Leading character

Understanding yourself

LEADING CHARACTER
By Dan Allender
Zondervan. 104 pages
ISBN 978-0-310-28760-5

OVERCOMING YOUR SHADOW MISSION
By John Ortberg
Zondervan. 106 pages
ISBN 978-0-310-28762-9

These new small, beautifully presented hardbacks are helpful for getting hold of bite-sized principles of leadership. Written, probably for an American market, and using story and management concepts, they try to help us become more effective as leaders.

The Bible is used, but mainly as supportive evidence for the principles they outline. There are some good insights here; John Ortberg uses the Book of Esther to examine the various characters and reveal their ‘shadow missions’ — a term used to refer to the hidden agendas we all work with, and so often fail to recognise. He shows that as we come across various issues, we have a ‘shadow’ which drags us down and calls for us to satisfy. To avoid our ‘shadow mission’ it is essential that we examine our motives and work out our true agenda. This is quite helpful in that it encourages us to be honest and real with ourselves; to ‘know ourselves’. The assumption is that many of us cover up and do not reveal our true selves.

Dan Allender is concerned to help us understand our character. He shows us that God’s character — from Psalm 62.11ff — is ‘strong’ and ‘tender’; these two qualities of strength and tenderness then become the framework for understanding ourselves. We are shown to be ‘marked’ (i.e. made in God’s image), ‘marred’ (due to sin), yet ‘remade’, for God has chosen to remake us in the image of his Son. All this is good stuff. Dan Allender then very helpfully examines our culture to see how we should act as leaders today. He skilfully contrasts the ‘modern’ leadership of the past with present day ‘postmodern’ leadership, showing us that our character is the most important issue. Here is a call for us to be vulnerable, to own up to our weaknesses, and to use these in order to lead with integrity and persuasion.

The series provides helpful insights into effective leadership.

John and Daphne Ross,
Farnham

© Evangelicals Now - August 2009
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Main Articles

• Cape's crucial congress
• The Commentary
  Making friends for the church
• Mission field on the doorstep
• Jesus in Japan
  Celebrating 150 years of Protestant missions and missionaries
• A living hope
  1 Peter 1.3-9 explained and applied
• The case for Applied Theology
• Monthly media and arts column
  The gospel according to Michael Jackson
• The Music Exchange
  Making a joyful noise
• Watching the web
  Are you all of a Twitter?
• Misidentifying the Holy Spirit
• The Third Degree
  Unquenchable flame
• What Darwin should have learned from pigeons

Other articles

• Teenagers - Biblical wisdom for parents
• The Christ Files DVD
• The memoirs of an ordinary pastor - An extract from Don Carson's book on his father
• Fountains in the dust - Snapshots from the streets of South America
• In Jesus (CD)
• Against Physician Assisted Suicide - A palliative care perspective
• Harry Potter and the half-blood prince
• The ghosts of Eden - Shelf life: Looking at secular books
• Understanding the times
• Leading character
• Overcoming your shadow mission
• The New Creationism - Building scientific theories on a biblical foundation
• Personality and prayer
• John Nelson Darby
• The challenge of Islam - To the church and its mission
• Body, soul, and human life - The nature of humanity in the Bible
• Colossians - Confident Christianity
• Contentment - Healing the unger of our hearts
• An Anglican evangelical identity crisis - The Churchman-Anvil affair of 1981-1984
• Listen up! - Practical guide to listening to sermons
• Dysciples - Why I fall asleep when I pray, and 12 other discipleship dysfunctions
• God's pattern for the Christian life
• God's light on dark clouds
• 70 ways to beat 70
• The gods aren't angry (DVD)
• Looking for Eric