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    Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference
    Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference
    Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference

    By David L. McKenna

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    "If a leader is a Christian, what difference does it make?" Giant strides have been made in secular leadership theory toward a Christian viewpoint. Priority is now given to character as well as competence, accountability as well as power, transformation as well as transaction, and servanthood as well as success. But these qualities apply to secular as well as to Christian leadership. So, the question remains, "What difference does it make?"

    David McKenna finds the answer in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ--a divine act for him and a defining attitude for us. Philippians 2:11-15 sets the standard and gives the details. "Your attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ" means following his call to the cross, where we die to self and sacrifice all self-interest in position, power, and prestige in order to serve obediently, faithfully, and humbly for the good of others and the glory of God. Christ-centered leadership is not an extension of the highest and best of human leadership. Radical obedience to the call of Christ and utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit make a substantive difference. In the most practical terms, Incarnation continues in us when we live fully, lead freely, and go where he wants us to go.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCascade Books
    Release dateMay 9, 2013
    ISBN9781621896753
    Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference
    Author

    David L. McKenna

    David McKenna served as president of Spring Arbor University, Seattle Pacific University, and Asbury Theological Seminary. At the age of eighty-five he continues to write a book a year, including The Communicator's Commentary on Isaiah, Job, and Mark; Retirement Is Not for Sissies; Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference; and When God Laughs with Us: The Lighter Side of Leadership. David and his wife, Jan, celebrate sixty-five years of marriage in 2015.

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      Book preview

      Christ-Centered Leadership - David L. McKenna

      Acknowledgements

      If you visit our home and watch a movie with us, you will have to indulge my curiosity by watching the plaudits at the end. For some unknown reason, I am fascinated by the numbers and names of persons who are behind the scenes and yet so vital to the quality of the production. Producers, directors, camera and lighting crews, scriptwriters, and even make-up artists, are given personal names as they march across the screen. I can just imagine a mom or dad following the list until they see the name of their son or daughter mentioned. We dare not miss the fact that the stars of the show are made by the people behind the scenes.

      Of all the names in the credits for the production crew, I am stuck with the title of grip that is given to a few persons. What in the world is a grip? When I looked up the term on Wikipedia I found out that a grip is a special member of the camera and lighting crew. A grip has the task of assuring the accuracy of the camera setting or the consistency of the lighting. If, however, you go back into the history of the term, you find that grip may have been the name of strong people who held the tripod steady while the pictures were being taken. One of those persons was the key grip who steadied the center leg and the other two were grips, one on each of the other two legs to assure a clear picture and consistent lighting. All three were essential to excellence in production.

      If this book were produced as a film, you would see credit given to the grips who kept the tripod steady. The grip assuring the accuracy of the picture would be Sheila Lovell, my executive assistant at Asbury Theological Seminary, who edited the manuscript, and the grip who brought the bright light of creative suggestions to the text would be Alec Hill, president of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Thanks, Sheila and Alec.

      The key grip is an easy choice. Who has kept the tripod balanced during the months of this production? It is my wife, Jan. She has steadied the front leg of the tripod for 63 years and shows no sign of easing up or letting go. Whether key grip means assuring the quality of the picture and the lighting or just hanging on through the years, she is the star in the role. Thank you, Jan, for being my key grip.

      David McKenna

      Introduction: So Smart, So Late

      In celebration of my eighty-fourth birthday, I am announcing that I am now ready to serve as a Christian leader. No, I am not seeking a position, running for office, taking a church, or starting a consulting service. My purpose in making this announcement is to communicate with the new generation of emerging Christian leaders. I am like the man who appeared to be walking on the water. When asked his secret, he answered, I know where the rocks are. This is the advantage of age and experience in Christian leadership. I know where the rocks are. Emerging leaders do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past, but they do need to learn where the footing is firm as they walk into the future. For them, I write.

      Why do I say that I am just now ready to serve as a Christian leader? The answer is manifold. First, we learn to lead from leading. Our youngest son, Rob, has done research showing that present and future leaders learn the most, not by schooling, reading, or workshops, but on the job. I agree. My executive positions were the best vehicles for learning what it means to be a leader. Like all upstarts I plunged ahead into uncharted waters, sometimes with spectacular results and sometimes with miserable flops. Because I became a college president at the age of thirty-one, I had little time for being mentored. As best I could, I had to learn on the run.

      Another reason for my readiness to lead at the age of eighty-four is the discovery that learning to lead takes time. When I graduated from the University of Michigan with a PhD in Higher Education Administration, my advisor said, Our job is to prepare college presidents. Under his teaching, we learned about the history and philosophy of American higher education along with an understanding of leadership from research and theory. But when we stepped into the position as presidents, we were neophytes trying to put together a big puzzle one piece at a time. The fact is that I learned more in my final year in office than I did the first year. Why? Because I had a frame of reference from years of experience through which I could process issues and make better decisions. For me, the bumper sticker that reads So smart; so late tells why I am just now ready to lead. Practical wisdom takes time and comes late. Time and experience then fold into the third answer to my question. I am just now ready to lead because we grow toward Christian character more slowly than we grow toward professional competence. Our readiness for Christian leadership depends upon character and competence working together. Developmentally, however, they come to maturity at different speeds. Professional competence matures fast as skills are taught by theory and honed by practice. Gary Yukl, in his book Leadership in Organizations, identifies those skills in three categories—Technical Skills, primarily concerned with things; Human Relations Skills, primarily concerned with people; and Conceptual Skills, primarily concerned with ideas and concepts.¹ While these skills become more sophisticated over time, effective leadership demands fast learning and ready application.

      Christian character builds on spiritual virtues along with professional skills. Each of us identifies with the image of leaders of the faith who confess that their spiritual journey is best described as a long path hobbling toward holiness.² Peter, a prime example of halting progress toward spiritual maturity, reflects this image in his own life when he writes to other believers:

      For this very reason, make every effort to add:

      To your faith, goodness;

      To goodness, knowledge;

      To knowledge, self-control;

      To self-control, perseverance;

      To perseverance, godliness;

      To godliness, brotherly kindness;

      And

      To brotherly kindness, love.

      If you possess these qualities in increasing measure,

      They will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive

      In your knowledge of Jesus Christ. (2 Pet 1:3–8)

      You can feel the difference between Peter’s list of spiritual virtues and Yukl’s triad of leadership skills. With teaching and practice we can achieve a level of competence in leadership skills over a period of time. Peter’s scale of Christ-like virtues leading to love, however, leaves us thirsting and stretching over a lifetime.

      Foremost and finally, I am just now ready to serve as a Christian leader because I am learning that the path to spiritual maturity goes through the Incarnation. As a student of leadership, I read every book, attended every conference, and conversed with every great leader whom I could meet in order to become an expert in the field. The evolving goals of leadership were particularly intriguing. As a child of the Depression, I first saw leadership as survival; as a young adult in the post World War II era, I added success to the aim of leadership; as the parent of a Baby Boomer, I had to accept the idea of significance topping success as a leader’s goal; and as a grandparent of the Millennial generation, I see why servanthood has become the highest and best definition of secular leadership. My leadership journey went through each of those stages. Under the call of God, I followed Christ and wanted to be known as his servant. But, in the reflection of retirement, I found myself asking, Is there anything more?

      The Spirit of God led me to read and reread Philippians 2:15: Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus and the attributes of his incarnational character that follow. For Christ, the Incarnation is an act; for us it is an attitude. In contrast with my career of upward mobility, I saw the downward mobility of Christ. My hidden drive for success was shamed by the sacrifice of Jesus. A new vision of spiritual maturity opened up for me. I saw a critical disjuncture between the minimal self-giving of my servant-hood and the maximum self-sacrifice of the Incarnate Christ. On the other side of the equation, my underlying desire for the honors of position, power, and prestige stood exposed in the exaltation of Jesus, not by human accolades, but by the investiture of the Father. Servant leadership is the highest commendable option for the human mind, but sacrificial leadership is reserved for those who have the mind of Christ. The two are worlds apart.

      The Incarnational Difference

      What do we mean by the mind of Christ? One answer is to compare the capacity of the human mind to the mind of Christ. Researchers tell us that the most creative people are still using only the smallest fraction of the millions of cells that make up the human brain. Put that thought into the context of the mind of Christ. Our spiritual potential is unlimited. Whenever I pray, Lord, let the mind of Christ be in me today, the Spirit of God gives me some new insight into his mind that takes me to my knees. Paul shows our unlimited future when he confirms the prophecy of Isaiah in 1 Corinthians 2:9:

      No eye has seen,

      no ear has heard,

      no mind has conceived

      what God has prepared for those

      who love him.

      The Incarnational Difference fits into this promise. As we let the mind of Christ be in us, we begin to see, hear, and conceive what God has prepared for those who love him. Spirit and flesh, truth and grace, faith, hope, and love come together once again in the high calling of Christian leadership. Best of all, exhausting efforts give way to exhilarating freedom as the mind of Christ becomes the intuitive flow rather than the labored struggle of our leadership. Yes, it is possible to advance from technical note-players to artistic communicators in our spiritual development.

      This book is a progress report on seeing, hearing, and conceiving what God has for those who are called to follow Christ through the experience of the Incarnation. We begin with The Incarnate Movement—Part I—where we see leadership theory advancing to the threshold of Incarnational Leadership. Part II—The Incarnate Mind—follows with the attitudes or predispositions of the Mind of Christ that we are called to emulate; and Part III—The Incarnate Model—brings the story home with critical questions to ask of Christian leaders who are willing to follow the Incarnate Christ.

      The Face in the Mirror

      C. S. Lewis was fascinated with mirrors. Whether in the mythical Chronicles of Narnia, the apologetic Mere Christianity, or the sobering Problem of Pain, the reflection of the face in the mirror tells the story. Clean mirrors, dusty mirrors, filthy mirrors, and bright stainless mirrors are all part of Lewis’s creative way of communicating the reality of sin and the radiance of redemption to his readers.

      Mirrors are also instruments for revelation in God’s Word. We understand our value when we are created "in His image," we learn our limitations in the confession, "Now we see but a poor reflection in the mirror," and we find our hope as we look forward to seeing Him "face to face." Best of all, when God wanted to show us our potential, he inspired the Apostle to write, "And we, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing joy, which comes from the Lord" (2 Cor 3:18).

      At the end of each chapter in this book, you are invited to take a look at The Face in the Mirror, and ask whether or not the image you see is consistent with the mind of Christ. Our answers will reflect our honesty before God and our readiness to obey his will. The admonition of James guides us,

      Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets want he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in

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