Imitating what?

Leadership.

This picture is similar to the pictures that I saw at information technology companies where I worked for 6 years before coming to seminary. Posters like this one were in the hallways and were supposed to inspire great leadership.

Leadership is a money-maker. A person cannot even begin to count the number of leadership books that are out on the market. One trip to Barnes&Noble will expose a person to the vast amount of books on how to lead. I have read many of them.

I assumed coming into seminary that leadership would be a focus in my preparation for ministry. That hasn't happened. In fact, the opposite has happened. I have been taught, both directly and indirectly, to automatically question all forms of hierarchy. I have experienced how holding to a conviction only draws defensive responses from others who do not want their personal intellectual space threatened. I have not been taught or encouraged in the area of leadership during my 1 1/2 years here... Until today.

I am in a class that is studying the theology and life of Lesslie Newbigin. We recently read a chapter on his role as a pastoral bishop both in India and in Britain. One of my goals this semester is to be discipled by Newbigin as I study his life. This is in the spirit of 1 Cor 11:1 where Paul says "be imitators of me as I imitate Christ." There is no question that Lesslie Newbigin is a life worth imitating because he imitated Christ. Newbigin says that leaders in the church are to set an example for imitation - imitating Christ. A leader in the church is to be a fisherman, a shepherd, and first of all a disciple (to the cross).

Newbigin says that leadership in the Church always means "following Jesus in the way of the Cross, so that the whole Church may be enabled to follow and so, in turn, to draw others into the company of those who belong to Christ."

Maybe that is where I should be looking for 'leadership training' while at seminary...