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(7) HOLY BOLDNESS
Perhaps it's possible, looking at the six qualities I have highlighted so far, to picture my ideal Christian leader as some serene, humble, loving saint, with strong interior spiritual gifts, yet unlikely to impact a skeptical, and often hostile, world. OK working with other Christians, but likely to be ignored as harmless by the world's movers and shakers.
The holy boldness that marked out the first Christian leaders (Acts 20:27) was willling to face death for Christ's new way. Filled by the Spirit, their courage overturned conventional wisdom and secular norms, called people to sacrificial mission, confronted need, injustice, and discrimination. It modeled the highest moral standards and dared others to follow. It witnessed unashamedly and trusted in Christ to act right in front of their eyes. With holy boldness, Christian leaders have committed to turn the world the right way up, ever since. Christ's action people!
I started this process of trying to identify the 7 key qualities some time ago. Now I need to see what really important aspects I have missed out. Perhaps I can enfold other critical issues into some of these? Or some of the big 7 can be collapsed into each other, making room for some more? I still want to stay with an ultimate 7, if I can! I value your help.
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1 comment:
So...you collapsed joyful generosity into Coping with Criticism so that holy boldness might have a spot.
As I said before, an intimate prayer life is what must undergird all these characteristics and it enables us to develop these other characteristics. You talk of a secret prayer life, and through it, we are filled to sacrifically love. Our relationship with God gives us the security of which you speak as well as the perspective to be humble and the ability to view criticism with Christ's eyes. It sets our priorities so that we will be bold in our proclamation of the gospel and gives us a means of measuring and balancing our service to others including family, friends, the larger church body and the world. So I think it as key to all other aspects of the Big Seven for Christians, Leaders and Laity.
You might make realistic pastoring a subset of sacrifical loving if you had another charactistic that you wanted to include but I'm not suggesting one to you.
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