{"id":20590,"date":"2018-11-29T13:55:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T21:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=20590"},"modified":"2019-02-20T13:39:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T21:39:02","slug":"does-theology-play-a-role-in-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/does-theology-play-a-role-in-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Theology Play A Role In Leadership?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book, Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God,<\/em> [1]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> deals with a subject that can be quite cumbersome but does so practically and proficiently. Both Grenz and Olson are professional academics but wrote this book in a way that invites the causally Christian to learn at a deeper level while also giving the Seminary student a challenging read. In answering the question, who needs theology, the authors would say, everyone, because everyone is already a theologian. In the most generalist of terms, those who have faith in Christ practice Christian Theology while those outside the faith practice worldviewish theology.[2]<\/a> While everyone is a theologian, they do admonish six different levels of theology as Folk Theology, Lay Theology, Ministerial Theology, Professional Theology, and Academic Theology.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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This book presents a lot of great takeaways, but I want to highlight one portion of the text found in the section called, How Do We Contextualize Theology? The authors write that the answer to this question is a trialogue of, our understanding of Scripture, our cognizance of our heritage, and our reading of our cultural context.[3]<\/a> It takes putting all three of these components into conversation with the other to make relevant what has been revealed.<\/p>\n

In the Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice <\/em>Identity-based leadership or meaning-making leadership[4]<\/a> is:<\/p>\n

\u201cabout understanding the way people and organizations behave, about creating and strengthening relationships, about building commitment, about establishing a group identity, and about adapting behavior to increase effectiveness. It is also about creating meaning. True leaders are merchants of hope, speaking to the collective imagination of their followers, co-opting them to join them in a great adventure.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

One might ask how a book about theology and a book about leadership is related and the answer would be both books deal with people and how to contextualize a cumbersome subject. I would also add that having a proper understanding of Theology aids in having a proper understanding of leadership theory. In the above definition of Identity-based leadership or meaning-making leadership, if we place the trialogue of contextualizing against it, it can read as a theological understanding of leadership.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I continued to research relational-based Spirit-led leadership that engages the current and future culture, knowing the said culture and knowing how to speak to that culture is of high importance. It seems that much of church leadership has focused on two of the three aspects of contextualization, missing the one of reading our cultural context. Research has shown us that the church is seen as outdated with culture according to believing millennials [6]<\/a> however, the Bible is still vital to that same group.[7]<\/a> Therefore it seems that church leadership needs to remember we are \u201cmerchants of hope, speaking to the collective imagination of their followers, co-opting them to join them in a great adventure.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Grenz, Stanley J., and Roger E. Olson.\u00a0Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God<\/em>.<\/em> Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Grenz and Olson, Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God<\/em>, 15-16.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 112-113.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Nohria, Nitin, and Rakesh Khurana,\u00a0Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice,<\/em>\u00a0(Boston: Harvard Business Review Press), 2014,\u00a023-25<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 192.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> \u201cSix Reasons Young Christians Leave Church.\u201d\u00a0Barna Group. Accessed November 29, 2018. https:\/\/www.barna.com\/research\/six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church\/#.VwKoysdOL8s.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cMillennials and the Bible: 3 Surprising Insights.\u201d\u00a0Barna Group. Accessed November 29, 2018. https:\/\/www.barna.com\/research\/millennials-and-the-bible-3-surprising-insights\/.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 192.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book, Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God, [1] deals with a subject that can be quite cumbersome but does so practically and proficiently. Both Grenz and Olson are professional academics but wrote this book in a way that invites the causally Christian to learn at a deeper level while also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[551],"tags":[1412,753,1322,698],"class_list":["post-20590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thriller","tag-barna","tag-grenz-and-olson","tag-lgp9","tag-who-needs-theology","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21635,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590\/revisions\/21635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}