Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Nouwen, H. (1993). In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. NY: Crossroad/Faith & Formation.
From Relevance to Prayer
The Temptation: To Be Relevant
The Question: 'Do you Love Me?'
The Discipline: Contemplative Prayer
From Popularity to Ministry
The Temptation: To be Spectacular
The Question: 'Feed My Sheep'
The Discipline: Confession and Forgiveness
From Leading to Being Led
The Temptation:To be Powerful
The Challenge : Somebody Else Will Take You
The Discipline: Theological Reflection
knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing. The knowledge of Jesus' heart is a knowledge of the heart. And when we live in the world with that knowledge, we cannot do other than bring healing, reconciliation, new life and hope wherever we go. The desire to be relevant and successful will gradually disappear, and our only desire will be to say with our whole being to our brothers and sisters of the human race ' You are loved...' 27
To live a life that is not dominated by the desire to be relevant but is instead safely anchored in the knowledge of God's first love, we have to be mystics. A mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God's first love. 28
Contemplative Prayer - keeps us from being pulled from one urgent issue to another.
Keeps us from becoming strangers to our own and God's heart.
Keeps us home, rooted and safe
Deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free.
that we already belong to God, even though everything and everyone around us keeps suggesting the opposite. 29
Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and find there wisdom and courage... when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft and true witnesses without being manipulative. 32
Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.43
Real theological thinking, which is thinking with the mind of Christ, is hard to find in the practice of the ministry. Without solid theological reflection, future leaders will be little more than pseudo-psychologists, pseudo-sociologists, pseudo-social workers. They will think of themselves as enablers, facilitators, role-models, father or mother figures, big brothers or big sisters, and so on, and this join the countless men and women who make a living by trying to help their fellow human beings to cope with the stresses and strains of everyday living. 66
Theological reflection is reflecting on the painful and joyful realities of every day with the mind of Jesus and thereby raising human consciousness to the knowledge of God's gentle guidance 68
Thinking about the future of Christian leadership, I am convinced that it needs to be a theological leadership. For this to come about, much - very much - has to happen in seminaries and divinity schools. They have to become centres where people are trained in true discernment of the signs of the time. This cannot be just an intellectual training. It requires a deep spiritual formation involving the whole person - body, mind and heart. I think we are only half aware of how secular even theological schools have become. 69
My movement from Harvard to L'Arche made me aware in a new way how much my own thinking about Christian leadership had been affected by the desire to be relevant, the desire fro popularity and the desire for power. 17
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The Temptation: To Be Relevant
The Question: 'Do you Love Me?'
The Discipline: Contemplative Prayer
From Popularity to Ministry
The Temptation: To be Spectacular
The Question: 'Feed My Sheep'
The Discipline: Confession and Forgiveness
From Leading to Being Led
The Temptation:To be Powerful
The Challenge : Somebody Else Will Take You
The Discipline: Theological Reflection
knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing. The knowledge of Jesus' heart is a knowledge of the heart. And when we live in the world with that knowledge, we cannot do other than bring healing, reconciliation, new life and hope wherever we go. The desire to be relevant and successful will gradually disappear, and our only desire will be to say with our whole being to our brothers and sisters of the human race ' You are loved...' 27
To live a life that is not dominated by the desire to be relevant but is instead safely anchored in the knowledge of God's first love, we have to be mystics. A mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God's first love. 28
Contemplative Prayer - keeps us from being pulled from one urgent issue to another.
Keeps us from becoming strangers to our own and God's heart.
Keeps us home, rooted and safe
Deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free.
that we already belong to God, even though everything and everyone around us keeps suggesting the opposite. 29
Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and find there wisdom and courage... when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft and true witnesses without being manipulative. 32
Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life.43
Real theological thinking, which is thinking with the mind of Christ, is hard to find in the practice of the ministry. Without solid theological reflection, future leaders will be little more than pseudo-psychologists, pseudo-sociologists, pseudo-social workers. They will think of themselves as enablers, facilitators, role-models, father or mother figures, big brothers or big sisters, and so on, and this join the countless men and women who make a living by trying to help their fellow human beings to cope with the stresses and strains of everyday living. 66
Theological reflection is reflecting on the painful and joyful realities of every day with the mind of Jesus and thereby raising human consciousness to the knowledge of God's gentle guidance 68
Thinking about the future of Christian leadership, I am convinced that it needs to be a theological leadership. For this to come about, much - very much - has to happen in seminaries and divinity schools. They have to become centres where people are trained in true discernment of the signs of the time. This cannot be just an intellectual training. It requires a deep spiritual formation involving the whole person - body, mind and heart. I think we are only half aware of how secular even theological schools have become. 69
My movement from Harvard to L'Arche made me aware in a new way how much my own thinking about Christian leadership had been affected by the desire to be relevant, the desire fro popularity and the desire for power. 17
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