faithrunner

Ruth Haley Barton I teach leadership courses for DBU and B H Carroll at both the Masters and PhD levels. I have extended bibliographies for each course, but if you were to ask me for one or two books on leadership you should read, I would recommend (other than my book on leadership ): Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership , by Ruth Haley Barton and Leadership on the Line , by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Heifetz and Linsky   Why these two out of all the others? Both resonate with my personal experiences (and those of leaders I respect) of leading a freely formed group of followers around a perceived common mission toward a new goal or reality.  Both provide practical and spiritual ways to survive the Mt. Rainier climb of leadership. Leadership on the Line contains the wisdom of leading I wish I had known twenty years ago when I started this leadership adventure at Legacy Church . I wish someone had told me the price of lead...

I recently traveled to Cuba with B H Carroll Theological Institute to teach students who are part of Carroll's masters program there. I traveled with three others from Carroll on religious visas to serve in Camaguey . This was my third trip to Cuba, and I was as impressed with the people and the church on this trip as I was the first time I went there. We held classes in the buildings and among the people who are Primera Iglesia Bautista in Camaguey. The building was built in 1904 and sits in the heart of the historic city. But it is not the quaint nature of the structures that draws your heart to the church; it is the people. The Cuban Christians are warm, hospitable, and truly love the Lord .  They accept what they have been given, and they live joyful, hope-filled lives in Christ. They take trains, walk, ride their bikes, or "BC Taxis," to gather as God's people to worship in song, to learn God's Word, and to pray. And, oh, how they pray! We gathered on...

I don't post much on this blog about the servant leadership of Jesus . (I need to start a separate blog, I suppose.) I spend more time teaching the principles and model of Jesus' leadership in the courses I teach for B H Carroll Theological Institute and Dallas Baptist University as a Teaching Fellow and Adjunct Professor (MACE and Ph.D.) respectively. That doesn't mean I don't keep up with the dialogue around my life's message that if we are followers of Jesus we who are called to lead will lead like Jesus . The dialogue around servant leadership and Jesus, which I am pleased to monitor and enter into regularly, has become a mainstay of leadership discussions in Christian schools and seminaries , . Bethel Seminary has with a D.Min. in Servant Leadership and Gonzaga University recognizes itself among "servant leadership schools," who train leaders to be servant leaders. I appreciate serving DBU's mission to "produce servant leaders" th...