2025 Leaders in Christian Organisations Network
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The Leaders in Christian Organisations Network seeks to equip emerging leaders to direct the continent’s Christian churches and organizations in a way that ensures the greatest impact for God’s Kingdom. This Network seeks to provide practical wisdom, useful leadership insights, and biblically-based solutions to key problem areas, as well as to encourage leaders facing key organisational challenges. This Network also addresses significant issues that new leaders may encounter, from how to deal with their own assumptions of personal integrity and virtue, to topics like strategic planning, vision-casting, time management, and delegation, prioritising organisational objectives, and assessing finances and resource development.
Each day will incorporate mixed modes of learning, combining expert input, working on live leadership issues, working through tools and frameworks that you can take away and apply back home, time for peer learning exchange, and the opportunity to pray together as fellow leaders. We hope this will enable each participant to contribute from the richness of their own experience in leadership, as well as providing space and support to apply learning to the specific leadership challenges and opportunities you face.
Prior preparation will be set for all applicants.
What Network Participants Are Saying
- "Here at ELF I have met lots of good teachers who have become my mentors and guided me through every step of ministry growth. Our youth ministry has expanded in the last few years. We learned to challenge young people to lead others closer to God, to share the Gospel with their works and words."
- Steponas Davidavicius, Youth Director, Lithuania - "I participated in ELF this year for the first time, after 28 years of full time ministry. The leadership training has been fantastic and the worship God-focused. I have connected with many like-minded brothers and sisters. I plan to come back next year, hopefully with my entire leadership team."
- Laszlo Kazar, Director of Word of Life, Hungary - "Being at the European Leadership Forum is a great opportunity to meet people who inspire me, receive information that instructs and informs my work, and to be in an environment that energizes me in so many ways. My perspectives are broadened and my heart is stretched in positive ways. This is a great help to me in the different leadership roles that I serve in in Romania."
- Adiel Bunescu, Pastor, Romania
Applicants should be leading or helping to lead in Christian organisations or churches. They should be seeking practical tools and biblically-based solutions in key problem areas of the leader's role.
Network Leadership
Network Speakers
Andrea Aresca is a management consultant and trainer based in Turin, Italy. He holds a Master’s Degree in Management Engineering and an Executive Master in Digital Transformation. He has been working for 13 years as a manager in a manufacturing company and he now helps companies and non-profit… Read more
Lindsay Brown is a native of Wales. He studied European history at Oxford (MA) and theology at the Free Faculty of Theology at Vaux-sur-Seine, near Paris, under Henri Blocher. Lindsay has worked with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) for the past 45 years in a variety… Read more
Jen Charteris, originally from South Africa, is the executive director of Crosslands, which provides in-context theological training from Foundation to PhD level across the UK, Europe, and beyond. Previously she spent over 25 years working in strategic change, organisational consulting, and… Read more
David Novák (M.Th) is president of the Czech Brethren Church, which is the largest Czech evangelical denomination. He also teaches philosophy, ethics for helping professions, and missiology at Prague Evangelical Seminary. Prior to that, he led a denominational youth ministry for 16 years before… Read more
Network Programme
Sunday, 18 May
Paul encouraged the young Timothy by saying, "if a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work" (1 Tim. 3:1). However, good work does not mean easy work. There are some shadows in the work of ministry (e.g., power, loneliness, conflict, results, and perfectionism). Everyone who leads has a certain amount of power. How do we use it? What are its dangers? Everyone who leads sometimes experiences loneliness and misunderstanding. How do we deal with that? In every team, there will be conflicts. How do we deal with them? Can ministry be measured by visible results? We know that our ministry cannot be imperfect, but this session will address how we might handle these shadows faithfully.
This session will give time for small groups to work through a case study related to common pitfalls of Christian leadership, with time for discussion and questions.
Monday, 19 May
We all have priorities. We know what our most important tasks and projects are. But still, how can we actually spend our time in the best way possible, with all the distractions, requests, and unexpected things we face daily? In this session, we will see that time management is not “only” about time. We will explore the key factors that influence your productivity and see how better practices and more effective tools can help you invest your limited time on what really matters.
This session will give time for small groups to work through a case study related to making your priorities happen, with time for discussion and questions.
Tuesday, 20 May
Can we grow more resilient? The good news is that research shows that we can. The best news is that God provides his people with better means to becoming and remaining resilient than the best wisdom the world can offer. In this session, we'll explore what resilience is, discover what contributes to resilience, and then set our understanding of all this within God's story of redemption. We'll walk through practical exercises that will help you recognise and practice ways of developing greater resilience, applying rich biblical truths about God and humanity and the world as we do so. The aim is to help each of us apply these truths both to ourselves and to the people and teams we lead.
This session will give time for small groups to work through a case study related to resilience, with time for discussion and questions.
Wednesday, 21 May
How can leaders persevere for the long haul? What principles and practices must leaders hold onto even as they adapt to significant change in our world? What is the secret to developing others and raising up a new generation of leaders to take your place? We don’t all have to make the same mistakes! Drawing from Lindsay's 50 years of leadership experience, this session will offer practical wisdom on navigating change and the many challenges common to Christian leadership all the while maintaining a strong biblical foundation.
This session will give time for small groups to work through a case study related to leadership and longevity, with time for discussion and questions.