Teaching Christian Leadership

In an earlier article I narrated how my wife and I developed an academy called the Lead and Inspire School of Leadership. We managed to get two qualifications accredited by the Council on Higher Education—a diploma in generic leadership (leadership for government, companies, educational institutions and so on) and a diploma in Christian leadership. In 2010 we managed to enrol 12 “disciples”.

These were people from different denominations — Methodist superintendents, Catholic sisters, Pentecostal pastors and one or two lay people. My focus in this column is on Christian leadership. How did we get these leaders from different denominations to work together on the subject of Christian leadership and to accept the leadership of two lay Catholics?

The first thing was to help each student realise that leadership begins with him or her. In other words, leadership is about you and other people. Whether you are a leader in government, in the Church, in a company or a school, you are dealing with people who have different roles to play and different needs and expectations.

Leadership is therefore about serving these people, about your relationship with them collectively and individually, and about how you can help them to share a common vision and to serve the organisation more efficiently and effectively, and to grow the organisation to higher levels.

The next important principle was to get an understanding and appreciation of the biblical approach to leadership. We looked at the Old Testament and the New Testament. We examined role models like Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Daniel, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Ruth, Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Apostle Paul and so on.

How did God call these servants? How did each one of them respond? What qualities, strengths and weaknesses did each have? What gifts did God give to each of these and how did they use the gifts?

Did each of these leaders finish well or not? What can today’s leaders learn from these servants of God? Is there a difference between the way God called his servants in the Old Testament and how he calls leaders in our time?

A great focus was placed on Jesus as teacher and role model.

What did Jesus teach about leadership? Which passages in the Bible are key to an understanding of Jesus’ teaching on leadership? In what ways was his leadership style and concept of leadership different from that of the teachers of the law and that of secular leaders of his time?

How did Jesus relate to his followers and to his Father? Is the Church today practising leadership as Jesus taught it? In what ways is Christian leadership as taught by Jesus different from generic leadership as we know it today?

With this common background we were then able to study Christian role models in the history of the Church, identifying some figures from different epochs and denominations: St Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, John Wesley, St Ignatius of Loyola, Mother Teresa.

Together we were able to distil something of the essence of Christian leadership from the examples of these personalities from different denominational backgrounds. Together we were in a position to develop an appreciation of Catholic spirituality and to learn useful lessons about Methodist, Pentecostal and Anglican spirituality.

The diploma in Christian leadership was composed of many other modules, but the elements I have highlighted here were among those that enabled this group from diverse Christian backgrounds to see that there is so much we have in common; so much that all denominations are not doing right; and so much that the followers of Jesus can do together to improve the quality of leadership in our world.

There is such poor leadership in the world. Can Christians stand together and truly become the light of the world and the salt of the earth?