Leadership: Boundary Spanners
People who live at the intersection of networks are uniquely positioned to broker new ideas. Ronald Burt
Gregg’s Reflection
When my brother and I were leading our heavy construction equipment business, we worked hard to be a top distributor for our major suppliers. That offered us the opportunity to be part of Dealer Councils, where a small group of distributors were invited to gather and brainstorm ideas with the manufacturer.
I valued those sessions for the conversations with my fellow dealers at the bar after the sessions were over. We came from all over the country, and traded ideas and stories of what worked. These informal networks helped guide our business.
Once I left the business world, and began trying to spark change in our Lutheran tribe, I attended Exponential, a church planter gathering, and began to study the 3DM model Mike Breen and Steve Cockram had brought from England to bring discipleship back to the core of churches.
When I brought these ideas from other tribes back into my Lutheran circle, I found pastors’ eyes glazing over. I discovered a conundrum. Most of these pastors had come to only study Lutheran sources. Yet, because of the Scandinavian/Northern European culture of the Lutheran Church in America, it was considered bragging to talk about the good things that were emerging in your particular church. So, not only did Lutherans struggle to learn from other tribes, they also struggled to learn from the best of their own, since the tendency was to put their lantern under a bushel.
I later spent ten years on staff of a Presbyterian PCA church plant in Atlanta seeing how they connected with singles and young families, and how they made discipleship and service the main thing. These are the very people every aging Lutheran church wishes they could attract. Yet, in the five years since we returned to the Lutheran fold, I have found almost no curiosity about what I’ve learned in my 25 year learning journey through Christian thought and practice.
My mentor, Charlotte Roberts, once said I reminded her of the old-time small town telephone operator. People would ring in trying to find someone, and the operator would plug them into the right person to help them. I’ve always been a connector. I am learning more and more why that is a critical role for those who want to build organizations to last in this turbulent world.
God’s faint path has always led us to live at the edge, following the road less traveled. We have spent two decades living off grid in a log home surrounded by wilderness.
Leadership today often calls us to step beyond the familiar—to build bridges between people, ideas, and communities that might otherwise remain disconnected. A boundary spanner is someone who dares to stand in the spaces in-between: between organizations, between cultures, between disciplines. This is the leader who sees not just the walls that separate us, but the possibilities that lie in bringing people together.
I’ve been reflecting on how often the real work of transformation happens in these borderlands—where trust is fragile, misunderstandings run high, and yet the Spirit invites us to listen, to learn, and to build. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians that Christ himself is our peace, “who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility”. Jesus models the ultimate act of boundary spanning: reaching across the deepest divides to bring reconciliation.
In my own journey, I’ve felt both the pull and the resistance to this work. It’s easier to stay within my comfort zone—within my own tribe or discipline. But every time I’ve dared to venture out, I’ve discovered new perspectives, fresh insights, and a deeper sense of God’s presence.
God’s Faint Path is my attempt to make available wisdom from the many streams I have crossed to spiritual seekers on their own journey find their faint path, wherever it takes them.
Years ago, a friend of mine was here at a board meeting of my Lutheran project. He gave a meditation on the porch of the role of the Atavastin in ancient India. I think it was inspired by an ancient Indian practice of travelers or edge-dwellers who lived at the margins of a village, bringing back wisdom and stories from neighboring communities. Evokes the sense of someone who stands at the threshold of multiple worlds, bridging otherwise disconnected groups.
In modern terms it is a boundary-spanning connector who moves between different networks, sharing insights, innovations, and learning from one network to another. Boundary spanners play a crucial role in fostering cross-pollination of ideas, accelerating collective knowledge, and nurturing community adaptation.
Read along to hear ancient wisdom and modern writers extol the virtue of boundary spanners. Blessings
Journaling Prompts
Where do I naturally build bridges between groups, ideas, or people? When have I felt called to step into the “in-between” space and connect others who might not normally intersect? What fears or obstacles do I experience when acting as a boundary spanner? How can I cultivate a deeper sense of humility, curiosity, and openness when engaging with unfamiliar perspectives? In what ways might I be called to be a catalyst for change by connecting different communities or disciplines?
Scripture
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you.” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.
Genesis 41:39-41 Joseph rises from prisoner to second-in-command, bridging Egyptian and Hebrew worlds. He connects Pharaoh’s court with a divinely inspired plan to save Egypt (and surrounding nations) from famine.
And all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere.
Genesis 41:57 Joseph serves as a connector between Egypt and the nations, sharing resources and wisdom beyond his own people.
But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.
Genesis 45:7-8 Joseph interprets his journey as a divine calling to span the boundary between his family’s past and Egypt’s future, ensuring the survival of many.
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:20 Joseph’s wisdom as a boundary spanner—able to see both sides of the story—turns a broken past into a source of healing and salvation for multiple communities.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.
Ephesians 2:14-16, Christ as the ultimate boundary spanner—bringing reconciliation.
I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel.
1 Corinthians 9:22-23. Paul was an Early Christian witness to bridging cultural and religious boundaries. He was the ultimate boundary spanner, traveling from one city to the other across the whole Roman Empire, going first to Synagogues then beyond, planting the first Christian house churches and then connecting them together sharing learning through his visits and letters.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28, a reality, like the Kingdom of God, that is still in the now and not yet
Ancient Writing
Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ.
Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict. A call to hospitality that crosses boundaries of social and religious identity.
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
St Augustine; paraphrased from Letter 43, Sermon 169.
The Church is not a place, but a people—a people drawn together from every place.
John Chrysostom’s homilies (particularly Homily 4 on Ephesians and Homily 1 on Matthew). This echoes the boundary spanner’s role of gathering diverse people into one community, bridging cultural and social divides.
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Attributed to Francis of Assisi. Francis traveled to meet the Sultan during the Crusades to seek peace. A reminder that small acts of bridge-building can lead to unexpected transformation—central to the boundary spanner’s work.
A humble self-knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 3. Boundary spanners need humility to listen and learn across divides rather than asserting superiority.
This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming.
Martin Luther, Works, Weimar Edition 1.183, Sermon on Romans. Crossing boundaries involves ongoing transformation—an identity in motion rather than fixed.
The world is my parish.
John Wesley, Journal, June 11, 1739. Wesley’s commitment to crossing boundaries of geography and social class to preach the gospel reflects the essence of a boundary spanner.
Modern Writing
People who live at the intersection of networks are uniquely positioned to broker new ideas.
Ronald Burt, Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition.
Boundary spanners help organizations see systems as interconnected, bridging disciplines and perspectives that otherwise remain isolated.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.
Network weavers see opportunities for connection that others miss. They help people connect around a common goal, find new partners, and catalyze new initiatives that bridge divides.
June Holley, Network Weaver Handbook, 2008, p. 3.
Boundary roles serve to link the internal organization with external elements of the environment.
Michael L. Tushman and Thomas J. Scanlan, Boundary Spanning Individuals: Their Role, Academy of Management Journal, 24(2), 289-305
Connectors are people who link us up with the world. They introduce us to our social circles and connect us to the broader social context. They are boundary spanners.
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, p. 38.
I see myself as an “edge walker,” wandering along the hemlines of the Christ tradition. I stand at the inside edge of a tradition that has brought many people, including me, deep pain and has also brought many people, including me, deep joy and meaning. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature describes edge walking as traveling “the narrow space between the religious tradition she credits for having ‘forged her soul,’ and her direct and very personal experiences in nature that have revealed a truth of their own.”
Edge walkers occupy a thin space and are by definition a bit lonely. Most people inhabit the vast spaces on both sides of edges. But those of us called to the threshold the edges between life in this thin space and recognize one another when we meet. The edges between biosystems are called ecotones. These thresholds usually contain the most biodiversity and therefore are the most resilient. The time is coming soon when the edges we inhabit will start to redefine the center. And we will need to lean on and learn from one another as we, together, engage in the work of that redefining.
Each of us is characterized by our own unique gifts, communities of influence, and a particular bio-region. But we cannot behave as silos. The more diverse our relationships are, the more resiliently we can hold our own individual edges. Every religion has an edge where the mystics live. There have always been edge walkers: those who didn’t follow along with the status quo, who didn’t swallow the version of religion offered by those on top of the hierarchy as The Only Way. And at that edge, spirituality and nature are in an unbroken relationship.
Victoria Loorz, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred, p. 14-16.