My name is Brian Virtue if you ended up here for a reason besides knowing me personally. I serve in leadership development in the context of a large national campus ministry (Campus Crusade for Christ). I currently serve primarily in an Asian-American contextualized ministry (Epic Movement). I’ve been in college ministry for twelve years now that has included significant stops at Stanford University and as a short-term missions coordinator.
I grew up in Long Beach, California and attended the most awesome of all high schools – Long Beach Poly. I attended UCLA and graduated in ’97 with Bachelor’s degrees in History and Political Science. More specifically I focused on Ancient History and Comparative Politics with a lot of International Relations in the mix too. Basically I took a lot of classes that focused on Greece, Rome, Ancient Israel, war, politics, organization, and diplomacy. I received a Masters Degree in Transformational Servant Leadership in 2007 through Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. I’m currently a couple classes shy of a Masters of Divinity through Bethel and will complete the program sometime in the 2010-2011 school year.
I have strong interests in leadership ethics (as it relates to power dynamics) and leadership formation and these arenas get a lot of airtime on this blog. I’ve developed passions for family systems theory as it relates to organizations and leadership through the writings of Edwin Friedman, Murray Bowen, and Peter Steinke among others. I also am drawn to dynamics of leading change, power dynamics, and the dynamics of prophetic functioning within organizations, ministries, and communities.Despite my love for these themes I have a greater passion for my wife Christine and my family. I have two kids – Morgan (5) and Colin (2). There’s only one other passion in addition to my family that transcends some of my favored scholarly pursuits and that is my commitment/addition to the Chicago Cubs and Bears who continue to challenge my limits of hope, long-suffering, and sanity. The Super Bowl Shuffle can only satisfy for so long.
