want to go. The last pay pages of the book, a recap of the whole book I'm not going to say speak those to you but on page to 17 and 18 are listed there and I gave that outline to all the lay leaders last few years ago in the Metro district and they took that and worked with their researchers. And I think that's really all I wanted to share around just being able to use those resources, take all those the book and and follow I think a really good workbook. Just ask if there's any questions guys have as we in today's webinar and see if we can help you out so you can put those in the chat, or you can unmute yourself and just ask the question. Maybe I was going to jump in real fast before we moved to Q&A. Owen reminded me and I was planning to do this I'm glad he did that tomorrow, the Center for church development is offering another webinar at 130 on tech talk. The center has gathered some technology and media experts from some of our churches in the conference to share their know how how about hardware software subscription services all the kinds of things that we're learning about so rapidly, and and trying to get up to speed on and so to put that one in your calendar tomorrow 130 another another really helpful webinar coming from the North Texas conference for you. It's actually on Thursday. I was thinking today was Wednesday you're right Thursday thanks man. Groundhog day during COVID-19 for him. Is it Saturday. What day is it. Do you think groundhog the groundhog will like shelter in place. Any questions or comments that you all would like to ask before we move on. Yeah, can we this is Evelyn I was wondering do you have that outline that you provided lay leaders a couple years ago. Is that still around somewhere. I do I have it. I can send it to the list. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I'd like to have it. Yes. Thanks Evelyn. We had a great conversation about finding space for for grieving and I was wondering what may also may have come from some of the other groups. Finding space for grieving. Danielle Kim had a great comment about just being honest Danielle are you still on the call. Yes, I am. You speak to that. Yeah, no I was just talking about how I'm subscribed to different teacher groups and Facebook and they put out very short one page in Instagram sort of a page three in line sort of narrative of how teachers are feeling you know with this and so you know they'll say something like in a classroom being empty and I'm not being able to say goodbye to kids. So, when the Facebook puts out those kinds of those groups put out stuff like that where I relate to, then that's an opportunity for me to share that. And, you know, just personally have the opportunity to process that narrative that I relate to and so I was just suggesting that we might be able to provide a space for our folks to grieve. When we are able to in social media and media platform where we can just, you know, put out narratives that they can relate to and allow them to share and allow them to sort of have that personal moment to process with their community and so that's what I was sharing. Am I am I making sense. I'm hearing blank. So, she was saying saying what they, they miss, you know, I miss being with you, I'm, I miss, you know, and allowing people to to just be in the real, think about the real. Thanks. Any other thoughts and or questions. All right. Well, we thank you all for joining us today and thank the facilitators as well and then just keep, keep on connecting to being great leaders in our conference we appreciate all you're doing. Thanks. Thank you. Good to see everybody. Peace be with you. Thank you. Yeah.