Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

A Leadership Mosaic

November 4th, 2008

This month’s synchroblog is on leadership, an appropriate topic for today. But, as I thought of what to write I realized that so much has already been said on the subject and so much more will be said… So, today I want to give you a little mosaic sampling of what has been said on leadership and what others are saying on leadership today. I hope that you find it thought provoking.

“When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown. Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, The good of subjects is the end of kings.” – Defoe

“We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is great danger that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence [leadership] by noise not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls… There is one thing, my dear sir, that must be attempted and most sacredly observed or we are all undone. There must be decency and respect, and veneration introduced for persons o authority or every rank, or we are undone. In a popular government, this is our only way.” – John Adams

“He seeks information from all quarters and judges more independently than any man I ever saw.” – John Adams speaking of George Washington (those are traits that I personally look for in a leader)

“Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” – Celtic saying

“To lead people, walk beside them… As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear, and the next, the people hate… When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” – Lao-tsu

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.” – Admiral James B. Stockdale

“Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” – Harry Truman

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max DePree

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

Here’s what other people are saying about leadership today:

Jonathan Brink – Letter To The President

Adam Gonnerman – Aspiring to the Episcopate

Kai – Leadership – Is Servant Leadership a Broken Model?

Sally Coleman – In the world but not of it- servant leadership for the 21st Century Church

Alan Knox – Submission is given not taken

Joe Miller – Elders Lead a Healthy Family: The Future

Cobus van Wyngaard – Empowering leadership

Steve Hayes – Servant leadership

Geoff Matheson – Leadership

John Smulo – Australian Leadership Lessons

Helen Mildenhall – Leadership

Tyler Savage – Moral Leadership – Is it what we need?

Bryan Riley – Leading is to Listen and Obey

Susan Barnes – Give someone else a turn!

Liz Dyer – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls…

Ellen Haroutunian – A New Kind of Leadership

Matt Stone - Converting Leadership

Steve Bradley - Lording or Leading?

Adam Myers - Two types of Leadership

Kathy Escobar - I’m Pretty Sure This Book Won’t Make It On The Bestseller List

Fuzzy Orthodoxy - Self Leadership

Sonja Andrews - Leadership In An Age of Cholera

Tara Hull - Leadership & Being A Single Mom

Beth Patterson – Leadership: Being the River

Bill Ellis – Spiritual Leadership and the re-humanizing of our world

Joe S. – Leadership: This election and social justice

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Links: Leadership, Czech Bible Project, and Ideas

July 17th, 2008

So, here are just a few things I thought I would share today.

This is a link to a blog that my dear friend, David Malouf, wrote. I found it interesting and insightful. Interesting and insightful are actually both good words to describe David, too! J Check out the post to read some of his interesting and insightful thoughts on leadership and leadership development.

Also, today Bryan and I saw this short video about the Czech Bible Project. We both really admire the work that Sasha Flek is doing and really enjoy the few times we’ve been able to be around him here in Prague. It was interesting to watch this video and learn a little more about the Czech Bible Translation Project.

Also, I just heard about this web site, www.ideas4all.com. It’s new and in beta still and I haven’t spent that much time on it yet, but I really like the concept. Basically it’s a place where you can share ideas and find solutions to problems. So, if you have an idea you can post it to share with people or if you have a problem you can post it and see if others can help you solve your problem. Like I said I haven’t really played with it much but I thought it was interesting and that I would pass it on.

Ok, that’s it for today.

Oh, Wait!! One more thing! We went to the foreign police and after some confusion, 9 hours of waiting, 1 missing paper, 1 really nice Czech foreign police worker, 1 run back up to our place to get said missing paper, and more help from the nice man behind the counter, we have the official stamp that goes with our visa and we are TOTALLY LEGAL now!!! YAY!!!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

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Round Up From Around The Web: Leadership and some other stuff

June 2nd, 2008

Once again it’s time for a round up from around the web edition J Now that we are back in Prague and starting to settle back into a routine (though it has been thrown off a bit by the jet lag) I have been able to catch up on some of the blogs I like to read and I found that there has been some very interesting blog entries while I was disengaged from the blogosphere.

We’ll start with Godspace. I actually wasn’t as behind on her blog because she hasn’t been writing much lately due to being involved in a new change of direction that the Mustard Seed Association is taking. She talks about it in this blog called Quaker Discernment. I found the blog very interesting – I like the idea of decisions being made in community, but it does sound messy to me and I think I would find it very difficult in practice. But, I think that if you are going to say that you value community and people and that you believe that God can speak to anyone and through anyone then it is important to show that through your actions and not just talk about it.  It’s an interesting blog and I encourage you to check it out. Another blog that I found interesting on Christine’s site today was this one talking about how the FDA has approved cloned meat as being safe to eat. I personally found this interesting partly because I have very little faith in the FDA and if they say something is ok then I’m likely to think they are wrong (they have made a lot of mistakes before). I also find this interesting because I have a chemical sensitivity and am allergic/sensitive to a number of different foods. I struggle enough with my health and with finding healthy safe foods for me to eat – I don’t need another thing to worry about when buying food or eating out at restaurants.

Another blog that I found really interesting also related to leadership and decision making in the church but in a more specific and detail oriented way then Christine Sine’s blog. It was this blog entry by Kingdom Grace called The Missing APEs.The blog is a discussion of this article  in Leadership Journal written by Alan Hirsch. I found Grace’s comments on the article and the story she shared of her own experience to be very interesting and enlightening. I found both Alan Hirsch’s original article and Kingdom Grace’s blog about it very helpful and challenging and they gave me new language to think of leadership in and I always like when people can give me words for expressing my thoughts and experiences.

In reading through Kathy Escobar’s blog, The carnival in my head, I came across this blog. The prayer in it really resonated with me.

Ok, that’s it for now. Enjoy!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

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International Women’s Day

March 9th, 2008

flower.jpgA few weeks ago I was talking with a friend and she turned to me and said that she really liked reading my blog and then she told me I was a pastor – that reading my blog she saw this pastor side of me coming out. I smiled – beamed is probably more like it actually, and I sort of wanted to cry. It was a quick passing comment but it really meant a lot to me.

When I was younger I wanted to be a pastor. In fact in junior high when I was bored and had nothing to do I would write sermons. Then I was told that women shouldn’t be pastors. I struggled with it, but everyone I knew believed that women shouldn’t be in leadership in the church and I didn’t even really realize that there were good God fearing Christians out there that didn’t agree. I accepted it as an unquestionable truth – women shouldn’t lead. I didn’t like it, something in my heart fought against it, but I believed it. I still sort of do believe it – it’s hard to change beliefs like that.

I think all of that is sort of why I like blogging so much – it’s an acceptable way for me as a women to express my thoughts, to preach and teach and encourage and share and be me. I don’t often feel comfortable being me – I get scared a lot, I struggle with insecurities a lot. But when I blog I feel safe to express myself, to question things, to be creative, to preach. I have often felt like I didn’t know what my place is, what my role should be in life, in my marriage, in the church. I often feel like I don’t know who I am – or at least like who I am deep down doesn’t really fit with things people think I am or think I should be. I have often wished I was someone else; there have even been times in my life when I wished I wasn’t a woman.

Today is International Women’s Day… I spent pretty much all day with women today. I hosted a wedding shower for a good friend of mine – I never liked showers much, they always felt really uncomfortable for me. Today’s shower went well and I was really glad to be able to do it and in many ways I enjoyed it but it was still not really any different – it still felt sort of uncomfortable. After the shower I had an opportunity to go out with a few girl friends and just talk and laugh and swap stories of our lives and our marriages. It was so nice to hear the stories of these other women – it reminded me that I’m not alone. It was a pretty good way to spend a day that is supposed to be dedicated to honoring women.

Tonight I find a lot of questions bouncing around in my head. What does it really mean to be a woman? What does a woman of God REALLY look like – not just what does the church “say” a woman of God should look like… but really what should we look like as female followers of Christ? How can I freely express myself and be myself as a women of God in the community I find myself in? It’s easy for me to be authentic online when blogging, but how can I be freed up to be an authentic, powerful, graceful, beautiful, insightful women in every area of my life, the chosen and the not chosen?

I’m tired…

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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Complementarianism, Christian Egalitarianism, and some other thoughts…

February 15th, 2008

In keeping with the focus I picked for this week of Lent – family/marriage - I have been thinking a little bit about the different ideas held by Christians on leadership and authority in marriage.

Most of the churches that I have grown up in and the people I have been around have taught and encouraged a Complementarian view of marriage. The Complementarian view is that men and women are “equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different and complementary in function with male headship in the home and in the Church.” And on some levels I think this is still the view that I subscribe to… mainly because its so framiliar to me, but also because I know myself and I know my husband. We are clearly very, very different and we clearly need different things and it makes sense to me to acknowledge those differences in desires/needs when talking about our roles in marriage. But, I also struggle with this view and there are times when I have problems with it… clearly there are those who have taken and do take this view and take the concept of Christian hierarchy in marriage and do terrible things in the name of it. But, I’m not really talking about that… sometimes I feel like even in a genuine and kind adherence to this view there are some problems and it can push women and their view points and opinions to the side lines and margins in a way that can be detrimental not just to those women but to those who could benefit from what those women have to add to the conversation. I think in all honesty even though I have theoretically subscribed to this view I don’t think I have ever liked it much. But, I think I started being more ok with this idea when I got married…which is odd, right? I started thinking about why that is and I thought maybe it was just because I married well and my husband is someone who I don’t mind submitting to and following – I trust him. But, then I started thinking about it more and realized that in our marriage I never really have “submitted” and never have really needed to. There has really never been a decision we have made that we haven’t talked through together and come to some sort of agreement together. So, that got me thinking…we both would probably call ourselves Complementarians…but are we really? In actuality… in how we really live out our relationship are with Complementarians…I don’t really think so…

Christian Egalitarianism is the other major view on authority and leadership in marriage and the more I hear and read about it the more it makes sense to me. And the more I realize that in actual practice is is probably closer to how my husband and I treat each other.

Really though I think the best view I’ve ever seen on authority and leadership in marriage comes from watching my parents relationship and listening to some of the things that they have said about marriage…
I vividly remember my dad and I talking about Ephesians 5 once. We were talking about the role of husbands and wives that Paul lays out there and I remember my dad stopping me and telling me to look at it in the context of the whole chapter. He pointed out verse 21 (the last verse under the previous heading and the right before the section on wives and husbands) it says “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” – submit to one another! Wives submit to your husbands! Husbands submit to your wives! Each of you submit to one another! My dad then pointed out what if we thought of it not so much in term of men being the head and women submitting but in terms of each of us submitting to the other one. I thought a lot about this and later it dawned on me maybe Paul is just laying out in this section HOW we should submit to one another. Wives how should you submit to your husband’s? By respecting him!  You show respect to him by letting him know that you believe in him, and trust him and think he’s a man – by listening to him and yielding to him as if you were listening and yielding to Christ himself.  And husbands how are you to submit to your wife? By loving her! You love her and submit to her by giving yourself up for her – by putting her needs and desires above your own just like Christ loved us and gave up his very life for us. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Lord, you have created us unique yet equal. In Christ there is truly “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus”. But, you have called us each to submit. You call us to submit to you and to in turn submit to one another. You call us to serve one another in love. You call us each to be imitators of Christ and to like him make ourselves nothing, “taking the very nature of a servant”. Lord, forgive me for the times when I have been unloving toward my husband, the times when I haven’t submitted to him, the times when I haven’t served him, the times when I haven’t respected him, the times when I haven’t put his needs above my own. Forgive me for what I have done and for what I have left undone in my marriage. And teach me not to fight for control but to in humility take on the very likeness of Christ and serve. In Jesus name. Amen.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

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