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Tag Archives: Augustine

Learning to Lead from the Best

Most Christian leaders today look primarily to secular entrepreneurs in order to learn how to lead– e.g. Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. That is a good thing. My deep concern is proportion. We don’t spend nearly as much time sitting at the feet of Christian leaders who are prayerful, discerning, and biblical. The best models I know come out of early church history. Origen (182-251) was the head of a famous catechetical school (or seminary) in Alexandria Egypt. For Origen, all Scripture was the “music of God.” He was so ascetic in his lifestyle that, to avoid slander arising out of his wide ministry and to serve his quest for perfection in Christ, he castrated himself in accordance to Matthew 19:12. Regardless of our opinion of his actions, it demonstrates his all-out commitment to live what he was preaching. Athanasius (300-373) was a deacon in the church in Egypt and a great defender of Scripture.. Read more.

Learning to Lead from the Best

Most Christian leaders today look primarily to secular entrepreneurs in order to learn how to lead– e.g. Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. That is a good thing. My deep concern is proportion. We don’t spend nearly as much time sitting at the feet of Christian leaders who are prayerful, discerning, and biblical. The best models I know come out of early church history. Origen (182-251) was the head of a famous catechetical school (or seminary) in Alexandria Egypt. For Origen, all Scripture was the “music of God.” He was so ascetic in his lifestyle that, to avoid slander arising out of his wide ministry and to serve his quest for perfection in Christ, he castrated himself in accordance to Matthew 19:12. Regardless of our opinion of his actions, it demonstrates his all-out commitment to live what he was preaching. Athanasius (300-373) was a deacon in the church in Egypt and a great defender. Read more.

Self-Identity as the Key to Discernment

Augustine once said that God is always trying to give good things to us but our hands are too full to receive them. Roslyn H. Wright, a Director of Field Education at Whitley College in Australia, visited me in NYC recently. The following are reflections out of her work with seminary students around “Incarnational goal setting”: 1. God’s calls us to courageously lead out of our ‘true self.’ “The problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self” (Thomas Merton). God gives to each of us a “manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” with a unique working out of that gift in the Body and the world. The forces, internal and external, that move us away from that place of leading from within are enormous. 2. Prayer, particularly the Examen, along with a trusted community, is the foundation for. Read more.