Langer / Jung The Call to Follow

Hearing Jesus in a Culture Obsessed with Leadership
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4335-7806-9
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

Reexamining the Nature of Leadership and 'Followership' in Light of Biblical Teaching The market is flooded with books, conferences, and workshops on how to be a better leader. In most companies, leaders are noticed and applauded while followers are often viewed as weak and passive. However, Scripture tells us a different story; although leadership is valued and respected, being obedient followers of Christ is at the very heart of faith.   In The Call to Follow, Richard Langer and Joanne J. Jung teach readers that 'followership' is essential to both organizational and spiritual flourishing. They argue that followership requires the development of specific skills and virtues modeled and extolled throughout Scripture. They point to examples of people from the Bible and church history who focused on following in the footsteps of their Savior rather than positions of leadership among others. This helpful book seeks to dismantle the idol of leadership that's so prevalent in our culture and points us instead to the biblical concept of followership.  - Biblically Centered: Contains examples of 'followership' from Scripture and church history  - Mission Oriented: Explains how being a follower of Jesus Christ is a missional calling - Community Focused: Written to encourage Christ followers, in both leadership and followership positions

Richard Langer (PhD, University of California, Riverside) is a professor of biblical and theological studies and director of the Office for the Integration of Faith and Learning at Biola University. He is an ordained minister with over twenty years of pastoral experience and a coauthor of Winsome Persuasion and Winsome Conviction. He and his wife, Shari, are members at Fullerton Free Church in Fullerton, California.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Langer, Richard

Jung, Joanne J.

Leseproben

Introduction

Our culture promotes leadership in myriad contexts—sports teams and clubs for elementary-aged children, campus clubs for junior high students and high schoolers, degree programs for college students, and more. Professional schools, whether in business, law, medicine, or theology, all offer extensive training in leadership. Once our prospective leaders have graduated, they continue their leadership pursuits in the marketplace with countless programs for identifying potential leaders and developing leadership skills. Books, blogs, seminars, workshops, and retreats are available for all stages and ages. Retirees are not immune—we recently discovered that the American Society on Aging has a Leadership in Aging blog. Leadership training is a multibillion-dollar industry that continues to grow, independent of all economic trends.1

Followership, in contrast, is almost completely ignored. We talk about a call to leadership but never a call to followership. We have little or no imagination for the gifts or skills of followership. Have you ever attended a followership training workshop? Imagine a youth program that marketed itself as “training the next generation of followers!” Not surprisingly, it seems to be the opposite. For example, the 2020 season of Girl Scout cookie sales kicked off with a new fruit-flavored offering, Lemon-Ups, and one of eight motivational messages stamped and baked into these shortbread cookies reads: “i am a leader.” It is doubtful that “i am a follower” was ever considered. Apparently, what’s good for cookies is also good for cars. The new 2019 Volvo S60 is the sports sedan that rewrites the driving story because it’s designed for those who “Follow No One.” This clear aversion to following—both the word itself and what it stands for—is readily accepted, broadly promoted, and crosses all generations.

Academic studies of followership have shown some traction in recent decades, but the amount of literature and the attention it draws is negligible in comparison to leadership literature. To put it mildly, it has certainly not lived up to the prediction of Warren Bennis, who enthusiastically wrote in an introduction to a 2008 book on followership that within a decade the existing categories of leadership and followership would become as “dated as bell bottoms and Nehru jackets.”2 His prediction was based on his sense of the rising appreciation of followership, particularly in the face of what he assumed would be the erosion of traditional notions of leadership. Yet, a search of leadership titles on Amazon published since 2010 finds 30,000 books. The same search for followership finds only 70—a ratio of over 400 to 1. It seems that traditional notions of leadership and followership have proven more enduring than bell bottoms and Nehru jackets.

Setting aside the disappointing growth projections for the followership market, it is worth noting that a substantial portion of the followership literature is written with leaders in mind. In other words, followers are discussed, but with an eye to making leaders successful. It seems that even books that focus on followership often end up being read through a leadership lens. This is seen, for example, in a leadership blog that reviewed Barbara Kellerman’s book Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders. It is a valuable book, and we were glad to see it garner attention. However, we were surprised to see that the cover of the book had apparently been photoshopped for use as the lead graphic for the blog.3 The subtitle of Kellerman’s book was changed to read “Good Followers Make the Best Leaders.” Apparently, we can study following as long as it is done for the sake of making leaders. Otherwise, it appears, there would be no point. It is as if followership is a shadow; it is a nothing rather than a something, an absence rather than a presence.

Our book rejects these assumptions about followership. We believe followership is something in its own right, not just the lack of leadership. We believe it is worth studying for its own sake. It has its own set of skills and excellencies; it has its own challenges and rewards. Followership may be a stepping-stone to leadership, and it is certainly an activity that forms character needed for leadership, but it can also be useful in and of itself. It deserves its own Girl Scout cookie. And for Christians, followership is more foundational to our spiritual lives than leadership. We may move in and out of leadership, but there is never a day when we will not be followers. We are “disciples” of Christ, a term that means followers. We have no higher aspiration than to follow the author and perfecter of our faith.

This book is written with many groups of people in mind. First of all, we write for countless ordinary people faithfully doing the tasks of daily life. You may be a leader in your church or community or you may not. But if you read leadership literature or attend a leadership seminar, you discover that everything you hear is wrapped around a vision for “changing the world” or “making a difference.” Very little of what you hear helps you validate and embrace your daily tasks. In fact, quite the opposite—it makes you question the value of your daily life or even disdain it. Tish Harrison Warren expresses this sentiment beautifully as she reflects on her own life, which for many years after college was wrapped up in world-changing pursuits until, after some time, she discovered she had misunderstood the importance of ordinary life. She writes,

A prominent New Monasticism community house had a sign on the wall that famously read “Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” My life is really rich in dirty dishes (and diapers) these days and really short in revolutions. I go to a church full of older people who live pretty normal, middle-class lives in nice, middle-class houses. But I have really come to appreciate this community, to see their lifetimes of sturdy faithfulness to Jesus, their commitment to prayer, and the tangible, beautiful generosity that they show those around them in unnoticed, unimpressive, unmarketable, unrevolutionary ways. And each week, we average sinners and boring saints gather around ordinary bread and wine and Christ himself is there with us.4

This book is also written for people with a deeply felt passion and sense of mission. This passion may be a central part of your daily activities or it may be pursued in your discretionary time. Either way, it is something that you clearly see needs to be done. You may not be part of an organization and you may not have anyone who is following your lead, but there is a task that needs to be done, and you are doing it. We have several friends who have a concern like this for children in need. It may be a child from war-torn Africa, it may be a child with a disability, or it may be a child in foster care. These friends have been willing to put their concern into action. They have been foster parents themselves; they have adopted children; they have made room within their families for those from other families. But they have not necessarily started a revolutionary movement or become public advocates for their cause in the community. So do we call our friends “leaders”? We could if we wanted to, but why would we? Most of them are not doing these acts of love because they want to be leaders but because they want to be servants—not servant-leaders, just servants. In this case, they are serving children who need an extensive amount of care. They often lack followers precisely because what they are doing is not an easy job. But their lack of followers doesn’t keep them from following Jesus’s example of letting the little children come to them and loving because he first loved us.

Last, this book is written for people who are part of an organization, church, or business that is pursuing a mission. You may just be playing a small part. Perhaps you have simply been caught up in the passion and mission of others. They are running a soup kitchen because they have a passion for the poor. You just happen to be their friend. You could never see yourself running a soup kitchen, but you can certainly see yourself helping a friend. And you may not have the gift of service, but you can dish out soup with the best of them, so you do it. Every Friday night. And as you do it, the words of Jesus run through your mind, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40 NKJV). You realize you do it because you have decided to follow Jesus.

So this book is written for disciples—that is, for people who follow. But this book is also written for people who are leaders or, more precisely, for people whose following has put them in a place of leadership. You give direction, make decisions, and cast vision for other people—people who, in the providence of God, have been placed within the scope of your leadership responsibility. And you realize that even as you lead—in fact, especially as you lead—you are still answering your first call, and that is the call to follow Jesus.

We hope that for all these groups of people, this short book will help you appreciate and understand...