Thinking About Leadership: Harbaugh, Hedgehogs, Movies, and Young Leaders

 

Here are a few things I’ve read recently that have some great leadership information. If you’re a leader and are influencing younger leaders (and all of us lead in some realm, whether it be in a job, on a team, in our family, in our church or ministry), you will find some helpful insights among these stories. So read on …

 

Jim Harbaugh has proven himself to be a successful coach at both the NCAA and NFL level. I saw this story just today. I love the way that Tom Crean – his brother-in-law and head basketball coach at Indiana – summed it up:

 

"I think it goes to show why he's a very successful leader as a player and certainly now as a coach, because there's no job above him and there's no job beneath him and it's all about winning.”

 

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I was pointed to this post on organizational culture that develops young leaders by my friend Tim Casteel’s blog. Tim is the Director of Cru on our campus and a great leader. If you are in campus ministry, you need to be reading his blog.

 

So the question is: is your organization giving young leaders a chance to flourish? Or are you stuck in an organizational culture that keeps them bound – and frustrated?

 

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Jim Collins is one of the best business/organization/leadership writers of the past few years. In this post, Mark Howell does a great job of summarizing some of Collins’ main concepts. It will just take you a few minutes to read the post, but you should really spend several hours thinking through and implementing the ideas.

 

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Finally, Tim Elmore came up with this list of the greatest leadership movies. If I had to choose my top few from this list, the would be (in no particular order):

 

The Last Castle

Braveheart

Remember the Titans

Dead Poet’s Society

Miracle

Hoosiers

Twelve Angry Men

Apollo 13

 

What are your favorite leadership movies? Why?

John Wayne vs. Jesus

 

One of my favorite John Wayne movies was his final one – The Shootist. In it he plays an aging gunman who is dying of cancer. In one scene, he’s asked how he came to kill so many men. In part of his response, he refers to a code he lived by:

 

“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

 

That’s the American way. The way of John Wayne. Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson.

 

But it is not Christ’s way.

 

We’ve been teaching this semester on what life looks like when we live as citizens of the Kingdom of God. The more we study, the more we realize that this kind of life is counter-cultural to both our society and much of the religious (even Christian) world. This week’s passage included these verses:

 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48

 

The response of a follower of Christ is the complete opposite of John Wayne’s character. Our response to those who hurt or injure us – or who are different – should be noticeably different than the attitudes of those around us.

 

For most of us, however, this is all theoretical. We may have people who hurt our feelings or treat us unfairly. But we don’t face much persecution and would be hard-pressed to find someone we could call an enemy.

 

But as I mentioned in my last post, that is not the case everywhere. David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, in a 2009 report in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (Vol. 33, No. 1: 32), estimated that approximately 176,000 Christians would be martyred from mid-2008 to mid-2009. Though there isn’t a way to verify those numbers, even if they were less than half right, there are thousands of Christians who are learning to apply these verses in a very real way.

 

In a recent issue of Newsweek, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, writes:

 

Since 2003 more than 900 Iraqi Christians (most of them Assyrians) have been killed by terrorist violence in Baghdad alone, and 70 churches have been burned, according to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA). Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled as a result of violence directed specifically at them, reducing the number of Christians in the country to fewer than half a million from just over a million before 2003. AINA understandably describes this as an “incipient genocide or ethnic cleansing of Assyrians in Iraq.”

 

Recently, Michael has started worshiping with us. He is a grad student from Baghdad. He is also a Christian. On Sunday, he shared with our gathering about his experience as a Christian in Iraq. About not being able to leave his home at night because of the possibility of attack. About his family having to leave their home and move to another city where it was safer for Christians. About friends who were killed when their church was attacked by insurgents.

 

But he also talked about walking in faith and not in fear. He talked about the choice to respond in love. To forgive. To reach out to their attackers. To let their light shine before men so that they could give glory to God.

 

And their Muslim neighbors noticed. They saw the counter-cultural way of Jesus.

 

“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:9-21

Being Aware of a Global War

 

How easy it is for us in the US to slip into the comfort of the unaware. For the most part, our lives are comfortable and easy. We are indeed blessed – and not because of any special righteousness that we possess. Mostly, we enjoy these blessings because of where and to whom we were born and the sovereignty of God. Yes, we deal with our share of financial, physical, and personal struggles. And there are times when living as a Christian can be inconvenient. But for the most part, our lives are comfortable and easy and blissfully ignorant.

 

Rarely do we suffer as many in the world do. Few of us are starving. Few of us are homeless. And few of us ever suffer for being Christians. There may be some inconveniences on account of our faith. But not persecution.

 

But that is not the case in much of the world. The cover of this week’s Newsweek carries the banner: “The War on Christians.” In the issue is an article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali entitled “The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World.” After describing some of the persecution that Christians face in Muslim-majority countries, she says:

 

“It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem. No, the violence isn’t centrally planned or coordinated by some international Islamist agency. In that sense the global war on Christians isn’t a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.”

 

What should be our response to this? I think it should involve at least two steps. The first is to respond as Jesus commands and not as our culture, or our human nature, would suggest. Jesus said:

 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”   Matthew 5:43-48

 

The second step is to pray for those who are facing this persecution. Pray for their safety. Pray that they will respond in a way that points their oppressors to Christ. In fact, I would encourage you to check out this website and take the challenge to pray regularly for those parts of our global Body who are suffering.

 

A third step would be to encourage your Senators and Congressional representatives to take this issue seriously and move the US government to speak up and act on behalf of those who are oppressed.