10:Leaders
Key points:
- What is a Leader? Someone who influences others by their words or actions – regularly or even occasionally.
- We are all therefore Leaders at various times and places in our lives. What we do and say may shape the lives of others
- Not all leadership is ‘upfront’ or obvious.
Suggestions:
- It may be helpful to select one or two examples of your own Christian journey when you have been “led” by others – especially if these are unexpected or unusual.
- It is important that we recognise that leadership is not restricted to those given special authority to lead. We can note sometimes that so-and-so took the lead in a certain situation, for whatever reason.
- The particular leadership we are looking at in this talk arises out of Apostolic Action arising from Piety and Study.
- The call to take a lead is easily ignored out of a sense of fear or unworthiness. We need to trust the Holy Spirit!
Comments:
One significant pitfall with this talk is overlapping with the Action talk given earlier, or the talks that follows this on Study and evangelisation of environments and Christian Community in action. While personal experiences are valuable in explaining the concept of leadership and how it is often unexpected and apparently (to the world) undeserved, this talk needs really to focus on how leadership may have come about in a given situation, not how that played out and what was achieved.