Missional leadership from an ethos of vulnerability and love

This Festschrift article is dedicated to Professor Nelus Niemandt. The primary objective is to critically reflect, from the perspective of appreciative inquiry, on Niemandt’s work on missional leadership and how his view of mission and theology of place could be brought into dialogue with vulnerability. This is performed by analytical reflection on the critical correlation of past and present experiences, and a critical discussion of Gijsbert Dingemans, Edward Schillebeeckx and Paul Tillich and the implied method used by Niemandt. Thereafter, a continental philosophical discussion on history, narrative and metaphor is conducted via Udo Schnelle’s Theology of the New Testament and Niemandt’s own focus on the role narrative and metaphors play to reimagine a restorative theology of place and mission. Finally, we engage with the latest insights by Kritzinger on mission is/as/through/with/in vulnerability, which reflects the latest shifts in missional theology is the direction of vulnerability. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article engages the latest discourses in missional leadership and vulnerability with insights from New Testament Theological methodological considerations to show that vulnerability belongs to the central message of the Gospel and that it challenges hegemony and oppressive structures by providing hope and power amid vulnerability. In the near future, as Kritzinger argues, ‘mission is/as/through/with/in vulnerability promises new ways of reflecting on missional leadership and its ontological (the “is”), epistemological (the “as”), praxeological (the “through”), encounterology (the “with”) and axiology (the “in”)’ dimensions.