Leading Christian Communities - Print

Leading Christian Communities

By  C. Kavin Rowe

Soft cover 144pp
ISBN 9780802882721
Eerdmans (2023)

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Description

• How do we cultivate a thriving Christian community in a disconnected culture?
• What does it mean to be a Christian community?
• And what does it mean to lead one?
• How does a pastor address today’s challenges, from lack of faith in institutions, to conflict in the church, to the tension between tradition and innovation? 

Kavin Rowe addresses these topics and a multitude of others in this collection of keen essays. Bite-size and conversational, yet deeply rooted in Scripture and recent pastoral theology, the essays in Leading Christian Communities reflect on the shaping of Christian leaders for the flourishing of their communities.

Pastors and seminarians, as well as all those involved in church ministry, will find inspiration and insight in these pages.

“Kavin Rowe, one of our finest theological interpreters of Scripture, now gives us our best theological justification for specifically Christian leadership. Beginning with the Acts of the Apostles as authorization for our leadership, Leading Christian Communities is a lively, practical, contemporary exploration of the theological rationale for church leadership. Rowe encourages Christian leaders to lead as if God matters.

It makes all the difference to innovative, transformative leaders that Jesus Christ is God with us (Christmas) and has risen for us (Easter). Even amid the challenges of the present moment, Christian leaders can be hopeful and bold because, as Rowe repeatedly reminds us, we’re not working alone.” 
Will Willimon retired United Methodist bishop

Contents

Foreword

Part 1: The Acts of the Apostles and Thriving Communities

• The Pattern of Life in Thriving Communities
• Networking--a Feature of Thriving Communities
• Visibility--a Feature of Thriving Communities
• Room for the Weak in a Thriving Community
• Incorporating Disagreement in a Thriving Community
• Why Does Your Community Exist?
• Suffering Is Part of Thriving

Part 2: Christian Leadership

• Humor as a Mark of Life-Giving Leadership
• Becoming a Christ-Shaped Leader
• The Formation of a Scriptural Imagination
• Cultivating Resilience
• Failure as Christ-Shaped Leadership
• Making the Connections
• Leadership and the Discipline of Silence
• Christian Success
• Listening Well
• Orienting Hierarchies toward the Good
• Our Most Significant Experiences Are in Institutions
• ""Power"" in the Christian Sense Is the Concrete Shape of Hope
• Leading in the Age of the Image
• The Church and the Vanishing Neighbor

Part 3: Traditioned Innovation

• Traditioned Innovation--a Biblical Way of Thinking
• Pentecost as Traditioned Innovation
• Navigating the Differences in the Gospels
• The New Testament as an Innovation of the Old
• King Jesus

Part 4: Christmas and Easter

• Why Christmas Needs Easter
• Why Easter Needs Christmas