Christian Leadership B.S.

Christian Leadership B.S.—Online degree completion program Preparing Leaders for over 100 yrs…

The above was the auto-generated Google ad on the sidebar of a friend’s blog. It wasn’t the academic degree that caught my eye—for a brief moment I actually thought “Christian Leadership B.S.” might be the title of a new book.

I’ve been reading a lot about Christian leadership in the last few years. As a pastor and educator who loves to read and as a grad student (my program is in leadership) who has to read, I’ve been exposed to more than most people on the subject. Some of it is good, and a lot of it is, well…let’s just say it’s not Biblically Sound.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a pretty positive person. I learn quite a bit from people that I don’t agree with.  I like reading material that stretches my perspective, and I really enjoy reading and learning from current leadership thought. However, the problem is that so much leadership literature (even Christian Leadership literature) is simply not Biblical. A lot of it of it sounds good to me at first blush, probably because there are some great universal leadership principles. But when I deeply reflect on it, I have to be honest and say that much of it leaves me empty. Furthermore, when I examine the leadership blowout that has left our world in a mess over the last few months (and make no mistake, our current cultural and national crisis is much about leadership), I wonder if we have been betting on the wrong horse.

I’m reminded that King Saul was a pretty good leader. If we compared his command to what we see in leadership literature benmack cam4 29-10-2010, it would line up rather nicely. There is an example of this in 1 Samuel 13.  Saul and his men are waiting for Samuel to show up for the sacrifice that must happen before a key battle, and Samuel is late. Saul’s army begins to scatter in fear, but they are needed for the fight against the Philistines. Saul does what every leadership book would tell him to do: He rallies the troops; he takes leadership into his own hands; he preforms the sacrifice and all the men are encouraged and end up staying to fight. His methods worked brilliantly.

Good leadership—but bad faith. Godly leaders are not just called to do what works, but to walk in obedience to THE Leader. Because of Saul’s leadership acuity, he lost his assignment (see verse 14). I wish it was just Saul, but we see examples like this littered all through the Bible and we see it often in current Church practice.

I don’t think that Christian leadership is supposed to simply be a mirror of secular leadership, no matter how effective we think those leadership principles may be. We always have to look at what we do through the lens of the Word. I actually believe that Christians should be coming up with the most innovative, collaborative, and Godly ways to lead. Why are believers always trailing, or even worse, copying, culture?

I’m hungry to discover and implement Biblically sound ideas about leadership in the church that blow away the accepted practices we might find in Grad School textbooks or in the edgy principles we can discover in Fast Company or the hottest new business-lit release.

So, I’ve got a great title; now maybe I’ll get to writing that book…