Lording it over the flock?

LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Peter’s way for the Church today
By Graham Houston. Paternoster. 198 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978-1-84227-604-4

If authoritarian leadership is or may become a problem in your church, then Leading by Example is a book for you. Graham Houston believes that the ‘lording it over others’ style of leadership is as much a problem in the 21st century as it was in the first. He is worried that church leaders have imbibed too much from secular management and leadership models and seeks to take us back to the Bible, and to the apostle Peter in particular. In Peter, Graham Houston believes we have, modelled and taught, leadership by example.

It’s a book that manages to combine a scholarly approach with readability. He is very firmly and clearly biblical in his approach, and will help any reader become a more biblical and so better leader. That can’t be bad. But it’s not all wonderful. If there is a general weakness, I would think it lies in the step from excellent exegesis to practical outworking. Some more examples would have been helpful too. I just got the impression that when the rubber needed to hit the road, he was more of a hovercraft.