Ten Paradigm Shifts Toward Community Transformation
A
small cloud is on the horizon. The
winds of change are beginning to gather strength and with certainty a storm is
coming…change is coming. All over our
nation there is a quiet movement of the Spirit of God that is causing believers
to re-examine how they “do church.”
Churches around our nation are throwing out the old measures of
success. It’s no longer merely about size,
seeker sensitivity, spiritual gifts, church health, nor the number of small groups. It’s about making a significant and
sustainable difference in the lives of people around us—in our communities and
in our cities. There is a growing
awareness that we cannot continue to do the same old things and expect a
different result. If we want to be the
salt and light we as the church were created to be we have to do something
different…we have to be something different!
Community transformation is not found in programs, strategies, campaigns
or tactics. For most of us it will take
nothing less than a shift of seismic proportions in what the church is to be in
the 3rd millennium. A
paradigm is a model consisting of shared assumptions regarding what works or
what is true. A paradigm shift is that
“aha!” moment when one sees things in such a new light that one can never go
back to the old ways again. Each
paradigm shift takes us from model of thinking that we must discard to a new
model that we must embrace. A new
paradigm is the new wineskins that will be needed to hold the new assumptions
about what is true. To maximize our
impact on our communities--urban, suburban or rural, we need changes in at
least ten of our paradigms of how we currently view church.
1) From building walls to building
bridges. “You are the salt of the earth…You are
the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13,14).
The first paradigm shift pertains to where we, as the church, see
ourselves in relation to our communities.
Will we remain outside of the community inviting people in or will we go
to our communities, seeking to be a transforming agent? The church is called to
be separate in lifestyle but never called to be isolated from the people it
seeks to influence. For many years founding pastor, Robert Lewis, of Fellowship
Bible Church (FBC) in Little Rock was content to be growing a successful
suburban mega church. By his admission,
FBC was a “success church.” Success churches seek to grow by having attractive
programs and offerings that people can come to and benefit from. But Robert grew increasingly dissatisfied
with the impact FBC was having on the community. He made an appointment with the mayor of Little Rock and asked
one question, “How can we help you?”
FBC challenged themselves with the question, “What can we do that would
cause people to marvel and say, ‘God is at work in a wonderful way for no one
could do these things unless God were with them?”’ That one question was the
first step in becoming what Lewis calls a “bridge-building church.” For the past four years, they have joined
with 100 other churches and over 5,000 volunteers in the Little Rock area and
served their communities by building parks and playgrounds and refurbishing
nearly 50 schools. They have renovated
homes and provided school uniforms and winter coats for hundreds of
children. They have donated hundreds of
pints of blood to the Red Cross and have taught “life skill” classes (marriage,
finances, wellness, aging, etc) in banks and other public forums to over 5,000
people. They have let their light shine in such a way that Jesus Christ is made
real to the community. Once a church
makes this mental shift regarding how it lives in its community, it is only
limited by its creativity in how it can serve its community and be the salt and
light it was meant to be. It makes the
transition from providing ministry programs for the community to forever
changing its relationship to a community.
2) From measuring attendance to
measuring impact. “The kingdom of heaven is
like yeast...mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the
dough” (Matthew 13:33). In a
post-modern world most people are neither impressed with the size of a church
or its commitment to “truth.” Yet from
the cover of TIME magazine to the front page of the Wall Street Journal,
transformational community-centered ministries are grabbing the attention of
the American people. Perhaps, in this
century, the greatest apologetic for the reality of Jesus Christ living in a
community will be observational more than propositional. To have a faith that can be observed is to
be living out the truths we want others to grasp and the life of the Savior we
want them to know. When Jesus chose one
passage to describe his mission and ministry, he picked up the scroll of Isaiah
and read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to
proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the
prisoners…to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who
grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the
oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit
of despair…” The way he “preached” best was by holistically combining proclaiming
with comforting and providing. This is how Jesus did ministry. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling
among us” (John 1:14)
When
Tillie Burgin started Mission Arlington, her mission was simple—take the church
to the people who were not going to church—“to hang out and hover around John
3:16.” As she ventured out to meet and
minister to her neighbors, she was immediately challenged by Jehovah’s
Witnesses who told her, “You’re invading our territory. Get back into your church building where you
belong.” Today Mission Arlington is a
house church movement of nearly 250 community house churches (and nearly 4,000
in attendance) serving over 10,000 people a week in the Arlington community
with food, furniture, medical and dental care, school transportation, child and
adult day care, counseling, etc. What
can Jesus do for a community? The
people of Arlington know. Every year
hundreds of people come to Christ through this transformational ministry. Lives are being touched. Lives are being changed. The church should and can make a huge
difference in a community.
In
Houston, Windsor Village UMC has created over 500 construction jobs and 300
regular jobs through its “Power Center.” The Power Center serves over
9,000 families a month. Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin of Potter’s House Christian
Fellowship in Jacksonville is transforming his community life by life through
service (innovative business and job creation, jail ministry, Christian
academy, etc.) to his community. In
1999 he was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” (as a pastor!) by Florida State
University. He has identified one test
of the relevance of the church—“Would the community weep if your church were to
pull out of the city? Would anybody notice
if you left?” The question, “How big is
your church?” should be replaced with “How big is the impact you are having on
your community?” Every other measure is
interesting but not relevant. Let’s refuse to be impressed by numbers
alone. Bishop McLaughlin emphatically
states, “If you are not making an impact outside of your four walls,
then you are not making an impact at all.”
There are many ways to engage the community and make an impact. The only “bad” way to engage the community
in service is not to engage at all!
3) From encouraging the saints to attend
the service to equipping the saints for works of service. “It is (God) who gave some to be…pastors and teachers, to
prepare God’s people for works of service…” (Ephesians 5:11,12) In the typical church, lay people are asked
to serve in five or six capacities:
·
Teach
a Sunday School class
·
Lead
a home Bible study or small group
·
Sing
in the choir
·
Be
an usher or greeter
·
Serve
on a board or committee
And
pastors lament that only about 20% of their members are “active.” Could it be that the service opportunities
are not broad enough to engage the energies and passions of people in the
church? Robert Lewis noted that when
people entered his church they were excited for about 4-5 years. How could they not be excited? Fellowship Bible is a teaching church and
Robert is an incredible teacher. But he
observes that after around five years, people get bored with church if they are
not involved in ministering to others.
It was not until the church began to serve their community did members
find their serving niche and continue in their growth. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church
in New York City writes that the process of mobilizing members into ministers
“starts by articulating clearly and regularly a theology of ‘every-member ministry’…From
the pulpit, in the classes, by word of mouth, it must be communicated that
every layperson is a minister and that ministry is finding needs and meeting
them in the goal of the spread of the kingship of Christ.”
Churches
like Cincinnati’s Vineyard have also found that it is easier and more effective
to recruit existing small groups to engage in ministry and service projects
than it is to motivate, administer spiritual gift tests and recruit individuals
to serve in a ministry. You can serve
in most any ministry with your friends.
4) From “serve us” to service—from inward to outward
focus. “For even the Son of Man did
not come to be served, but to serve and to give…” (Mark 10:45). Several years ago Chuck Colson made the
observation that when the Communists took over Russian in 1917, they did not
make Christianity illegal. Their
constitution, in fact, did guarantee freedom of religion. But what they did make illegal was for the
church to do any “good works.” No
longer could the church fulfill its historic role in feeding the hungry, welcoming
the stranger, housing the orphan, educating children or caring for the
sick. What was the result? 70 years later, the church was totally
irrelevant to the communities in which it dwelt. What Lenin did by diabolic design, most churches have done by
default. But the result is
identical. Church is irrelevant to most
people.
Marion
Patillo is the executive director of a ministry in Dallas called
Metro-link. As the name suggests,
Metro-link serves as a “conduit” between volunteers from some 40 churches and
27 city blocks in South Dallas. Marion
observes that when Metro-link began, there were 955 churches in South Dallas
yet the area was rife with crime, alcoholism, drug addiction and prostitution. Why?
It was certainly not from the lack of churches! The problem centers on the fact that most
churches had not been serving this community.
It is observations like this that caused Charles Chaney, former head of
Southern Baptist Home Mission Board to remark, “America will not be won to
Christ by existing churches, even if they should suddenly become vibrantly and
evangelistically alive. Nor will the US
be won to Christ by establishing more churches like the vast majority of those
we now have.” The power of the church
is not merely in the number of churches but the focus of those churches.
Mary
Francis Boley, is a prominent leader of women’s ministry in her Atlanta
church. Hundreds of women in her church
would gather each week around coffee, muffins and an open Bible. But the ministry took a radical step forward
when Mary Francis decided that no Bible studies could meet unless they included
a component of community service. So
they scoured Atlanta for the women in the “highways and hedges” who nobody else
was reaching. They identified cashiers,
food service employees, hairdressers, single moms, strippers and
prostitutes. Mary Francis calls her
ministry, “Wellspring of Living Water.” Her purpose is to “save the women in
Atlanta”—and that begins with the women who are in the pews of the church every
Sunday. By ministering to “the least of
these” they invite the presence of Jesus into their ministry (Matthew
25:31-46). Lives are being touched and
changed.
Erwin
McManus of Mosaic Church in East Los Angeles says that the single biggest
factor in his church retaining people is not personal follow-up or joining a
small group; it is being involved from the very beginning in service to others
in the community. When members have
told him that they want the church to meet their needs his reply is “You ARE
the church and together we are called to meet the needs of the world.” Over 3,000 members agree. We grow and are healed as we serve
others. Maybe this is what Isaiah
(58:6-8) had in mind when he penned God’s words to his people: “Is this not the kind of fasting I have
chosen: To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to
set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor
wanderer with shelter…? Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your
healing will quickly appear.”
What if we settled for nothing less than 100% of our church members
engaged at some level in meaningful ministry to the community? People (or small groups) could choose their
field and level of engagement (from once a week to once a year), but
non-involvement would not be an option.
5) From duplication of human services
and ministries to partnering with existing services and ministries. “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for
their work” (Ecclesiastes 4:9).
Nearly every community has a number of human service agencies that are
morally positive and spiritually neutral that are doing their best to meet the
needs of the underserved and under-resourced people of the community. Such agencies include the local food bank,
homeless shelter, emergency family housing, and safe houses for abused women
etc. Equally true there are church and parachurch ministries that are effective
in ministering to specific target audiences (business community, youth, college
students, etc). Rather than starting a
new ministry, why not form partnerships with existing groups as “partner
ministries” of a local congregation?
Chances are that people from your congregation are already serving in
these organizations. Why not use the
current community energy to create synergy?
The Bible is replete with examples of how God used secular people in
partnership with his people to fulfill his purposes. Think of Joseph and
Pharaoh, Nehemiah and Artaxerxes, and Esther and King Ahusuerus. Instead of each congregation having its own
food pantry, why not partner with the local community food bank? When needy people request food, congregations
could refer these folks to their “partner ministry.” In our community Big Brothers has 200 boys on a list waiting for
an older mentor yet how many churches do you know that are saying, “One of
these days we’d like to begin a youth mentoring program.” Why not form a partnership with Big
Brothers? Let Big Brothers shoulder the cost and liability for screening
applicants. Pioneering churches like
Bear Valley Church in Denver and Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas
have done a great job of partnering with what already exists. There is no reason to form a duplicate ministry
if the service or ministry already exists and is effective in accomplishing its
mission. Imagine how great it would be
if your church bulletin included not only the men’s and women’s Bible study
times but also a list of 20-30 “Community Partner Ministries” as well. Maybe we can effectively love our city with
the love of Jesus Christ through agencies and mechanisms that already
exist! Most human service agencies need
what the church could readily supply--caring volunteers, financial support and
even facilities. We form partnerships
not around theology but around our common concern for the city.
6) From fellowship to functional unity. There is a strong case to suggest that there is really only one
church in a city or community (made up of all believers) that meets in several
congregations around the city. In
Philippians 2:2 Paul implored, “…make my joy complete by being of the same
mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”
Only unity of purpose around the
vision of a transformed community is strong enough to unite pastors and
churches of different denominations.
Jack Dennison of CitiReach writes, “While solid relationships form the
basis for unity, we can’t stop there.
My observation in city after city is that oftentimes unity becomes an
end in itself. So we see repetitive
efforts to demonstrate our unity through citywide worship events, prayer
vigils…and other similar events. These
activities…are wonderful symbols of our unity but they rarely produce real substance. They make us feel good and sometimes result
in great newspaper coverage, but the cities remain unchanged.” Uniting the church around a common goal
is preferable to trying to unite the church around a cooperative project. We align ourselves “in unity to pursue the
same goals for our community while each participant determines the part it
should play.” Functional unity does not
exclude cooperative efforts but functional unity also implies that each church
can act with a degree of sanctified independence, not waiting for permission
from others to serve the community, as long as it is working toward the agreed
upon vision of a healthy, transformed community. Cities like Fresno, Houston,
Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Little Rock, New York City and several others are
being changed because the church is coming together around a common vision for
what the city can become through significant ministry and service.
7) From condemning the city to blessing
the city and praying for it. Jeremiah 29 begins by saying; “This
is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem…to
those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.” What follows are instructions on how to live
as aliens in a foreign land. Listen to
his admonition: Seek the peace and
prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it
prospers, you too will prosper” (v. 7)
For
too long we as the church have positioned ourselves as adversaries to our
communities. The monolithic church has
stood from afar and lobbed in pontific salvos condemning the city and those who
are trying to serve it. Maybe it is
time we began blessing the city by blessing those who have given themselves to
the city! Pastors in our community have
begun inviting city officials and influencers to their monthly lunches. The Mayor, the Chief of Police, District
Attorney, editor of the newspaper, the university president, and others have
spoken to this ministerial alliance.
After these guests address the gathering they are prayed over and the
ministers thank God for these folks and ask Him to bless these city servants (1
Timothy 2:1-4). Anyone can curse the
city but pastors are in a unique position to really “bless” a city and her
people. Each year the church in Little
Rock has honored a different group of servants—the police, firefighters,
schoolteachers, etc at their annual “Share Fest.” This past year Pastor Adam Hamilton of the United Methodist
Church of the Resurrection (COR) passed out the names of every teacher,
administrator and employee of the Kansas City School District—one for every one
of the 5,700 people in attendance. Each
person was asked to pray regularly for that person and send a card of
encouragement and appreciation. The
response was overwhelming! From that
one strategic blessing scores and scores of COR members are now volunteering
and tutoring the children of Kansas City…and are transforming the city. Perhaps the next great reconciliation
movement will be between the church and the community.
We
not only need to bless our communities but we need to pray for them as
well. The extent that we will impact
our communities will be proportionate to how effectively each influential
segment of our community (educators, business, law enforcement, arts, civic
leaders, human service agencies, etc.) are being prayed for. 230 congregations in Jacksonville are
praying daily for every one of the police force through their “Adopt-a-Cop”
ministry. Twice a year in Little Rock
over a thousand people come together to intercede on behalf of the city. In Houston, Doug Stringer of Turning Point
Ministries (“Somebody Cares Houston”) writes that over 75% of Houston’s 2,700
square miles are now covered by daily prayer by the church in Houston. It’s hard to be adversaries with those you
pray God’s blessings on. All over our
nation, through organized efforts like Concerts of Prayer and Mission America’s
Lighthouses of Prayer movement, walls are coming down. Individuals and communities are being prayed
for. The church is being reconciled to
the community.
8) From being a minister in a
congregation to being a minister in a parish. “As
Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it…” (Luke
19:41). A congregation is made up of
people who attend a local church from a community. The minister typically feels that this congregation is his flock
whom he must baptize, marry and bury.
They consume his time and energy.
Being in a parish is different.
A parish differs from a congregation in that it is a geographical scope
of concern and responsibility. A congregation is a subset of a parish. So what difference does that make? Being in a parish gives one the God-given
right to minister to anyone in the community, whether they are part of one’s
congregation or not. Urban Theologian,
Ray Bakke, illuminates this point by writing that every minister has two
functions; 1) to be pastor to the members and 2) chaplain to the
community. Rich is a pastor of a small
church in our city. His congregation is
70 but his parish is over 90,000! Rich
sits comfortably serving between the human service community and the faith
community. Rich’s office is the local
coffee shop. His tools are his cell
phone and his laptop. Rich is the
person God has used to connect our community leaders to our monthly ministerial
alliance meetings. His days are often
filled with walking through our city and interceding for it. Isaiah 61 describes the reward of those who
“rebuild…restore… (and) renew” the city.
It is the city who bestows on them their titles--“And you will be
called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isaiah
61:6)
9) From anecdote and speculation to
valid information. Two pieces of information
changed the course of Nehemiah’s life that resulted in the transformation of a
community. In Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah
learned that the walls and gates of Jerusalem were broken down and her people
were in great distress. These two
pieces of accurate information were catalytic to Nehemiah’s prayers and plans to
restore a broken wall and a broken people.
His burden to transform the city came from accurate information. We too need correct information about the
real needs of our community as well as the resources we have to meet these
needs. Do we know the demographic
information of our community? Do we
know the number of churches? Do we know
the spiritual history of our community?
Ray Bakke writes that in assessing community needs we need to identify
the people in need (poor, disadvantaged, children, elderly, single parents,
disabled, prisoners, sick, aliens, etc) along with the type of needs they have
(physical, spiritual / moral, social, emotional or cognitive). Most information is readily available
through local human service agencies and the census bureau.
In
1994, 21 year-old Pastor Matthew Barnett began the Los Angeles “Dream Center”
by walking around his neighborhood looking for unmet needs. Today the Dream Center—“the church that
never sleeps” has adopted 50 city blocks (2,100 homes!) that it serves with 200
volunteer staff. Its Franciscan
Hospital campus houses 400 people in its rehab program and feeds more than
25,000 people a week. They have a
mobile medical unit and dozens of effective ministries that are finding needs
and meeting them. Scores of churches
around our country have adopted the Dream Center strategy as a means of
touching the lives of people around them.
In
our town, the pastors realized that they knew very little about the other
agencies that were serving our community.
They decided to organize a one day “Magic Bus Tour” to meet with the
directors of these agencies, to find out what they did and what help they
needed. They visited the local shelter,
the food bank, a day-care facility, a health clinic, and a home for runaway
youth, the AIDS project, etc—a total of eight agencies. It was the beginning of bridge-building
relationships between the faith community and the community where new openness,
healing and friendships have begun. Our
pastors are now ministering to AIDS patients and utilizing their churches for
overflow nights in partnership with the homeless shelter.
10) From teacher to learner. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to
speak…” (James
1:19). It is interesting to note that
for the historic African-American churches, the concept of holistic ministry is
not a new concept. They have never
suffered from trying to split effective evangelism from social justice or
meeting the needs of those around them.
It’s how they’ve always done church.
The effective churches see the community as one that is full of assets
more than full of problems. Churches in
New York City like Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Allen AME, Bethel Gospel
Assembly to those in Los Angeles like First AME, Faithful Central Bible Church
and West Angeles COGIC have led the way in transforming and preserving their
communities. John DiIulio, former
Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,
sites a study of over 400 of the roughly 2,000 community-serving congregations
in Philadelphia:
--Over 90 percent of urban congregations provide social services, from
preschools to prison ministries, from food pantries to health clinics, from
literacy programs to day-care centers, etc.
--The replacement value of their services in Philadelphia alone is a very
conservatively estimated quarter-billion dollars a year.
Suburban congregations have much to learn from these innovative leaders and
ministries.
Where
do we go from here? From Isaiah 65:17-25 Ray Bakke
outlines six characteristics of a healthy community from the heart of God:
Public celebration and happiness (18, 19), public health for children and the
aged (20), housing for all (21), food for all (22), family support systems (23)
and absence of violence (25). This list
outlines our potential marching orders.
The Spirit of God is at work.
There is a good chance that the next great movement of God will involve
putting the church back into community where it can be the leaven, salt and
light God designed the church to be.
Will we join God in this transforming work? For the sake of the gospel, the church and our communities, in
faith… let’s move forward!
Web
Resources. To learn more about these and other
transforming ministries you can go to the following websites:
Allen
AME—www.allencathedral.org
Bear
Valley Church—www.bvchurch.org
Bethel
Gospel Assembly—www.bethelgospelassembly.org
Church
of the Resurrection—www.cor.org
CitiReach
International—www.citireach.org
Community
Church of Joy of Glendale, AZ—www.joyonline.org
Concord
Baptist Church of Christ—www.concordcity.org
Dream
Center—www.dreamcenter.org
Fellowship
Bible Church—www.fbclr.com
First
AME—www.famechurch.org
First
Baptist Church of Richmond—www.fbcrichmond.org
First
Baptist Church of Leesburg—www.fbcleesburg.org
First
Presbyterian Church of Orlando—www.fpco.org
Fresno
Leadership Foundation—www.onebyoneleadership.com
Ginghamsburg
UMC—www.ginghamsburg.org/ministry/mission
Harambee—www.harambee.org,
www.urbanonramps.org
Highland
Park Presbyterian Church—www.hppc.org
Hope
Presbyterian Church of Memphis—www.hopepres.org
International
Renewal Ministries—www.multnomah.edu
King
of Glory Lutheran Church—www.kingofglory.com
Mariner’s
Church—www.marinerschurch.org/lighthouse
Metro
Link—www.metro-link.org
Mission
America / Lighthouse—www.missionamerica.org
Mission
Arlington—www.missionarlington.org
Mission
Year (Bart Campolo)—www.missionyear.org
Mosaic
Church—www.mosaic.org
Oak
Cliff Bible Fellowship Church—www.ocbfchurch.org
Potter’s
House Christian Fellowship—www.potters-house.org
Ray
Bakke, City Voices—www.gospelcom.net/cv/
Riverside
Baptist Church of Denver—www.riversidebaptist.com
Potter’s
House of Dallas—www.tdjakes.org
Turning
Point Ministries—www.tpmi.org
Vineyard
Church of Cincinnati—www.cincyvineyard.com
Wellspring
of Living Water—www.wellspringoflivingwater.org
West
Angeles COGIC—www.westa.org
Willow
Creek --www.willowcreek.org/community_care.asp
Windsor
Village UMC—www.kingdombuilder.com
Book
Resources.
City
Reaching: On the Road to Community Transformation
Author:
Jack Dennison, Publisher: William Carey Library, 1999
The
Church of Irresistible Influence
Author:
Robert Lewis, Publisher: Zondervan, 2001
A
Theology As Big As the City
Author:
Ray Bakke, Publisher: Intervarsity Press, 1997
Signs
of Hope in the City
Authors: Carle and Decaro Jr., Publisher: Judson Press, 1999
Meeting
Needs, Sharing Christ
Author:
Charles Roesel, Publisher: Lifeway, 1995
Ministries
of Mercy : The Call of the Jericho Road
Author:
Timothy J. Keller, Publisher: Zondervan, 1998
The
Church That Never Sleeps
Author:
Matthew Barnett, Publisher: Nelson, 2000
Author:
John Perkins, Publisher: Baker Books, 1993
An
Unstoppable Force
Author:
Erwin Raphael McManus, Publisher: Group, 2001
Revolution
and Renewal
Author:
Tony Campolo, Publisher: John Knox Press, 2000
Author:
Sider, Olson, Unruh, Publisher: Baker Books, 2002
Author:
Tom White, Publisher: Vine Books, 2001
Author:
Amy
Sherman, Publisher: Crossway Books, 1997
Scriptural
Resources. For further study:
Exodus
16:49, 22:21,
Leviticus
19:19, 25:35
Psalm
41:1, 68:5
Proverbs
3:28, 14:31, 19:17
Isaiah
58, 61
Matthew
25:31-46
James
2:14-17
Author: Eric Swanson is the Associate Director of Leadership Network’s MC² (Missional Church) Network (www.leadnet.org)