Questions We Answer

biblical

What is distinctly Christian about being a Christian leader?

How do my Christian convictions shape the way that I lead?

It is the end — the goal, the purpose, the telos — that shapes Christian leadership and makes it most distinctively Christian. Our end is to cultivate thriving communities that bear witness to the inbreaking reign of God that Jesus announces and embodies in all that we do and are.

Becoming a Christ-shaped leader requires at the deepest level that we cultivate and are shaped by a background that influences everything that we do. This background shapes the way Christians experience failure and success and helps cultivate resilience. We believe this should shape the way we think about our lives, our institutions and the way we lead our institutions.

 

How can institutions best be kept institutionally strong and focused on their essential missions?

By thinking in a way that holds the past and future in tension, not in opposition. L. Gregory Jones coined the phrase “traditioned innovation” to describe a biblical way of leading that integrates the transformative work of Christ into our ongoing identity as the people of God rooted in biblical Israel’s calling. (more…)

 

What is the biblical vision of healthy Christian community?

A thriving community may exhibit the features found in the Acts of the Apostles. They include networking; visibility; room for the weak; incorporating disagreement; articulacy of belief; and taking suffering seriously.

Foundations of Christian Leadership involves an in-depth study of the Book of Acts and its model of Christian community.

 

What should I be reading?

The deeper question isn’t just what a leader should read — it’s how.

Reading widely — in a variety of different disciplines, not all Christian — can help institutional leaders engage their imaginations more fully in their work. Border crossing — both geographical and intellectual — is one way for leaders to move beyond the narrow confines of their own world to understand the larger context of a culture.

How can you do that? Read great literature, such as the novels of Marilynne Robinson and the poetry of Wendell Berry. Read across the disciplines of business in journals, such as Harvard Business Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and in the sciences and engineering.

Faith & Leadership publishes a daily news digest that collects items from across the web that will help Christian leaders read widely and do their work. Faith & Leadership’s original content explores more directly the intersections of these readings and the work of Christian institutions.

We also encourage Christian leaders to read Scripture in a particular way — that is, slowly and with sustained attention and in community. This is key to forming a scriptural imagination, which is needed to live scripturally.

 
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    Foundations of Christian Leadership

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