philippians on Leadership

The Protestant Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) arrived in Geneva to lead the city’s church in 1536, but not, as we might imagine, to universal acceptance. Rather, there was significant resistance and...

Angela Merkel breaks almost every stereotype we have about world leaders. Her appearances and actions are plain and modest.  She's humble. She couldn't care less about showmanship or fancy dis...

Have you ever noticed geese soaring across the sky in a V formation? Scientists have uncovered the wisdom behind this flight pattern: as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the one beh...

Leadership is not about problems and decisions; it is a profoundly relational enterprise that seeks to motivate people toward a vision that will require significant change and risk on everyone’s part.

Conflict in Ministry Have you ever whispered to yourself, “I didn’t sign up for this?” I confess those words have passed through my mind more than once over the years. When I started out in ministry...

Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which he himself founded. Bu...

The Servant Leader The servant leader is the hero of this text.  And the example,  par excellence,  is the Apostle Paul. He has never shied away from holding himself up as a person to be imitated, as...

Preaching Commentary Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which...

When I first received a review copy of The Politics of Ministry  by Bob Burns, Tasha D. Chapman, and Donald Guthrie, I knew I needed to read this book. Why? Because I have become convinced that so ...

Dan B. Allender, in his book Leading Character, tells the story of a friend whose daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. He kept news of his daughter’s illness to himself, fearing that his employees wo...

It came down to one essential definition. The central dimension for Level 5 is a leader who is ambitious first and foremost for the cause, for the company, for the work, not for himself or herself; an...

The most radical social teaching of Jesus was his total reversal of the contemporary notion of greatness. Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all. Power is discovered in submission. The for...

In 1927 Bruce Barton wrote a multi-faceted parable that is believed to be based on a true story. This story is related to the work of Sir Christopher Wren, whose design of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Lond...

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...

Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own (Stu’s) sermons, as I was trying to help the congregation make a paradigm shift from the church as a building, to the people of God: ...

So the first and most basic task of the Christian leader in the future will be to lead his people out of the land of confusion into the land of hope. Therefore, he must first have the courage to be an...

A leader is a dealer in hope.