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Understand and communicate with others more effectively.
Ministry revolves around relationships. But people are complex and full of emotions. Even a healthy church and pastoral staff regularly encounter conflict, suffering, and relational struggles. Handling sensitive conversations requires self-knowledge and respect for others.
Ministry revolves around relationships. But people are complex and full of emotions. Even a healthy church and pastoral staff regularly encounter conflict, suffering, and relational struggles. Handling sensitive conversations requires self-knowledge and respect for others.
Effective leaders can observe and identify emotions in themselves and in the people they encounter. And they know how to manage their emotional responses while navigating the feelings of others.
Why this course?
This course offers tools to help you discuss difficult topics with grace and respect by knowing yourself more fully. The EQ skills covered in this course give insight into your motivations, presuppositions, and fears. They also show you how to better regulate your impulses and engage with others from a place of spiritual maturity.
Know Yourself
Healthy and effective leaders understand their emotions and motivations. Develop strong EQ skills to help identify emotional tendencies that impact how you approach the people you lead.
Regulate Yourself
Spiritually and emotionally mature leaders can regulate their responses to others during tense situations. Discover strategies to manage your emotions in real time during difficult interactions.
Engage Others Effectively
Leaders with a good EQ can approach stressful conversations in a positive manner. Understand communication strategies that facilitate healthy relationships with both your team and your congregation.
At the end of this course, you will...
Understand the four core competencies of emotional intelligence.
Gain the skills to help you “read the room” accurately.
Be better equipped to say and do the right things at the right time in the right way with the right heart.
Included in this course:
Six 14-minute teaching videos
with Carolyn Taketa.
Discussion questions
to lead team conversations or reflect on your own.
19 practical exercises
to apply the principles in your church.
Additional resources
to help you keep learning between sessions.
As leaders, we want to foster healthy churches that become life-giving communities steeped in the love and truth of the gospel. Part of our challenge to growing and maintaining a healthy church culture is understanding and developing the emotional intelligence (EQ) of our leadership team. What is emotional intelligence, and why is it a critical skill to cultivate?
Emotions are a gift from God. They’re reactions to our world that reveal our true thoughts, fears, and hopes in a given situation. Self-awareness is the first skill we must develop and strengthen so we learn to manage our emotions rather than letting our emotions manage us. The better we know ourselves, the more effective we become in communication, relationships, and leadership.
To behave in ways that align with our values, we must be deliberate in how we respond to challenging situations. Carolyn Taketa offers us five steps, using the acronym PAUSE, to help us practice good self-management and self-regulation.
Our motivations—knowing our “why” for ministry and life—drive our passions and give us a sense of purpose. To be healthy and effective, our reasons for leading and doing ministry matter as much as our abilities. Carolyn encourages us to be compassionate with ourselves, resting to strengthen our bodies and souls so we remain fit for the work God has given us.
Growing our EQ skills involves a growing perception of our inner lives and of those around us. We can learn to accurately and graciously engage with those under our authority or in our care. Developing our EQ skill of social awareness will enable us to lead with authenticity and wisdom.
Relationship management is, in Carolyn’s words, “all about saying and doing the right things at the right time in the right way with the right heart.” This session explores our emotional reactions to stress and how to manage them during difficult conversations. Discover strategies for engaging others, learning to meet them where they are in a spirit of humility and curiosity.
Carolyn Taketa
Carolyn Taketa is a certified leadership coach and ministry consultant with 30+ years of experience as a pastor, executive leader, and attorney. She works with leaders on topics related to organizational leadership, effective communications, and women in ministry. Her passion is to help leaders thrive in their roles and foster healthy team cultures.
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FAQ
This course is included in your RightNow Pastors+ subscription. Not a subscriber? Click here for more information.
You can use this course on your own or with other leaders at your church. The written curriculum is geared toward group discussion, but it can also be used individually.
In this six-session course, leadership development coach and consultant Carolyn Taketa offers ministry leaders practical tips for developing strong emotional intelligence skills.
Yes, this course is included in a RightNow Pastors+ subscription. Click here for more information.
Plan for an hour to an hour and a half to go through each session, especially if you’re going through the content in a group. The videos in this course range from nine to fifteen minutes, and the discussion questions and activities will likely take up the rest of your meeting time.
This course is six sessions long. Feel free to cover the sessions in increments that make the most sense for you and your leadership team. For some, it might work best to go through one session a week; for others, it might be better to cover one session a month. We do not recommend doubling up on sessions.
In its 40-year history, Barna Group has conducted more than two million interviews over the course of thousands of studies and has become a go-to source for insights about faith and culture, leadership and vocation, and generations. Barna Group has worked with thousands of businesses, nonprofit organizations and churches across the U.S. and around the world.
Barna is an independent, privately held, nonpartisan organization based in Dallas, Texas, with offices in Nashville, Tennessee; Ventura, California; and Atlanta, Georgia.
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