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 Shape-Shifting LeadershipThree kinds of leadership for three different situations.
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Meanwhile, I've moved the books to my home, where I can study in peace and where my family can see me studying and have access to my library. I've also learned to include, rather than hide, my children in ministry. I try to take them with me whenever possible, such as on hospital visits or missions trips. I hope to train them for ministry by making them my disciples, living at my hip like Jesus' disciples did with him. My children, after all, may be another group of leaders that I've become a leader to. —Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, Seattle, Washington Leith Anderson: Leading by InfluenceI recently got an e-mail from a pastor in Europe. Six years ago he had asked my advice regarding a crisis in the European church. He e-mailed me to thank me, but also to tell me that he's been mentoring another church through a crisis using the advice I gave him. His e-mail was an example of the chain of influence—leaders who can look to those who came before them and influence those who come after them. I'm at a different place on that chain than I used to be. I'm in my 30th year of ministry at Wooddale. With experience and relationships come wisdom and the ability to understand issues with greater insight and speed. Now I'm thinking about how I can leverage my experience and relationships for the church and for the kingdom. When you're younger and inexperienced, there are more mentors available to you, more people ahead of you in the chain. But when you're older, there are fewer. Lately I've been looking to Vernon Grounds, chancellor of Denver Seminary. He turns 92 this year, and he's been "retired" for 30 years. But he has blessed a whole new generation of leaders since then. From Vernon I've learned that good listening is often the best advice. I've also turned to Richard Mouw at Fuller Seminary. I took his book The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Their Fundamentalist Heritage with me on my sabbatical. Mouw has learned to celebrate rather than criticize the heritages that have gone before us. While he may disagree with issues of the past, he focuses on how the benefits given by previous generations can in turn bless the next generation. These are lessons I'm drawing from as I weigh my place in the chain. I've been given the experience, and given the relationships; now I'm looking at how I can use that experience to bless those relationships and the relationships that come after them. —Leith Anderson, Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information. |             |
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