Understanding Christian Leadership

Ian Parkinson

Description

Understanding Christian Leadership offers an examination of a distinctly Christian understanding of leadership offering a critical appraisal of insights from secular theories of leadership, exploring biblical and other theological insights into the nature and practice of leadership.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Living
• Mentoring
• Philosophie et théologie
• Leadership

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 28 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334058762
• Langue: English

Extrait

IAN PARKINSON
Understanding Christian Leadership





© Ian Parkinson 2020
Published in 2020 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
All Bible quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 0 334 05874 8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd





In grateful memory of my father
Joseph Ernest Parkinson
(1929–88)
who gave me such a good example to follow




Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by the Most Reverend Justin Welby
Introduction: Not Another Book on Leadership?!
Part 1. Understanding Leadership
1. Desiring Leadership: Why Leadership Matters
2. Defining Leadership
3. Leadership in the Christian Tradition I: Leadership in the Old Testament
4. Leadership in the Christian Tradition II: Leadership in the New Testament
5. Distrusting Leadership: Critical Reflection on the Practice of Leadership
Part 2. The Work of Leadership
6. Leadership and Organizational Culture
7. Animating the Body: Growing and Developing Others
8. Fostering Collaboration
9. Discerning Direction: Leadership and Vision
10. The Spirituality of Christian Leadership

References and Further Reading




Acknowledgements
A huge number of people have contributed to the writing of this book, many without realizing it. The genesis of the book lay, in no small part, in my own frustration at the lack of a one-volume textbook on Christian leadership suitable to function as a course textbook to accompany the teaching of leadership modules in theological education institutions. The content is shaped particularly by the requirements of such modules. My own thinking around the topics covered has thus been shaped a good deal in recent years through interaction and discussion with students in the various colleges and courses in which I teach. I sincerely hope that the fruit of all our previous discussion and reflection might be useful to those who come after and might, in turn, stimulate fresh and fuller reflection and more informed leadership practice.
I am grateful to those who first modelled good leadership to me and showed a concern for my own leadership formation, especially Andrew Cornes and the late Ian Reid. My own leadership was significantly shaped by those with whom I shared leadership in the various churches I have served, and especially the outstanding team of which I was part during my years as vicar of All Saints Marple. My practice and understanding of leadership was hugely shaped and stretched during my time as a member of the New Wine National Leadership team, a true experience of iron sharpening iron. I am so grateful especially to John Coles, Mark Melluish, Mark Bailey, Chris Pemberton, Phil George, Mark Tanner, Steve McGanity and Mark Carey for so many stimulating times spent in their company reflecting on matters to do with leadership. It is an enormous privilege to have been a member, for the last few years, of the CPAS leadership delivery team. My thinking about leadership has been sharpened significantly by our shared reflection on leadership theory and practice and by the fresh and stimulating insights that continually seem to bubble up. I am very grateful to the team members – Charles Burgess, Pam MacNaughton, Emma Sykes, Di Archer, Sally Taylor and Kirstin MacDonald – and to other CPAS colleagues for their encouragement and support as I have gone about the business of writing this book, not least for allowing me to devote considerable time to the project.
I am especially grateful to our team leader, James Lawrence. Over the course of more than two decades, James has played a number of different roles in my life at different times, whether as colleague, coach, team leader, friend or wise counsellor. His wisdom and depth of reflection on Christian leadership probably exceeds that of any other person I know, and his insights have coloured especially the second half of this book. He has been a wonderfully encouraging critical friend during the writing of this book, and his suggestions for revisions and improvements have made this a much stronger volume than it would otherwise have been. Others too have been patient enough to read and offer comment on different chapters and I am particularly grateful to David Heywood, Duncan MacLea, John Dunnett and Jude Palmer for their insights. My thanks, too, to Lizzie Hare for her help in some of the initial research for Chapter 5.
Those who are subjects of the various case studies that accompany the different chapters are all people with whom I have reflected, in some instances over a considerable number of years, about the business of leadership. They are people whose exemplary practice has, in some way, inspired me and enhanced my own understanding of leadership. I am grateful to them for being willing to be interviewed and consenting to make their stories more widely available to others.
Nadine, my wife, with whom I have largely shared my leadership journey, has been, as ever, tirelessly encouraging and supportive as I have been more than usually focused on writing over the last two summers.
Finally, I am hugely grateful to the team at SCM Press, without whose efforts this book would not have seen the light of day, and especially to David Shervington for his wisdom and encouragement, Rachel Geddes for all her practical help, and to Hannah Ward for editing the finished text.
Throughout the book, when using personal pronouns, because I dislike the impersonal pronoun ‘they’, and because I find repeated use of ‘he or she’ cumbersome, I tend to use masculine and feminine pronouns interchangeably. Nothing is implied by the particular use of either masculine or feminine pronouns in any specific context.
My late father, Ernest Parkinson, was the first person who modelled Christian leadership to me, and continues to be one of the most influential role models in my life. A man of sure faith, deep wisdom and great integrity, he demonstrated what good leadership looks like in his professional life as a headteacher, in his family and within the local church. It is to his memory that this book is dedicated.



Foreword
by the Most Reverend Justin Welby
Many of us who find ourselves in positions of Christian leadership share two perspectives: the first is that we aren’t quite sure how we got to the position we are in, and the second is that we frequently don’t feel up to the responsibility we have been given. Because of both of these back stories, I am often amazed when people can write effectively and systematically about leadership, since for my part, I find myself knowing more about what I wouldn’t say about it than about what I would. That is why I am grateful for Ian’s book.
Understanding Christian Leadership is a tour de force. It is comprehensive and informed, theological and practical, theoretical and workable. It represents what must be years of research and academic work, of observation and conversation, and of practice and reflection. Ian knows what he is talking about. My guess is that this is his life in a book – and in writing it he has done us a great service.
That service is the work he has put in in order that we may get on and prayerfully work out how God calls us to lead. Ian has read, digested and made sense of recent and current theories on leadership, studied Scripture and researched scriptural models and concepts of leadership, and observed the practice of effective leadership in teams, communication and strategy. His book is biblical, hopeful, enabling, equipping and rigorous.
Because all truth is God’s truth and all wisdom is God’s wisdom, Ian isn’t fearful of bringing the best of leadership ideas and practice from wherever he finds them – football, Scripture, business, the charity sector, government, church – and co-opting them for the gospel. As well as giving us information and evidence, he also brings character, vision, humility and service. But above all, this book’s greatest theme is the person and work of Jesus Christ – who he was and how he led. This is because, of course, all leadership really comes from who we are. That is why the only hope any of us can have is that it might be the life of Christ in us that draws people, rather than any competency of our own. I doubt whether anyone who might read this book and act on it could fail to be helped to be a more Christlike leader.
If you are a leader who thinks you have it sorted, who can’t understand why you aren’t given more leadership responsibility, or who looks with contempt at everyone else who is leading, at the mess they are making of it, certain you would be succeeding where they are failing – then do not read this book. But if you are a leader who feels out of yo