Great Leader, Great Teacher: Recovering the Biblical Vision for Leadership

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Great Leader, Great Teacher: Recovering the Biblical Vision for Leadership

3.38 of 5 stars 3.38 · rating details · 16 ratings · 1 review

So many contemporary leadership philosophies, even within the church, are based on worldly examples of success. These methods force church leaders to become businesslike CEOs, dramatic visionaries, or savvy stategists abandoning their true calling as teachers.This book calls readers to be what the Bible empowers them to be, teachers who follow Christ's example of leading b...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published August 1st 2006 by Moody Publishers

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Oct 29, 2012 Timothy Darling rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biblical-studies, brain-food, doctoral-reading, education, leadership, pastoral-arts, religious, philosophy, spiritual-food, textbooks

Great Leader Great Teacher is a pretty good book. It is above average, but not excellent. It is above average in that it does give some helpful insights that should be considered:

The difference between values and virtues
The competencies of the Leader, such as: methodology, clarity, and team dynamics
Philosophical leadership paradigms
Church characteristics and styles

These are all good reflections, bringing the leader to examine his or her own situation and ensure a high level of awareness.

However,...more Great Leader Great Teacher is a pretty good book. It is above average, but not excellent. It is above average in that it does give some helpful insights that should be considered:

The difference between values and virtues
The competencies of the Leader, such as: methodology, clarity, and team dynamics
Philosophical leadership paradigms
Church characteristics and styles

These are all good reflections, bringing the leader to examine his or her own situation and ensure a high level of awareness.

However, one of the things that keeps the book from being excellent is its uneven and trite treatment of important ideas. Bredfeldt has no trouble affirming a power paradigm of Sigmund Freud's even though he acknowledges the overwhelmingly negative reputation Freud has in evangelical circles. He says: "I would encourage the reader to not discard everything Freud has theorized without giving due consideration to his research" (208). This is good, as it should be. However, he does not give the emergent church the same consideration. His blanket and unsupported statements against A Generous Orthodoxy gives the (I must assume false) impression that Bredfeldt hasn't read McLaren's book. I acknowledge freely that I strongly disagree with some of the directions McLaren leans, but that should not prevent me from seeing his point that legitimate, orthodox denominations have disagreements over theology that a humble person should consider and not reject out of hand, but rather examine the points of difference to see if we can learn something. McLaren is not saying "Let's all just toss out good theology and join theological hands with cults." He is saying, "what can we learn from the various good theologies to be found in legitimate Christian expressions?" Again, he may take this idea too far, and on those points I disagree, but why can we not give him and some other Emergent leaders the same consideration given to Freud who was explicitly anti-Christian? It seems disingenuous, distrustful of other believers, and needlessly divisive. Again, I am not saying we should simply endorse everything any emergent says, but we should not smother them all with a blanket condemnation either. Part of the hallmark of the emergent movement is its eclectic nature, it's tenacious resistance to endorsing a single path. Though the existential flavor of such a stance is philosophically foreign, it should also be enough to tell us that even within the movement there is broad disagreement and a need for evaluating individuals for their own views.

The second problem I see with Great Leader Great Teacher is the over-simplified presentation of some very good ideas. This is to some degree a personal bias. Bredfeldt is way too married to alliteration. Alliteration has been valued in popular but unsophisticated circles as a mnemonic, and it does work. It is also a poetic device, but one that is seldom used in poetry for a reason. It does not lend itself to precision. A person who uses alliteration too much seems willing to sacrifice accuracy for pithiness. Bredfeldt's ideas are good, but his over-use of this device trivializes his material. In my own mind, I have to get past that self-trivialization before I can give the ideas the credit they deserve. I have to ask what Bredfeldt would have said if he had felt free to use the most accurate words possible in his constructs instead of feeling bound to five Es, five Ss, four Ms, four Ps, four Vs, and four Es. The preoccupation with the number four also leads me to believe that he may be forcing his ideas into a pattern that makes it useful for various reasons, but may also mean that it is less precise than it might be otherwise. To give him his due, Bredfeldt does not always resort to this pattern, and when he doesn't his alliterative tendency is also muted. That is all to the good, but his own model could stand to be self-evaluated to see if additional complexity and precision could also lead to greater effectiveness of the model. The abandonment of imposed simplicity could lead to a more significant success.

One of my own frustrations with the pastorate has been the impression I had as a young man that the pastor's primary role was teaching. When I actually entered the profession, I found that people placed a higher value on other pastoral roles than I anticipated, roles I was ill equipped to fill. As a person with a definite spiritual bent toward teaching, this development has been drastically discouraging. Bredfeldt's paradigm is encouraging in that it affirms my initial impression, but does not help because it is not broadly recognized and valued. As a leader it makes little difference what my core values are if they are not in harmony with the core values of my constituency.

However, read Great Leader Great Teacher to see how Bredfeldt draws the values of his paradigm into sharp relief. Use it to refine your ministry. I will. It is only one view, communicated with some flaws, but it contributes good material to the overall philosophy of the leader.(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Sarah Hurliman rated it 4 of 5 stars

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