08.24.09

reckless courage..

Posted in formation, leadership at 9:28 am by len

Everywhere I go .. you know what I mean.. I am reading or hearing of the need for courage. I’m beginning to have that “looking over my shoulder feeling,” asking, “Lord, is there a personal reason you are speaking to me about this?”

And of course, there is! But I have a feeling that this is a “word in due season” for many of us.

If there is a single quality of leadership that we need in these times, it is courage. David Fitch lists it as one of the qualities of faith needed by missional leaders HERE.   Margaret Wheatley makes the case that courage is an indispensable quality of leaders in times of transition HERE . The following is from Michael Frost in EXILES..

What is the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: “Faith, hope and love”?
That sounds beautiful.
But I would say — Courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.

Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
We lack a holy rage.

The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets . .
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth –
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.

To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth,
and the destruction of God’s world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of the militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction — peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the kingdom of God.

And remember the signs of the Christian church have always been –
the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove and the Fish –
but never the chameleon. Kaj Munk

Quoted in EXILES by Michael Frost

6 Comments

  1. kathyescobar said,

    August 24, 2009 at 9:38 am

    thanks for this! it was something i needed to hear this morning. peace, kathy

  2. Paul Fromont said,

    August 24, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Funny that I too have been reading about courage – just last night actually in M. Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth”. It’s sat on my shelf for years,but I recently felt I needed/wanted to read it.

  3. len said,

    August 24, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Paul, out with it man.. the quote.. the quote .. ;)

    Glad it was helpful kathy :)

  4. Paul Fromont said,

    August 24, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    I’ll see what I can do Len. Lot’s of light pencil highlights in the margins put there by me ;-)

  5. Scott Ruschak said,

    September 19, 2009 at 6:35 am

    our organization is going through a huge transition — I need courage — the road gets long and the feet get tired

  6. NextReformation » Borderland Churches IV said,

    December 15, 2009 at 10:08 am

    [...] We must also be theologians. “The role of theology has been suppressed in the last decade because of our love for the pragmatic…  deep theological and biblical reflective frame must be formed in the pastor’s life.” (84) Leaders must not only “have” a theology, they must be adept at doing it. The tension of the first themes is informed by the practice of theological reflection. Gary notes that when this is absent, the content required for effective borderland living is also absent. He closes this chapter with a call to courage and the famous paragraph of Peter Senge: “In the knowledge era, we will finally have to surrender the myth of leaders as isolated heroes commanding their organizations from on high. Top-down directives, even when they are implemented, reinforce an environment of fear, distrust, and internal competitiveness that reduces collaboration and cooperation. They foster compliance instead of commitment, yet only genuine commitment can bring about the courage, imagination, patience, and perseverance necessary in a knowledge-creating organization. For those reasons, leadership in the future will be distributed among diverse individuals and teams who share responsibility for creating the organization’s future.” [...]