Spiritual Leadership

While browsing our bookshelves, I came upon Spiritual Leadership, by J. Oswald Sanders. It seems that my wife got this book while doing camp leadership back in college. Being generally interested in spirituality and leadership, I was curious as to how they might be combined. Suffice it so say that I was impressed.

The book is a series of lectures given by Sanders to the Oversees Missionary Fellowship many years ago. The first edition was published in 1967, and I read from one older than Amazon's selling now. The principles, however, are primarily Biblical, and have lost none of their impact over the years.

I enjoyed most the fact that the same content I am finding in many recent leadership writings is found here, but with the added spiritual dimension. Sanders begins with the simple question of whether Christians should aspire to leadership at all. Doesn't the ambition for leadership conflict with the virtue of humility? This tension runs throughout all of the short chapters. The answer...perhaps.

Sanders lays out a model of leadership that is difficult, strenuous, and often poorly rewarded. He speaks to the Biblical model of servant-leadership and emphasizes that the leader is to be first not in prestige, but first in humility, in service, in sacrifice, and in suffering. For the Christian leader, emulation of Christ is the first goal, and that emulation brings with it no expectation of earthly glory or reward.

However, in American evangelical society, spiritual leaders are often accorded glory, whether rightly or wrongly. Best selling authors and mega-church pastors receive financial and social rewards, being considered gurus leading the rest of us to a better life. This naturally creates a tension for any talented leader called by God...is the calling clear and truly from heaven, or is the call a justification for pursuit of glory in a church job?

Lay leaders are faced with similar questions, although normally on a smaller scale. Leadership of a Bible study or ministry within the local church rarely brings financial rewards, but the social prestige within the church community is nearly guaranteed. Will the eager servant be equally as eager to change diapers in the nursery as to teach their peers Sunday School class?

For Christians in leadership positions outside the church, this book is equally applicable, although Sanders was clearly speaking to those within the church. The lessons of vision and drive and discipline are true no matter who is following or where we are going. In fact, I would posit that the Christian leader of a non-Christian organization has an even more difficult task as he must meet both secular and Biblical standards for quality leadership.

I read this book too quickly (as I usually do), but unlike many other books on leadership, I don't plan to forget about it as quickly. This book set itself apart in my mind because it combined both solid leadership lessons with the foundation for why I should care. Discipline for discipline's sake is all well and good, but when the pursuit of Christ's glory is added, real meaning is found.

The Leader-Manager: Guidelines for Action (William D. Hitt)

I borrowed William Hitt's The Leader-Manager: Guidelines for Action from my own manager many months ago after asking for book recommendations. In the meantime, many other books got onto my reading lists, and I've just finished this one. Fortunately, being published in 1988 means that another 6 months didn't hurt it at all.

The author approaches leadership from a practical perspective, proposing what he calls a "functional" theory of leadership. This is compared to the functional theories of management where the functions of a manager (leader) in this case are laid out and the specific methods for fulfilling those roles are left up to the individual. Eight functions of a leader are proposed and described:

1. Creating a Vision
2. Developing the Team
3. Clarifying the Values
4. Positioning
5. Communicating
6. Empowering
7. Coaching
8. Measuring

Executing those 8 functions well is the job of a true leader-manager, one who acts as a change agent in their organization. The leader-manager is described as one who creates a vision (knows where to go) and then puts it into action (leads a team to get there). Contrasting leadership styles are put on a traditional 2x2 matrix; the Victim neither knows where to go nor manages to get there, the Doer cares naught for vision, but simply action, and the Dreamer is full of possibility, but doesn't get off their duff.

From the beginning, The Leader-Manager looks like a textbook. There is no fancy cover or attempt to be more than it is, a list of actions for managers who want to be leaders. The eight functions are clearly described, with rationale for each one and at least one list of possible activities to bring it about. Some might argue that Hitt takes a checklist approach to management that fails to incorporate the softer side of things. This is certainly true, but the issue would seem to be that his approach is not incorrect, but rather insufficient. For a leader or manager looking to cover all their bases, this book provides a solid foundation for further study and practice.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 4

To a Thousand Generations (Douglas Wilson)

Prompted by the discussions and decisions of friends, and enabled by this book's unexpected presence on our shelf, I found myself reading about infant baptism while camping last weekend. Douglas Wilson's To a Thousand Generations is a short teatise by a former credo-baptist (one who believes in believer baptism) on the Biblical directive for infant baptism. As a credo-baptist myself (although I didn't know it before reading this book), I was fascinated to read the reasoning behind the other side for the first time.

As I understand it, the argument of a paedo-baptist (one who believes in infant baptism) centers around the continuity of the old and new covenants, drawing a clear parallel between circumcision and baptism. As birth members of the covenant race, Jewish infants were circumcised prior to demonstrating faith in Jehovah; therefore children of believing, faithful Christian parents are to be baptized as birth members of the new covenant without regard for their personal faith profession or demonstration.

This argument actually makes sense to me. It is, at least, internally consistent. However, I was not convinced of the irrefutable Biblical evidence that requires adopting a paedo-baptist viewpoint. The book hinges on the assumption of continuity between the covenants in specific areas, and requires a parallel between circumcision and baptism that I believe is credible, but far from conclusive.

My conclusion from reading the book was that my own credo-baptist position is not as unassailable as I once thought. At the same time, the evidence presented to change my mind was insufficient. I remain faithful to the credo-baptist position, but am more firmly convinced that those on either side of this issue must continue their arguments with the utmost grace and compassion, for in the end, baptism is a sign, and only the true transformative power of Christ matters.