Flexible Leadership in a Complex World

When I stepped out into my backyard, I felt like I was in a jungle. While away from home on ministry trips, the unwanted twigs that I cut back last year had grown into young trees. The poison ivy that I fought last season reemerged. I had work to do! 

Five hours into this household chore, I found myself on the floor of my living room. Overheated and close to passing out, I was experiencing the consequences of a lesson that I still have not learned — complex problems do not have quick solutions. I was facing my limitations, and my backyard jungle was winning.

Our work is like this: The easy challenges have been overcome. What remains are persistent Missional Gaps that are hard to reach. Our organizational complexities tempt us to work in silos rather than do the hard work of interdependence that leads to lasting fruit. Resources seem scarce. Then, there are current realities that constantly shift society in ways that make last year’s plans irrelevant. 

Before you crawl under the covers of your bed with discouragement, remember that the mission is God’s. Every day I pray Psalm 95 back to the Lord. One of the lines says of God, “In his hands are the caverns of the earth.” What a beautiful picture to meditate upon! That means that the deepest, darkest, scariest things I face fit easily in the palm of God’s hand. They are not overwhelming to Him. He holds me securely while He invites me to trust Him with the challenges of His Great Commission. 

If the mission were easy, we would not need to trust Him. If we could accomplish it on our own, it would not be big enough or great enough to bring glory to God. We would miss out on the joy of joining together with Him and the body of Christ to call others to the greatness of our God. 

We experienced this kind of flexibility and interdependence back in 2020 when COVID hit and brought the world to a standstill. God used this pandemic to push us out of our comfort zones to trust Him in new ways. Even though many of us were confined to shelter at home, our reach and impact grew as we learned new digital approaches to the mission. Everyone grew their digital skills as a result. New platforms and approaches were used to reach people online with the love of Jesus. 

What challenges and limitations are you facing today that require flexibility and innovation? Whose help do you need to get the job done? How can you exercise flexibility and faith with new approaches to accomplish your part of the mission?

Together with you,
Cheryl

During a Global Digital Strategies meeting a few years ago, we were told that we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. The challenge we face as leaders is to navigate this changing sea of trends, take advantage of available resources and today's technology to go where people are, and give them the opportunity to know Jesus.

The following year, we faced a complex time, a global pandemic that forced us to be flexible and quickly adapt as a church to the lockdown situation. How could we evangelize and disciple? Technology was key to a strategic start, and God had been preparing many of us to continue the mission. There was a lot of interdependence and collaboration as a network.

We carried out several initiatives to help others adapt to the digital world. One was at the Digital School of Leadership, where members from three Latin American countries worked on a manual to develop digital volunteers in eight weeks, a valuable resource for a team of volunteers in Venezuela.

The Mentor Center has helped our team of mentors connect with people, listen to them, and guide them in getting to know Jesus better. I will always be grateful to Héctor for his messages about how he grew in his faith during lockdown. He was looking for spiritual help. We exchanged messages and used resources from Starting with Jesus on the app to grow; months later, he received Christ and was baptized. Today, he is serving in a church in Argentina. 

A woman used MissionHub to connect with a friend who needed comfort, and they talked for the first time in years. The Student-led Movement, in collaboration with volunteers from various countries, compiled resources and developed a platform to equip college students to form spiritual movements and get training from mentors. We have used apps like GodTools and adapted social media content to present the message of Jesus in different contexts and mobilize digital missionaries through the Indigitous community. 

These are some examples of how, to connect with people rather than reinvent the wheel, we use existing resources to be more agile as a team, develop other areas, and focus on what really matters: loving God and loving people. 

Studying Nehemiah helped me see how his leadership modeled how to leverage existing resources and adapt to different situations, involve others to multiply the effort, listen to the team, and work without compromising the clear call God gave him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. God has given us a clear calling: "go and make disciples" (Matthew 28). We go where the people are. 

In these years of leading in different roles, I have learned that plans do not always work out exactly as I write them. Leaders need to be flexible. That doesn't mean saying yes to every change or giving up on continuing toward the proposed goal. It means discerning, with the help of the Holy Spirit, how to take advantage of every resource to build community and bring the gospel to new people, places, and spaces.

When the political situation in my country got worse, my family had to leave our nation, community, and the place where we’d seen a significant ministry impact. Suddenly, my wife and I found ourselves in Thailand, moving, praying, and starting the ministry in a new place. In our new home, we faced new people, a new language, a new community, and new food. Almost everything had changed, but our calling remained.

We arrived in Thailand in April 2024, and I was assigned to lead a team of youth staff who had fled our home country. God is faithful, and He has been with me in this assignment while I facilitated a new batch of New Staff Training, led on two campuses, and served in Digital Strategies. God has also shown us fruitfulness after one year in Thailand.

Through online and face-to-face efforts, we shared the gospel widely. Nearly 12,000 people were exposed to the gospel digitally, along with 460 people in person. Those exposures have led to more than 4,000 online gospel presentations and 460 in-person. We began our in-person fellowship with just eight people, but God has brought 97 different people to join us over the past 15 months. Three of them have been baptized.

In July 2025, I became the Digital Strategies Leader for my home country. I am excited for the great things God has planned for us as I serve as a DS leader. My DS team consists of my wife and me in Thailand and two remaining staff members in my home country. But God is gracious. One of the people we baptized last year has joined us as a volunteer. He’s working with two other volunteers, one in Thailand and one in our home country. 

Leading in Thailand has required great flexibility. In addition to changing countries, visa challenges, community and environmental changes, a higher cost of living, and cultural differences, my wife and I became first-time parents. We’ve also had to balance our individual time with God, the family, and the ministry.

Starting again in Thailand, we must build trust with new people, understand a new cultural landscape, navigate visa issues and family life changes, and raise support to cover living and ministry expenses. At the same time, I have to keep my eyes on our digital strategy. How do we continue to reach people whose lives are scattered, disrupted, and uncertain?

In leading Digital Strategies, we collaborate with people willing and available to join our calling. We work with people throughout SESA, Canada, and the United States. One of my most important lessons is that flexibility does not mean giving up structure or calling. It means being rooted in the mission, but open to how it might look in different seasons.

Above all, it's vital to trust God and keep walking with the Lord. Though one door is closed, God is opening the other door. Despite having challenges, God has been faithful in our move to a new country and starting the ministry in a new place and a new season of life.