An expert on women's spirituality and leadership will create the annual Gather the Women circle in Rapid City on Saturday, Nov. 10.

Kathe Schaaf, a Gather the Women co-founder celebrating the event's 10th anniversary worldwide this year, plans to explore the intersection between women's spirituality and their leadership style at 1 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 629 Kansas City St. A noon soup lunch will precede the circle.

More recently, Schaaf launched Women of Spirit and Faith, a new organization with the intention of exploring, nurturing and celebrating womens spiritual leadership.

"It's based on the premise that right now, with the world in crisis in a variety of different ways, women's leadership and women's wisdom is really being valued in a way that uit hasn't been for a long time," Schaaf said earlier this week by telephone.

She is also an editor of the 2011 anthology, "Women, Spiritualityand Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power," which was recently named one of the top 10 religion and spirituality books for 2012. In it, 26 women from different faith traditions and perspectives reflect on their approach to leadership. "It'stime for us to redefine leadership -- we have a picture in our heads about what leadership looks like and it is often a very masculine picture, one that's more about power over others and a top-down system," Schaaf said.

She likes another definition of leadership: Anyone who is willing to help.

"By that definition, all of the women who show up at this event in Rapid City are already leaders," she said.That type of leadership has a different goal. "Your goal is not to end up at the top of the heap. It's to help the entire head do better," she said.

Schaaf will share stories about women in other parts of the world and some of the creative, grassroots initiatives and organizations that they have founded. "Women bring a different perspective to problems. They can be collaborative and very creative, finding tangible, practical solutions to problems with very little resources."

Suzan Nolan of Rapid City heard Schaaf speak at the United Nations last year, where she servesas a trustee of the Council of the Parliament of the Worlds Religions and co-chairs its Womens Task Force. Nolan, a regional coordinator for Gather the Women, is looking forward to exploring Schaaf's ideas about collaborative leadership styles with other women.

She hopes area women will use Gather the Women to "find a touchstone; something that speaks to them deeply and encourages them to change something about the way they are in their own lives," Nolan said. "We'll also explore the tension between being and doing in our lives. It's OK to just be, too."

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Gather the Women co-founder speaking in Rapid City