Follow Me to Freedom

Shane Claiborne, M. Perkins John

Description

Re-imagine Leading and Following in a World Longing for True Justice, Compassion and FreedomFollowers of Christ yearn to see the world changed in compassionate, positive, effective ways. As prophetic voices, Shane Claiborne and John Perkins lead the way in this move to be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus. One is young, a self proclaimed reformed redneck who grew up in the hills of Tennessee and now lives in inner city Philadelphia. The other is decades older, an African-American civil rights leader who was almost beaten to death by police in Mississippi, and went on to found a reconciliation movement and counsel three American presidents. Claiborne and Perkins draw on more than a century of combined following and learning, activism and leading. Together they craft a timely message for ordinary people willing to take radical steps to see real change happen.In Follow Me to Freedom, Claiborne and Perkins lead the way toward justice for all, unfolding a proven strategy as ancient as the patriarchs of faith and as fresh as the needs of every human heart. Starting with Moses as a model, they re-imagine leading and following in a world desperate for true social justice, compassion, and freedom. They offer practical ways to internalize and live out God's promise of freedom in the twenty-first century. Followers of Christ will not only be inspired but also catalyzed into action, and the world will never be the same.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Mind
• Body
• Spirit

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441223791
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

John: This is a book about leading. Without vision and leadership, people perish …
SHANE: … or at least run around in circles.


John: There are a few good leaders, and lots of books on leadership. But one of the biggest problems today is an abundance of ineffective or bad leaders.
SHANE: We’ve gotten really good at busting on bad leaders … which has made us suspicious followers. This book is also about following. And there aren’t many books on followership.
John: I like that: a book about leading and following.


SHANE: When we started The Simple Way community, we had an anarchistic saying: “A strong people need no leader,” and we determined that we would not have a leader …
John: … Hmmm.
SHANE: It worked pretty well— for about a week. A lot of folks today have serious hesitations about following others. Can you blame them? They’ve seen so many immoral teachers, bad presidents, crooked CEOs, scary preachers and pretentious mean people on the Left and on the Right … it’s no wonder there is a distrust of authority.
John: I remember hearing the saying in the 1960s, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” And as African-Americans, distrust of authority is common. But Shane is right. Especially in the church and in politics—but also everywhere else—a lack of confidence in leaders has grown. In fact, it is rampant. I don’t like that. But the answer to bad leadership is not no leadership; rather, it is good leadership.
SHANE: So where do we begin?


John: We begin by following Jesus. What does it mean when He asks us to deny ourselves, take up His cross and follow Him ? 1 One thing it means is that we all begin as followers; and to be good leaders, we have to know how to be good followers.
SHANE: We have to rediscover the endangered art of apprenticeship, of finding people in whose steps we can trust and follow.
John: We have to find people who will come along with us as we lead and who will carry on the vision after us. After all, if you only have a vision with nobody on board, you aren’t a leader … just somebody with a good idea. A leader without followers won’t go far.
SHANE: And followers without a leader just wander.
John: In the end, all the footsteps of good leaders and good followers must lead to Christ and to the freedom found in His cross.
SHANE: But sometimes the path is hard to find on our own. It’s time to reimagine leadership and followership together. Walk with us …
Note
1 . See Mark 8:34.

© 2009 Shane Claiborne and John M. Perkins
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Baker Books edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2379-1
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Shane Claiborne’s Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version ® TNIV ® . Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society ® . Used by permission of International Bible Society ® . All rights requested worldwide.
John Perkins’s Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from< the New King James Version. Copyright © 1 979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are:
CEV—Contemporary English Version. Copyright © American Bible Society, 1995.
ISV— Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, International Standard Version. Copyright 1998 by the Learn Foundation, Yorba Linda, CA. Used by permission of Davidson Press. All rights reserved internationally.
KJV—King James Version. Authorized King James Version.
NIV— Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Interior Design: Rob Williams Transcription: Marcia Zimmermann Editorial Support: Katie Jo Brotherton, Deena Davis, Andrew Koch, Steven Lawson, Alanna Swanson, Pamela Toussaint and Mark Weising Theological Editor: Dr. Gary Greig
CONTENTS
AN INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATION 1: THE PROMISE
(Raising the Next Generation of Just Leaders)
CONVERSATION 2: THE ACHE
(Beginning Where It Hurts)
CONVERSATION 3: THE VISION
(Carrying a Cause)
CONVERSATION 4: TO FOLLOW
(Choosing Who to Follow)
CONVERSATION 5: TO LEAD
(Becoming a Leader)
CONVERSATION 6: FOLLOWERS
(Finding Others to Join the Cause)
CONVERSATION 7: SOMETHING BIGGER
(Seeing That It’s Not Just About Us)
CONVERSATION 8: JUSTICE
(Considering the Will of God)
CONVERSATION 9: SIN, WOUNDS AND FORGIVENESS
(Breaking Through the Real Problem to the Real Answer)
CONVERSATION 10: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
(Taking a Stand)
CONVERSATION 11: THE CRISIS
(Responding When Disaster Strikes)
CONVERSATION 12: PRAYER
(Following Jesus’ Example)
CONVERSATION 13: THE GIFT OF COMMUNITY
(Keeping Your Feet on the Ground)
CONVERSATION 14: EXCELLENCE
(Leading with Pizzazz)
CONVERSATION 15: POWER
(Separating God’s and Ours)
CONVERSATION 16: NOTORIETY
(Squinting in the Limelight)
CONVERSATION 17: THE JOURNEY
(Traveling to Tomorrow)
CONVERSATION 18: FREEDOM
(Imagining a Different World)
THE END … MORE OR LESS
(Some Closing Thoughts)
NINE MONTHS LATER
THANKS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CONTACT
AN INTRODUCTION
SHANE: I was introduced to John Perkins when I read his book Let Justice Roll Down. He opened my eyes and set my heart on fire as he told how he had responded to extreme racism and hatred with forgiveness and love.
John showed no fear as a civil rights leader in the Deep South in the late 1960s, when everything, including his life, was on the line. He modeled being an ordinary radical before I even knew the term. Not even halfway through the book, I knew John Perkins was a leader I wanted to follow.
Not so long after that, John and I met. He came down to visit our little experiment in community on the north side of Philadelphia. I remember wanting to give John an impressive tour of our nonprofit organization, but all he wanted to do was sit on the steps in front of our building and eat ice cream with the kids. He had been on plenty of snazzy tours of ministries that were going to “transform the world” and just wanted to meet our friends here in the neighborhood.
I remember later that day whining to John about how we had been working so hard and hadn’t seen much of anything get better. There were still gunshots all the time—there was still heroine, there was still prostitution, there was still poverty, there was still pain. I remember complaining, “It’s been over three years and there aren’t many signs of change.” John looked me dead in the eye and, with the gentleness of a father, plainly and so sincerely explained the way things work: “Oh, Shane, you’ll start to see some things change. You’ll start to see signs of transformation—in about 10 years. Or maybe 12.” And he didn’t flinch. That was his promise: We’d see change in 10 or 12 years. I gulped. That was nearly half my life up to that moment, yet somehow I knew he spoke the truth, and it gave me hope.
John’s was (and is) the voice of someone who has committed his life to a movement that requires deep faith and revolutionary patience, who has set his hand to the plow and hasn’t looked back. That’s someone I want to rub off on me … so I followed.
John soon invited me to join up with the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), 1 one of the few organizations that crosses the generational divide with a relentless conviction that the old and young must dream together. It’s an incredible family that has been practicing resurrection and paving the way to freedom in some of the toughest corners of our world.
John: A few years back, I started hearing rumors about Shane. You might have heard some too. Word was going around that a group of mostly young white middle-class Christians, led by a guy who dressed like a monk, had stirred up things on the north side of Philadelphia. All the fuss started when the Roman Catholic Archdiocese threatened to evict some homeless families from a boarded-up church building where they had taken refuge. Shane and his college buddies were rightly outraged, became squatters with the families and risked arrest. Once better housing was found for the families, instead of retreating back to the suburbs, Shane and his friends stayed on. They could have swept into the struggling neighborhood, offered a cure to the immediate crisis, left some boxes of food and departed with smiles on their faces. They could have returned to their college campuses, written papers on their inner-city triumph and been heroes. Instead, Shane and some of his friends did the unthinkable by joining in with the people: they felt the pain, saw the need for more and made North Philly their home too. 2 I admit it: I liked what I had heard, and I was curious.
So, I arranged a trip to Philadelphia to see things firsthand. By then, Shane and his friends had created The Simple Way—an intentional community that is part of what is now being called the new monastic movement. 3 They pooled their resources and committed themselves to doing life together. In a small way they remind me of myself when, decades earlier, I moved my family from the suburbs of Southern California back to my native Mississippi, at the height of the civil rights movement.
Sure enough, Shane and I sat on the stoop in front of his building on Potter Street, eating ice cream with the kids. You can learn a lot about a person when you w