By: Shela Sullivan on December 3, 2024
This week’s reading assignment is based on one of my favorite authors. He is best known for his influential work in the field of leadership studies. Peter G. Northouse, PhD, is a renowned expert in the field of leadership studies. He is Professor Emeritus of Communication in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University.…
By: Tim Clark on December 3, 2024
I’m sitting alone at my computer, shaking my head, and laughing. After 2 years of inspectionally reading books, I’m staring at a thick and dense volume that virtually defies me to engage it with the efficient approach I learned in this program. We’re not ending our semester—and our whole series of lead mentor classes—with a…
By: Ryan Thorson on December 3, 2024
Knowing that this post will put me on the hot seat has activated all the adrenaline and dopamine we’ve been talking about the past few weeks. It’s been a joy to reflect and learn together about leadership over the past few months with my colleagues, and finishing the term with Peter Northouse’s book, “Leadership Theory…
By: Adam Harris on December 2, 2024
About a year ago, I came across an article proclaiming Aayan Hirsi Ali as a Christian now. I only knew her as an outspoken ex-Muslim atheist from the books I had read. She has been considered the fifth horsemen of the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse. As I listened to her interview outlining her…
By: Diane Tuttle on December 2, 2024
I first looked at this book in relation to my NPO which is about empowering women to be able to advance their careers in the nonprofit sector. With that in mind, the first chapter of Leadership: Theory & Practice that caught my eye was the one on Gender and Leadership[1]. However, the chapter that resonated…
By: Russell Chun on December 2, 2024
Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono (Hawaiian) “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. – Hawaii state motto. Part 1 Introduction Part 2 What my peers are saying Part 3 What Holland Says Himself Part 4 What I learned Epilogue Part 1 Introduction In his book Dominion: The…
By: Scott Dickie on December 2, 2024
Tom Holland’s book, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, (1) is an expansive review of Christianity’s influence in our world over the past 2000 years. It is detailed, comprehensive, objective, humbling and compelling. And for the vast majority of readers, Holland’s task is like trying to explain water to a fish: ‘This is just…
By: Kally Elliott on December 2, 2024
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing…
By: Dinka Utomo on December 2, 2024
When I was a teenager, I used to think that people outside of Christianity saw Christianity with only one face, namely, as a religion full of goodness. In the mind of a teenager like me at that time, I felt great pride because I believed that many people must think that Christianity is noble. After…
By: Jeff Styer on December 2, 2024
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”[1] This is the definition that Peter Northouse gives after discussing the previous 120 years of defining leadership and concluding that leadership scholars really cannot “come up with a common definition for leadership.”[2] Northouse said his definition consists of…
By: Jenny Dooley on December 2, 2024
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland, is a fitting book to end our extensive reading list. Holland writes a compelling and insightful history of how Christianity has influenced the world. He asserts that even those who reject the faith live out the unmistakable principles of Christianity. Conversely, he exposes the…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on December 2, 2024
Pierce and Abbey Lane How do you capture a portion of a book that tells such a comprehensive story? Well, you write about the subject that you are most interested in, drawn to. For me, it was a choice between two, The Apocalypse and Love. I know that sounds strange, well maybe not so strange…
By: Pam Lau on December 2, 2024
“When contemplating how the Wisdom of God had entered the womb of a woman, and been born a baby, and cried for milk, the paradox of it all was too much for even him,”[1] Abraham Kuyper was born in 1837 in the Dutch town of Maasluis and served as a minister in the Dutch National…
By: Debbie Owen on December 2, 2024
Two men attended an outdoor event where they heard a powerful speaker. Thousands of people from all over the region were at the event. They were all entranced by the eccentric man who held them spell-bound. The two men listened to the speaker for days, following what he said, learning from him, and being challenged…
By: Kim Sanford on December 2, 2024
Here goes, the last blog post of our LGP journey (calamari!) Knowing that Tom Holland’s Dominion was waiting for us at the end of this semester, I’ve noticed his name popping up seemingly everywhere I look for the past couple of months. First, I saw his book on a friend’s bookshelf. Then he was discussed…
By: Adam Cheney on December 2, 2024
What is a leader? Am I a leader? If I am a leader, what kind of leader am I? Am I a servant-leader like Jesus? Am I a coercive-dominating leader like the President-elect? In his very well laid out book on different styles and definitions of leadership, Peter Northouse exposits on a variety of leadership…
By: John Fehlen on December 2, 2024
A couple weeks ago I stood in the pulpit and made a confession: I absolutely hate playing board games. I’d rather have my teeth cleaned and drilled into, which I should know because I just had that done recently, for two hours straight, all because I hadn’t been to the dentist in over 4 years!…
By: Jennifer Vernam on December 2, 2024
The stories societies tell reflect their cultural values and expectations. If I were living in Greece or Rome at the time of Christ’s birth, here are some of the stories of gods who might have been retold in my local temple: Prometheus[1], a god of fire, who, dared to defy the gods and share fire…
By: Esther Edwards on December 2, 2024
Tonight we honored friends of ours as they celebrated the anniversary of the church they planted twenty years ago. Today it is a thriving congregation that has planted a host of churches and continues to reach out locally and globally. We have been in the trenches as friends throughout these many years weathering highs and…
By: Jana Dluehosh on December 2, 2024
Ten years ago, at my church on the north side of Portland, we had a “mission” moment. This moment of mission was not what I had expected. It was not missionaries from some foreign country or inner-city project; it was different than I had ever heard. Three young women got up from their pew and…
