Biblical images of leadership

The leadership image of a shepherd

A few years ago I attended training for IFES staff and students. I was impressed and inspired by the teaching of the Bible about spiritual leadership. A few images did draw my attention especially. The image of a shepherd, servant, and patient helped me most during this training. 

At Studentlife we thought that a series on leadership would help us. So we decided to use a variety of materials for these training sessions. 

We will have a closer look at the image of a shepherd as a leadership model. This comes from Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. The main passages come from Psalm 23; John 10; Ezekiel 34; Acts 20; John 21.

Some of the lessons are the following: 

• Good shepherding begins with God as our shepherd.
• If God is our shepherd, then we have the following benefits: abundance, security, and intimacy. We, therefore, learn to lead out of a sense of our needs being continually satisfied. Leadership is healthy if leaders are not using others to meet their needs. 

We will discuss a few case studies that will help us make it practical and concrete. We hope the training will better prepare us to coach and mentor our students and student leaders.

Tagsbook study, student leader

The Myth of the Non-Christian

The Myth of the Non-Christian

With some student workers, we finished reading and discussing the book ‘the myth of a non-Christian’ by Luke Cawley.

I highly recommend this book to those who want to improve their communication skills. It will help you better understand those outside the Christian faith. You will become a better and more effective witness for Jesus. I enjoyed reading and discussing this book!

Here is a short book description from the author’s amazon profile:

“There’s no such thing as a non-Christian.
Somebody might self-identify as spiritual but not religious. Or they might be a practicing Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. Or they might call themselves an atheist, freethinker or agnostic. But the one thing that people never describe themselves as is a “non-Christian.” So Christians who want to “reach non-Christians” need to realize that they’re not all the same. Evangelism is not one-size-fits-all.
Luke Cawley shows how Christians can contextualize the gospel in different ways to connect with different kinds of people. Here he unpacks the religious identities of three key demographics: the spiritual but not religious, committed atheists and nominal Christians. Each group has particular characteristics and requires specific approaches and practices to make the Christian faith plausible, desirable and tangible to them.
Filled with real-life stories of changed lives, this book is a practical and hopeful resource for helping people to encounter God.”

The book is available here

Luke Cawley joined our last book study meeting. We, therefore, had an opportunity to ask questions and get more insights from him. Was great!

Tagsapologetics, book study