Reframing tension for transformation: Bridge-crossing | bridge-making | bridge-being

Abstract

This article presents a leadership model called bridging that I continue to develop as I progressively acknowledge my embedded tendencies and tensions long-experienced at the intersections and margins of my multicultural self and in cross-cultural communities. From within this social location, I attempt to translate what has been a precarious leadership journey into an experiential model promoting intentional communities, interpretations, and activities with an overarching purpose of reframing tension for the work of transformation. My conceptualization of intentional communities has three descriptors: (1) multicultural, (2) value-driven, and (3) prophetic. I then invite leaders to consider their interpretations of three categories of common tensions: (1) tension among the community, (2) tension between reality and vision, and (3) tension residing within individual leaders. I posit that the practice of reinterpretation is crucial to the work of bridging. The praxis of bridging as a leadership model is then categorized into three interrelated activities: (1) bridge-crossing, (2) bridge-making, and (3) bridge-being. Each discussion is undergirded by a biblical exemplar and described as necessary for reframing destructive tension toward transformative tension. In the final section, I advocate that bridge-leaders commit to self-care through connectedness to what I explain as one’s spiritual home and core cultural home and as a crucial component in sustaining bridge leaders for their important role in helping communities reach their vision for personal, communal, and systemic change.