Christ-Based Leadership: Applying the Bible and Today's Best Leadership Models to Become an Effective Leader

by David Stark

Presents a portrait of Christian leadership within a biblical framework while comparing and contrasting it to today's hottest leadership models.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 28, 2005

Reviews

[J.R. Woodward · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Stark holds a Masters of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and has co-authored four books. He is one of the pastors at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, a business consultant and Vice President of BussinessKeys International, as well as a trainer and co-author of LifeKeys.

In Christ-Based Leadership Stark contends that effective leadership occurs when we put into practice the best current leadership models that embody New Testament leadership.

Stark takes some of today’s best leadership principles and shows how they line up and illustrate New Testament leadership by taking twelve chapters to ask twelve fundamental questions to today’s leaders in the church. Some of these questions include: What is the truth about your ambition? Who is the Lord of your leadership? Do you believe in the people you are leading? What is your definition of success? Do you play to strengths so people can do their best? Are you really a team? Are you ready to create new wineskins? Who are you here to serve? His goal in this book is to see church leaders move from a hierarchal leadership style to constructive nurturing leadership that imitates Christ and best fits our current context in the West. He combines some of the best of market place principles from people like Jim Collins, Marcus Buckingham, Pactrick Lencioni and Ichak Adizes and show how their ideas are demonstrated in the New Testament and that if we apply these principles to our lives we will be effective leaders in the church and outside of the church.

What I appreciated about Stark’s book was how he started with our hearts and motives calling us to look at our ambitions and make Jesus Lord of our leadership. He doesn’t just call us to do this, but gives some practical steps. Stark also gives us great practical helps each chapter. Some of those I thought were valuable were the thoughts on being a humble leader (40), creating a culture of trust by growing in transparency and openness, pursuing fairness and equity in management decisions as well as live by a shared set of core values (72) as well as the entrepreneurial process, integrative process and renewal process (144). I appreciated his quoting the ancient desert fathers who talked about busyness as “moral laziness” (80) as well bringing the scripture into each conversation. I hope to keep these in mind for ministries I currently serve.

My critique of this book is that I think it would have been helpful to take more time to flesh out how he discerns what current business practices ought to be baptized and which ones should be avoided. While he does bring scripture in conversation with each principle that he mentions and does concede that “not all current cultural (or marketplace) wisdom on leadership aligns with God’s call to us,” (34) he doesn’t develop his process of discernment thoroughly. A chapter or two would have been extremely helpful on these points. A chapter I found helpful to read alongside this book is chapter three in David Fitch’s book The Great Giveaway where he summarizes some thinking from Alaster MacIntyre, John Milbank and John Yoder in relation to “effectiveness” as a potential danger. Stark’s book assumes that effectiveness is always good and often aligns effectiveness with numbers. My sense is that we must be extremely prudent when seeking to baptize business practices for the church, and for the most part Stark is discerning. It’s a good read.

[Tewodros Shibru · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book under this review is “Christ-Based Leadership: Applying the Bible and Today’s Best Leadership Models to Become an Effective Leader” by David Stark* (2005). The author is a pastor, business consultant and trainer. Stark was inspired “to have a book that shows how the scripture truth can work hand in hand with the best insight of business research” (pp.16). Among the books and business gurus the author used as his best leadership models are: Jim Collins' Good to Great (2001) &Built to Last (1994), Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett (The Individualized Corporation,1999), Marcus Buckingham (First Break All the Rules, 1999), Glenn Parker (Cross Functional Teams, 2002), Patrick M.Lencioni (Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, 2005), Ichak Adizes (Corporate Life-cycles,1988), Tachi Kiuchi and Bill Shireman (What We Learned in the Rainforest, 2002), James F.Moore (The Death of Competition, (1997) and Chris Zook, Profit From the Core, 2001)

The author has followed what is a Biblical and contextually appropriate method of handling leadership issue of church/ministry. For every new discoveries the business world literature is illuminating on the truth of leadership, there is an already existing wisdom revealed in the scriptures discovered thousands years ago.

Stark states that the business world is providing leadership style supported by researches that goes along with the teaching of the bible. In this regard, the common approach the author used in this book is to ask a pivotal question appearing in each chapter. Then he addresses these questions by expounding in the Biblical text. He then proceeds to explain one or two of the models he selected or vice-verse. Then he carries on describing the practical application of these selected models in church/ministry context.

As Roger Gill (2006)** tried to prove in his book, Theories and Practice of Leadership, the breadth, depth and complexity of the existing leadership models as confusing for readers in view of the fact that every leadership writer/scholar are focused only in the area of their finding and personal interest. His findings thus show us the need for higher standard to measure the validity and truthfulness of such diverse methods, theories and approaches. What David Stark has done is to measure, compare, contrast and adopt the leadership models he selected as best with the Biblical standard.

Some secular leadership researches and models are approaching the truth expressed in the bible about leadership through time. This might look like what Paul had said to the Athenian, “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” Acts 17:27 (NIV).

Stark has done a good job of bringing together what the business gurus ‘reached out and found’ to the already revealed teachings of the bible. This book deserves to be a text for those people who are in the business of training Church Leaders.

As a reader in Ethiopia, nonetheless, I observed that the book is written in the context of North American churches and leadership theories. To apply this suggestion we need someone who knows the Ethiopian church context, leadership culture and today’s best leadership models come up and fill the gap by adopting this material and doing research in the area.

Reader will note that the leadership models selected in this book are ‘best’ by the author standard. For sure, other leadership books/gurus have something that go along with what the bible teaches. They will keep coming and improving. David Stark or other author need to keep the Church to be informed, relate to them and exploit these discoveries in the context of the Bible.

end-notes

* David Stark, Christ-Based Leadership: Applying the Bible and Today's Best Leadership Models to Become an Effective Leader (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2005).

** Roger Gill, Theory and Practice of Leadership (London, SAGE Publication, 2006), chapter one “The Nature and Importance of Leadership”, pages 1-35