There are only a couple of blogs that I ever read regularly. So I am just getting familiar with the format and beginning to "learn the ropes." By January 1, it would be nice to know just where this ship is headed.
A couple of days ago my brother, John, passed on to me a new book sent to him by his recent publisher, IVP, called THE LEADERSHIP ELLIPSE: Shaping How We Lead By Who We Are. The author is Robert Fryling, the publisher of IVP and Senior VP of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
The foreword to the book was written by my old friend, Eugene Peterson. His words connected with the tiny "how" I discovered on my photo that I mentioned last time. Gene writes about the tension in Christian leadership between books on "how to make things happen in the world" and "how to nurture our souls, how to grow in prayer and attentiveness to God" and the danger that in our Christian culture the two different emphases can "cancel each other out."
Will this blog want to focus on making things happen in the world or nurturing our souls or the creative tension between the two...or on something else? Is there anything else?
At the end of this month I am wrapping up nearly seven years as the Senior Consultant to Arrow Leadership Ministry. About a third of my time each month has been devoted to Arrow (arrowleadership.org) and their fine work polishing young, Christian leaders (Isaiah 49:2)...helping them to "polish" the gifts and skills they are already demonstrating in ministry. The above tension is built into Arrow's philosophy and approach to training leaders: the character within and the outward skills "to be led more by Jesus, to lead more like Jesus, and to lead more to Jesus." Fryling's new book will likely find a place in Arrow's quiver.
After venturing a couple of chapters into Fryling's new work I have decided to hear him out. I'll let you know...
The Rope Puller
I'd be interested in knowing what other blogs you read regularly.
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