Latest update 6 June 2012
Soul Leadership
Soul Leadership was developed as a training seminar for Christian clergy. Its key themes, the principles underlying its approach, and some supporting resource material are presented on this website.
Soul Leadership examines the character, values, and motivation of the individual faith leader. Its focus is on faith leaders as themselves disciples of Christ, and it identifies the essential personal qualities and aspirations that undergirds the cure of souls. Using scripture, participants’ life experience, and a little social analysis, the nature of soul leadership as lived wisdom is examined. Ways an individual can cultivate and strengthen lived wisdom are suggested. Although the individual (sole!) leader is the principal subject of the seminar, how this focus works to the benefit of collaborative ministry is a recurrent theme.
Soul Leadership = Living faithfully – Remembering truly – Speaking proficiently
1) Vocational holiness What is it? Why is it particularly important for ministry in contemporary society? Maintaining a sense of calling: ten ways to keep it alive.
Keywords: authenticity, influence, and integrity
2) Devotional memory Being remembered: knowing God as the One who remembers us. Being ‘rememberers’: Christians as a community of memory. The faith leader’s particular task as a bearer and interpreter of memory. Living the wisdom of the ages: six ways to keep the memory fresh.
Keywords: calling, tradition, formation
3) Inspirational speech The faith leader as ‘voicer.’ Words that move and matter. Changing your ‘invironment’ – words for a soul’s growth. Heart-thoughts communion: ideas for sharing what’s really important.
Keywords: naming, articulating, attending
Learning outcomes.
On completing this module participants will be able to:
- Express the key concepts in ways that facilitate their own ministries
- Utilize the ideas and techniques discussed to strengthen their own soul leadership
- Relate personal spiritual development to issues of leadership in ministry
- Review positively their own ‘giving voice’ in word and deed to the Gospel
Methodology: Day seminars, review exercises, formal input, web resources, personal journaling, personal histories, situational analysis, and self-directed reflection.
Associated texts:
George Bernanos, (2002) The Diary of a Country Priest. A Novel. (Fourth edition, English translation). New York: Carroll and Graf.
“ … who, after reading this miserable journal, every line of which reveals my weakness, my wretched weakness, who would not understand? Is this the showing of a leader, the head of a parish, a guardian of souls? For I ought to be master of my parish, yet I give myself away to them for what I am–a pitiful beggar, going from door to door with outstretched hand, not even daring to knock. Oh, yes–I’ve worked hard enough! I’ve done my best, and what’s the use? My best is nothing. A leader is not judged by his mere intentions: once he has assumed responsibility, he must answer for his results. By concealing the state of my health, was I really doing no more than obey the impulse–a crazy, heroic impulse–to do my duty? And had I any right to take the risk? A leader’s risk is the risk of all.” (p 141-2)
Leonard Sweet, (2000) Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa: Seventeen Surprising Steps for Godly Living in the 21st Century. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
“God can take the worst and turn it into the best. In the most wasted places, God does the greatest work. God can turn any Sheol into a Shiloh.Where was Jesus born? What goes on in a stable? What were baby Jesus’ first smells on earth?Where was Jesus crucified? What were Jesus’ last smells on earth?The classic image for Ash Wednesday is burned garbage. Ashes are more that recycled palm fronds. They are a powerful reminder of that defoliated tree planted in the midst of Jerusalem’s garbage dump, a place called Golgotha, a symbol of cruelty and ugliness and death that at the same time became the ‘fount of every blessing.’We coo about the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Artists paint doves sitting on the head of the Virgin Mary. But what is a dove? A dove is a pigeon, a trash bird. Pigeons become ‘doves’ only on paper and out of the pens of poets.The gospel of grace is a waste aesthetic: there are treasure chests buried in trash cans. Grace moves us from buried trash to buried treasure.” (p 134)
…………
“One’s life begins to slope downward when one becomes an ‘expert.’ Postmodern pilgrims are not ‘experts’ in anything. Pilgrims are students of everything and everyone. Pilgrims never graduate. We are students sitting lifelong, and one day eternity-long, at Jesus’ feet.” (p 63)
"We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." 2 Corinthians 4.7
Soul Leadership examines the character, values, and motivation of the individual faith leader. Its focus is on faith leaders as themselves disciples of Christ, and it identifies the essential personal qualities and aspirations that undergirds the cure of souls. Using scripture, participants’ life experience, and a little social analysis, the nature of soul leadership as lived wisdom is examined. Ways an individual can cultivate and strengthen lived wisdom are suggested. Although the individual (sole!) leader is the principal subject of the seminar, how this focus works to the benefit of collaborative ministry is a recurrent theme.
Soul Leadership = Living faithfully – Remembering truly – Speaking proficiently
1) Vocational holiness What is it? Why is it particularly important for ministry in contemporary society? Maintaining a sense of calling: ten ways to keep it alive.
Keywords: authenticity, influence, and integrity
2) Devotional memory Being remembered: knowing God as the One who remembers us. Being ‘rememberers’: Christians as a community of memory. The faith leader’s particular task as a bearer and interpreter of memory. Living the wisdom of the ages: six ways to keep the memory fresh.
Keywords: calling, tradition, formation
3) Inspirational speech The faith leader as ‘voicer.’ Words that move and matter. Changing your ‘invironment’ – words for a soul’s growth. Heart-thoughts communion: ideas for sharing what’s really important.
Keywords: naming, articulating, attending
Learning outcomes.
On completing this module participants will be able to:
- Express the key concepts in ways that facilitate their own ministries
- Utilize the ideas and techniques discussed to strengthen their own soul leadership
- Relate personal spiritual development to issues of leadership in ministry
- Review positively their own ‘giving voice’ in word and deed to the Gospel
Methodology: Day seminars, review exercises, formal input, web resources, personal journaling, personal histories, situational analysis, and self-directed reflection.
Associated texts:
George Bernanos, (2002) The Diary of a Country Priest. A Novel. (Fourth edition, English translation). New York: Carroll and Graf.
“ … who, after reading this miserable journal, every line of which reveals my weakness, my wretched weakness, who would not understand? Is this the showing of a leader, the head of a parish, a guardian of souls? For I ought to be master of my parish, yet I give myself away to them for what I am–a pitiful beggar, going from door to door with outstretched hand, not even daring to knock. Oh, yes–I’ve worked hard enough! I’ve done my best, and what’s the use? My best is nothing. A leader is not judged by his mere intentions: once he has assumed responsibility, he must answer for his results. By concealing the state of my health, was I really doing no more than obey the impulse–a crazy, heroic impulse–to do my duty? And had I any right to take the risk? A leader’s risk is the risk of all.” (p 141-2)
Leonard Sweet, (2000) Learn to Dance the Soul Salsa: Seventeen Surprising Steps for Godly Living in the 21st Century. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
“God can take the worst and turn it into the best. In the most wasted places, God does the greatest work. God can turn any Sheol into a Shiloh.Where was Jesus born? What goes on in a stable? What were baby Jesus’ first smells on earth?Where was Jesus crucified? What were Jesus’ last smells on earth?The classic image for Ash Wednesday is burned garbage. Ashes are more that recycled palm fronds. They are a powerful reminder of that defoliated tree planted in the midst of Jerusalem’s garbage dump, a place called Golgotha, a symbol of cruelty and ugliness and death that at the same time became the ‘fount of every blessing.’We coo about the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Artists paint doves sitting on the head of the Virgin Mary. But what is a dove? A dove is a pigeon, a trash bird. Pigeons become ‘doves’ only on paper and out of the pens of poets.The gospel of grace is a waste aesthetic: there are treasure chests buried in trash cans. Grace moves us from buried trash to buried treasure.” (p 134)
…………
“One’s life begins to slope downward when one becomes an ‘expert.’ Postmodern pilgrims are not ‘experts’ in anything. Pilgrims are students of everything and everyone. Pilgrims never graduate. We are students sitting lifelong, and one day eternity-long, at Jesus’ feet.” (p 63)
"We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." 2 Corinthians 4.7