The Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus. Owen Phelps, Ph.D.
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THE
CATHOLIC
VISION FOR
LEADING LIKE
JESUS
Nihil Obstat Rev. Mark Gurtner, J.C.L.
Censor Deputatus
Imprimatur
The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book is free from doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions, or statements expressed.
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Copyright © 2009 by Owen Phelps. Published 2009.
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All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher. Contact: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750; 1-800-348-2440; [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-59276-605-5 (Inventory No. T888)
LCCN: 2009921979
Cover design by Lindsey Luken
Interior design by Sherri L. Hoffman
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To my helpmate, partner, friend, and lover, Jane, whose selfless gift of her life to me in marriage has made my life and my work more generative and gratifying than I ever dared to dream. Of God’s many great gifts to me, you are surely the greatest. Thank you.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8:3-9
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Catholicism’s Two Leadership Challenges
Chapter Two: What Is Our Purpose?
Chapter Three: Who Is a Leader?
Chapter Four: S1: Called to Be a Servant Leader — The Leadership of Jesus
Chapter Five: S1: Beginning With the Heart
Chapter Six: S1: Developing a Servant’s Head
Chapter Seven: S1: Extending a Servant’s Hands
Chapter Eight: S1: Cultivating a Servant’s Habits
Chapter Nine: S2: Called to Be a Steward
Chapter Ten: S3: Called to Be a Shepherd
Chapter Eleven: Why S3 Leadership Works
Foreword
When Phil Hodges and I first began to discuss the idea of developing tools to help people lead like Jesus, we knew we didn’t want to develop just another leadership program. Our vision was to launch a movement.
We wanted to share our conviction that Jesus is the greatest leadership role model of all time, and that everyone can learn to lead as Jesus did. To accomplish this, we would need to produce some materials to help us spread the word. And yet, we wanted to avoid the implication that there was a neat little package of information that guaranteed anyone could lead like Jesus.
We recognized that leading like Jesus involves, first and foremost, matters of the heart. To lead like Jesus, one needs a servant’s heart. I’m not saying that in order to be an effective leader one has to first become entirely selfless. I’m saying that to develop our aptitude to lead like Jesus, we have to recognize our fundamental self-centeredness and commit ourselves daily to becoming ever more God’s servant in the image of Jesus’ own character.
We recognized, too, that over the centuries Jesus’ followers had let themselves become divided over various issues. We committed ourselves to avoiding the pitfalls of divisiveness and remaining faithful to Jesus’ own wish “that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). We resolved that the Lead Like Jesus movement would always be “nondenominational and nondoctrinal.” That commitment is at the core of who we are and all we do.
At the same time, we recognized that the faith experience of many people is different. Not only should we respect the Christian experience of other Christians, we should reach out to them and build partnerships to spread the Lead Like Jesus message. To make these partnerships effective, we knew we would have to customize the Lead Like Jesus message to resonate with the lived Christian experience of different people.
The Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus is an effort to do just that. Its purpose