i wanna throw something out there. its something i feel like i am somewhat in the dark about, so maybe someone reading will know more about it.
i look around online a lot for Christian books. and the more i look around lately, i begin to see a ridiculous amount of books on leadership. in fact, one website i was on the other day had their best seller list up, and 9 out of 10 of them were on leadership. and i am constantly hearing about churches having many different kinds of "leadership conferences." now i like the idea of leadership. romans even mentions leadership as being a spiritual gift of sorts. but has leadership become the "new discipleship"? i even heard a podcast the other day saying that in order to be a good disciple, you have to first be a good leader. this seemed kind of erroneous to me, seeing as how a big part of being a disciple is following. so you need to be able to lead so that you can follow??
and that's kind of the vibe i get from all these books and conferences i see everywhere: that leadership is just as important as (if not more important than) discipleship when it comes to being a follower.
am i missing something here?
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i see the delima. but as disciples of Christ - we are supposed to lead others to Christ. if we are "going therefore and making disciples of all nations," then there needs to be leadership qualities in those going and making, right?
think about this - i think that leadership should lead to discipleship. and as people become disciples - they should become leaders so that they can lead others in discipleship.
i definitely see the importance of leading others to Christ. however i think that a lot of the qualities needed to do that are a lot different than actual leadership. some of them overlap, but i've seen many people with no "leadership" qualities at all win a lot of people to Christ.
so i guess what i'm concerned with is what kind of leadership are we pushing? the kind that leads to discipleship or the kind that is interchangeable with being a leader in the business world?
I don't even know you but I found your blog through Paige's, and I"m adding it to the blogs I regularly read....please feel blessed and not creeped out...
I too have a small problem with this leadership deal. Paul said to emulate him as the ideal example of a christian. So, a christian leader would then be the one who would do his own leg-work, never allowing one of his followers to go through greater pains or trials than he would go through himself. This leader would not require his subordinates to support him, but would rather work to support his followers (paul worked his tent trade to support those who followed him so they wouldn't burden the people where they traveled). I thought Jesus' example was like that as well? Lead by serving. Anyone can lead when it serves their own purposes. It's much harder to serve with a humble heart.
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