Fanshawe College is one of the largest colleges in Ontario, with satellite campuses in towns surrounding London and a campus in Downtown London, all of this in addition to the large main campus on Oxford Street in the east end. It is a major player in education in London and frankly, all of South Western Ontario. It receives millions in funding from the Provincial Government and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the local economy.

Fanshawe was the latest stop for Leadership London and the team of leaders who are training in the TOL methodology. Your Rogue Preacher and the rest of the team descended on Fanshawe College for a meeting with the President of the college, Peter Devlin to discuss leadership, what qualities make for a good leader and how to nurture those qualities. We toured the campus, got a behind the scenes look at the functioning of the college and were presented with a problem that the team would work through and present a solution, or possible solutions to Fanshawe College.

Without getting into specifics of the problem, it was very interesting for me to note that a college as large as Fanshawe, with a robust marketing team and state of the art technology still, like any other institution, had problems on how to isolate a specific demographic and attract the aforementioned demographic.

This perennial problem of Fanshawe reminded me of the church and the church’s perennial problem of attracting, retaining and connecting with millennials. The parallels were striking to say the least. And as the team worked through the OODA loop and processed the problem, possible solutions slowly began to crystalize. It was refreshing to see and experience.

I began to wonder, what could a team of leaders accomplish in the Diocese or the greater church if they were giving an opportunity to help shift the culture and establish new patterns. I began to wonder how the church can adapt to the culture around us and how the culture around us could adapt to us? I began to wonder what the vision of the future may be?

In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men dream dreams. Acts 2:17