Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God’s Agenda – Henry and Richard Blackaby > 제자학교

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After having spent much time to get this book in Korean, I decided to download the most revised version from Kindle and had the luck of reading a gem, one of the greatest leadership books I have ever read.  Regardless of its lengthy contents (373 pages), I found this book engaging and relatively easy to understand.  Voluminous illustrations in this book are seemingly redundant at first, but they rather became reliefs that helped me to comprehend the message clearly; otherwise it would be too blunt to follow the authors’ point of view.

First, I was caught by surprise by the fact that there are more than 900 definitions of “leadership” in a secular world these days.  According to this claim, every single person should hold at least one leadership position.  Certainly, we are already leaders at our homes, work places, church ministries, and communities.  With this notion, we, as Christians, naturally ponder what “the” difference between secular leadership and spiritual leadership is.

Blackaby stated that spiritual leadership is not an occupation, but it is a calling as God’s servant.  Spiritual leaders discovered God’s agenda not from their own vanity but from God’s vision. They are vision-givers.  Blackaby said that spiritual leaders do not sell vision but share God’s revelation. Spiritual leaders who simply mimic secular methods may experience some degree of worldly success, but they will not fulfill their calling as spiritual leaders.  The authors make it clear that there is no value in making great progress in the wrong direction.  Therefore, true spiritual leadership is moving people to the place where God wants them to be.  In addition, the successes of these leaderships are evaluated only by God.

Henry and Richard Blackaby unfolded the character of spiritual leadership through affluent examination and insight.  They started the book with the challenges spiritual leaders were facing and ended with rewards they ultimately received.  Throughout a total of thirteen chapters, many of the tactical descriptions and contexts can be very practical for us when being applied into the lives of our children, ourselves, and anyone we care about. 

Although this book elaborates from the Biblical point on how to develop leaders, how to communicate, how to use time, how to be organized, and even how to avoid pitfalls, I realized that spiritual leadership is ultimately synonymous with personal development with God.

I recommend this book as a must-read to anyone who looks for a Biblical model, especially to the ones who eagerly wish to know how to hear from God, like meJ.