Dr Viv Grigg

 

·       Chairman, MATUL Training Commission, and Encarnacao Alliance of Urban Poor Mission Leaders.

·       International Director, Urban Leadership Foundation

·       Assoc. Prof. of Urban Missions, MA in Transformational Urban Leadership, Department of Urban & Multiethnic Studies, Azusa Pacific Seminary

 

Prophetic voice, missions entrepreneur, viral networker,  servant among the urban poor: As  a  young  graduate, and  in  quiet  dependence   on  God  to  provide,  Viv  Grigg  went  to  live  in  the slums of Manila,  pioneering  churches  and development.  He has been a prophetic voice calling from the slums of Manila, Kolkata, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles... inviting many hundreds to live in apostolic communities among the poor.  These works have created a plethora of organizations that transform poverty in over 40 cities. He attributes the fruit of this to the overflowing work of the Holy Spirit on these who choose to live the cross among the poor.

 

Global Networking: He coordinated the global AD2000 Cities Network in the 1990’s catalysing and connecting city leadership teams globally. He developed the Vision for Auckland process in the 1990’s.  He coordinates  the  Encarnação   Alliance   of  urban   poor  movement   leaders. Their grassroots city learning networks of slum pastors  in one three 3 year period established  over 1800 new churches.  He is Chairman of the MATUL Commission, which has catalysed training in 5 continents. Recently worked on a small WEA-Middle East strategy/funding project.

 

As an academic trained in theology, community organization, and urban anthropology,  and  as  Director  of Urban  Leadership   Foundation,   he  catalysed the MA in Transformational  Urban Leadership  (MATUL) now with 8 partnering institutions    globally.       In 2009, he  relocated    from   New   Zealand    to   be   an Associate Professor to Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles (one of the partners) to lead their MATUL expansion.  He is author of 7 books  including  the paradigm-shifting   Companion to the Poor, whose call to radical incarnation among the poor and lifestyles of simplicity  has challenged  many.   His recent Spirit of Christ  and the Postmodern City  predicts  a  future  beyond  postmodernism.   Conversations on Economic   Discipleship   has answers to  the  present ethical dilemmas  of capitalism.    See  www.urbanleaders.org  for more information.   Married to Ieda, a Free Methodist preacher and chaplain to those dying of cancer. Three adult kids.

 

Demonstrated gifts mix: Prophetic (intercessor, visionary, strategist, motivational preacher, writer, catalyst), leading to the apostolic (establishing a new work every three to six months, networker) pastoral trainer (mentoring, leadership development), wisdom / leadership, teaching (action-reflection educator/trainer), community activist (mercy, organizer, projects manager), entrepreneurial administrator (create structures rather than maintain them), fundraiser.   All of that which is fruitful above can be attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit, who takes what we do and works far beyond us.

 

Weaknesses: Create too many ideas for admin staff to manage, cannot understand or manage poofters, fudgers and political manipulators, at times a critical spirit or unwise word can offend, many become jealous as God touches works. Have a soft voice and unimposing persona, have always struggled to fully fund all that is put in my hands. Not as young as I was, introvert, am dependent on the people around me, and often admin help is not there for each work. While competent in management, I die if locked in an office, managing endless maintenance details.

Some Academics

·       PhD (Theology), Auckland  University, New Zealand. 2006. Fields: Pneumatology,  Urban  Theology,  Urban  Leadership,  Sociology  of Religion   (University  Scholar)

·       M.A. (Missions) Fuller Theological  Seminary, Pasadena,  CA, USA, 1987 Fields: Urban Anthropology, Community  Development

·       Certificate  of Accomplishment  in Tagalog, Manila, Philippines.  1980

·       Post Grad Dip. Teaching,  Christchurch  Teachers College, Christchurch,  New Zealand 1973.

·       B.E.(Elect).  Canterbury  University, Christchurch,  New Zealand, 1973.

ervos entre os PobresSome Publications

1984 Companion to the Poor, Albatross Books: Sydney.

·       1990, 2nd edition  MARC: Monrovia, CA.

·       2006, rev edn, London: Authentic.

·       2010 3rd Edition. Auckland: Urban Leadership Foundation.

Translations

·       1990 tr. in German.  Mit den armen leben. Wolfgang Simson Verlag: Lorrach.

·       1988  tr. in Portuguese  Servos Entre Os Pobres.  Comibam/Aura Books: Sao Paulo, Brazil.

§  2006 rev edn  Ultimato: Curitiba

·       1994. tr. in Spanish  Siervos Entre Los Pobres, Nueva Creacion: Buenos Aires and Eerdmans.

·       1995. tr. in Korean, _______________________, IVP: Seoul.

·       2005  tr. Indian Tamil edition, YWAM: Chennai.

·       1992-1997 (Revised yearly) Transforming Cities: An Urban Leadership Guide, Auckland: Urban Leadership Foundation.

Booklets

Some Professional Papers, Book Chapters and Articles

Some Popular Articles

Some Major Conference Involvements

·       The Incarnate Christ in the Underside of Anti-Christian Megalopolises

·       The Poor You Will Have With You Always - Did Jesus Really Mean This?

·       The Poor Wise Man and YTREVOP the Demon

·       Releasing Holiness: Fires of Reconciliation, Restitution and Citywide Revival

·       Discipling the Poor: The Challenge of Integrating Social Responsibility, Evangelism and Discipleship

·       The City of God is a Multiethnic Party - Starting Now!

·       Cosmic Christ - Transformer of the Soul of a Nation

·       1996, 1997, 1998. Australian AD2000 National Leadership Consultations as plenary speaker

·       1999. Vision for Auckland Huis, organiser, keynote address on Six Battlefronts in Auckland

·       2000. Transformational Conversations: Developing Indigenous Theologies hui, Auckland, facilitator.

·       2001. Biola Missions Conference, addresses, Reaching the Poor of Asia's Mega-Cities, The Judgement of God on a Post modern City.

·       2008. RENAS Brazil, keynote, Jesus-style Seminary in the Slums

·       2009. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Igreja Relevamente e Incarnacional

·       2009. Revitalization Consultation, Asbury Seminary, The Spirit of Christ and the Postmodern City. KY: Asbury Seminary, Oct 2009.

·       2013. (February). Multiplying Millions in Holistic Slum Movements: Apostolic and Diaconal Perspectives. Presentation given at the second gathering of the International Society of Urban Missions. Bangkok, Thailand.

·       2013. Theology and Practice of Land Rights. Conference plenary address and workshop presented at the Call2Compassion and Justice conference. Mumbai, India.

·       2013. Economic Discipleship: Vulnerability to Liberate the Vulnerable. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission. Norwalk, England.

·       2014 CMESP. O Reino de Deus e Economia Solidaria. Plenary at the Conferência Missionária do Estado de São Paulo (CMESP), Rio de Janiero, Brazil

·       2014 February, MoveIn, Toronto.

o  Plenaries:

o   The Poor Wise Man 

o   See also White board explainer video, The Poor Wise Man

o   Hovering Spirit, Creative Voice

o  Seminar

Developing a Poor Peoples' Church

·       2015. Slum Pastors’ Training in Economic Discipleship. New Delhi, India. May 5-9, 2015.

·       2017 Economic Discipleship.  Companions Among the Poor. Manila, March 30-31, 2017.

Some Media

PowerPoints

120 of these presentations may be found at http://www.authorstream.com.   Or on slideshare.  Most are simple quality.  Search for vivgrigg.  Total Views, as of June 15, 2017: 13926.  Embed Views: 1658.

Movie about Viv Grigg's work

Stewart, David, 2016. Poor Wise Man.  www.poorwiseman.vhx.tv 

Training Videos

30 videos on urban missions, urban spirituality, urban realities etc. on  www.vimeo.com/vivgrigg

Websites (updated yearly, always developing)

1996. Building City Leadership Teams. http://www.urbanleaders.org/620Leadership/08cityleaders/index.html

1997. Transforming Revival.  http://www.urbanleaders.org/transrevival/

1998. Portuguese Training Materials http://www.urbanleaders.org/Portuguese/

 

Masters level resource sites

2002. Urban Realities. http://www.urbanleaders.org/540UrbanReality/  (Needs second half)

2002. Urban Poor Churchplanting.    http://www.urbanleaders.org/530FaithComm/

2004. Encarnacao Alliance Training Commission website.  www.urbanleaders.org/ma

2004. Community Economics. http://www.urbanleaders.org/560CommEcon/

2007 Urban Poor Movement Leadership. http://www.urbanleaders.org/620Leadership/

2007. Biblical Theology of Mission. http://www.urbanleaders.org/500Writings/

2007. Urban Spirituality. www.urbanleaders.org/520UrbanSpirituality

2009. Land Rights www.urbanleaders.org/655LandRights

2016 Trainer of Trainers. http://urbanleaders.org/webtrainer/  (Under construction)

 

Grassroots

1998. Grassroots Church-planters’ Training. http://www.urbanleaders.org/weburbpoor/

2017. Economic Discipleship. www.economicdisciple.org - 40 podcasts for oral learners.

Fundraising Skills

In the process of the Lord establishing these organizations, they currently are contributing more than $2 million per year into works around the world in the slums (by a rough calculation). As all I do is built on colabourship with others, in a unity of spirit, so I can only claim that the Lord has touched people though catalysed vision, imparted a spirituality, anointed leaders, enabled me to set up systems and build the initial teams in these works. These have been based on volunteer workers, workers living by faith, workers raising their own support, partnerships with churches, and as they grow occasional foundation grants. I have however raised personal support for many years form the New Zealand church (though not currently).

I have written proposals and raised grant moneys over the years from foundations and some businessmen to catalyse the many works: We have earned trust, some results being (in US$) $3,000 (x3 for educational processes), $5,000, $10,000 (for scholarships) $15,000, $25,000 (x4, one for HIV program in Africa, one for surveying works in 12 cities globally) $50,000 (x3), for development of the MA in Transformational Urban Leadership, $500,000 (God touched a businessman to give for scholarships at APU) (These are a rough recollection of some of these).

I have however raised personal support for many years from the New Zealand church (though not currently).

 

I have written proposals and raised grant moneys over the years from foundations and some businessmen to catalyse the many works:  Some being (in US$) $3,000 (x3 for educational processes), $5,000, $10,000 (for scholarships) $15,000, $25,000 (x4, one for HIV program in Africa, one for surveying works in 12 cities globally) $50,000 (x3), for development of the MA in Transformational Urban Leadership, $500,000 (for scholarships) (A rough recollection).


 

Areas of Educational Management Experience or Expertise - Viv Grigg, 2018

Management

Technical Systems

Communication

Academic Programming

Student Management

Leadership: Commitment to lead by example in ministry, character, academics (10)
Teambuilding: Ability to recruit, build. manage diverse teams (10)
Strategic: I see strategy and systems intuitively (10)
Accountability: Ability to serve management in developing, accomplishing, or reworking their objectives (8)
Innovation: Significant change management experience (10)
Inclusive Evaluatory Processes: Group-based, culturally-sensitive, student and faculty evaluation of programs and courses (10)
Financial: Experienced in budgeting processes, balance sheet management, expenditure controls (8) 
Multiethnicity: Multicultural, multilingual, across diverse ethnic, and religious lines (10)

IT awareness, technical background database, website and video development skills (8)
Web designer: Designed, maintain over 20 sites (8)
Techie: Skilled in Access, Word, Wordpro, Quickbooks, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe Dreamweaver web design Adobe Premier video design, InDesign publishing etc. (8)
Office setup and develop't, securing of office resources: Have set up 7 (8)
Marketing: Experienced (but not artistic) in design of publicity brochures, flyers, email lists, database maintenance (10)
Online Delivery: Skilled in Moddle, Sakai, Canvas. Pioneered synchronous delivery face to face across continents (10)

Teaching Style: Folks love creative, experiential, interactive story-telling to high level conceptual teaching style and content (10)
Effective listener: gather opinions from others to develop consensus, or solve problems, both formally and informally (9)
Harmony: Ability to develop strong trusting relationships with both strong leaders and students (11) Ability to negotiate politics and bureaucrats (innovators are constantly pushing boundaries) (6)
Oral and written skills - able to identify and articulate vision (a writer, not always concise for bureaucrats) (7)
Public Persona: Excellent ability to make public presentations at church, national and global levels. Some know me as statesman (but weak voice projection, spoken to hundreds of conferences and churches) (8)

Pedagogy: Experiential to cognitive bias in academic design (11)
Program Development Experience: understand new degree program philosophy and curriculum structures (know how to work with experts) (10)
Cultural Sensitivities: Development of processes from within multicultural consultations and styles (9)
Professional Reading: Read/write daily, abreast of urban missions, missions, transformation, revival litearature (8)
Publications background: Published 8 books, over 30 papers, 14 masters level courses, 14 Websites, 30 podcasts, 30 videos (9)
Institutional Team Player: Supportive of institutional systems in which functioning: able to critique and contribute to broader vision. Team player. Currently serving on Faculty Elections Committee at APU (8).
Fundraiser: Trained, semi-skilled, reputation (8)

Student mentoring processes; Have navigated complex pastoral care contexts with students globally Supervised 53 theses (10)
Missions Selection: Systems development for selection and evaluation of participants (10)
Multifaceted evaluative processes of student/ staff progress in academics, leadership and character development. (8)
Creation of joyful, participative, pleasant staff and student environments (10)
Adaptive interfacing of University system with ethnic learning styles and English competencies (9)
Cross-cultural orientation program development (Multiple years)(10)
At my stage of life, it is more important that I invest in leadership, writing, communication, policy, than in the management that 40-50 year olds can do to carry the load, but whatever a team needs, I generally am able to do, (with a little less effort than younger folks).