Our Story

History of LeaderResources

LeaderResources was founded on April 18th, 1994 by the Rev. Linda L. Grenz. Linda previously served as the staff person for adult education, leadership and lay ministry development for the Episcopal Church. When the national church eliminated that office, Linda took the work and consultants and established LeaderResources as her primary ministry as a priest of the church.

Vision
Linda’s vision was to create a self-sustaining resource development system that would serve the church. She saw the value of learning communities—the concept that both individuals and the group itself could learn from each other and their shared experience. She envisioned gathering the best resources and sharing them with others in a way that enabled those resources to be constantly improved by the users. She understood that this would best be accomplished by publishing and distributing resource electronically. Evolutionary resources™ thus became our publishing model.

Inherent in Linda’s initial vision were the concepts of collaboration and transformation. She wanted resources that would not focus on conveying information but rather would focus on the collaborative process. She also looked for programs that created an environment where people could be transformed by God and/or where the group (or congregation’s) way of being would be transformed. The collaborative process of resource creation and distribution as well as the educational process in the resources were all designed to accomplish this. The consulting and training services support this same vision.

Since that time the company has moved into its own building with a staff of six -- and then "went virtual" in 2008 with the present staff living and working in different parts of the country. Linda started the company as a sole proprietor with the intention of making the business self-sustaining, rather than dependent on grants or subsidies. It is now a limited liability company that  demonstrates the principle that church-related organizations CAN be self-sustaining. It is the only Episcopal publishing entity of its size and scope that has been started and built on an entirely self-funded model --  a model that churches and church agencies now and in the future will need to adopt as funds become less and less available.