The Steward Leader

Description

This is not a ‘how-to’ book on leadership. It is a ‘who’ book. Its thesis is based on the premise that without a clear understanding and commitment to the ‘who’ of leadership, talking about the ‘how’ will be unfulfilling, impossible to sustain and ultimately will do a disservice to the Christian leader.  The Steward Leader asks first and fundamentally (and biblically) the question of who our God is, his character and nature as the one that we seek to serve and in whose image we have been created. Secondly, this book asks the question of whom we are as God’s stewards; ones to whom has been given the vocation and privilege of stewarding God’s gifts given to us at four levels.  Finally, we will discover what it means to lead as stewards of this God.  The answer to the ‘who’ of God leads us to the answer as to our own identity and purpose, and from there to our calling as steward leaders.

In Part One we establish some hard and fast rules for the way we talk about the steward leader.  In Part Two we are careful not to regress back into talk about traits, characteristics or tactics.  Yet we must also not ignore the fact that steward leaders are called to lead effectively, and that effectiveness can and must be measured.  We also affirm that there are some common experiences shared by effective steward leaders from which we can learn.  It is acceptable within our framework to ‘see how it works’ as long as we use these glimpses as motivation and not as methodology.

For that reason, we develop first the Four Transformations of every steward leader.  At each level of our created nature God is working our transformation as people called according to his purpose.  At each level these is a primary gift that we have been given s stewards of our lives at each level.  There is also a primary temptation that the enemy uses to attack us at each level.  We look at these gifts and temptations to better understand the tensions, trials and triumphs of the steward leader.  At each level we offer a discipline that can be employed to prepare our hearts for the transformational work that God desires to continually work in us and through us.  Taken together, they form a larger Discipline that can be followed daily as continue on our journey to be faithful stewards, and effective steward leaders.