Essay Example on a Work of Heart: God Shapes Spiritual Leaders

A Work of Heart: God Shapes Spiritual Leaders

Understanding how God shapes spiritual leaders by McNeal is a book about leadership. The author presents leadership from the biblical point of view as well as his point of view, having been a leader for over twenty years, serving as the director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. His biblical perspective of leadership focuses on the heart of a leader rather than leadership being a technique or a motivation. The book draws its examples from the studies of the Biblically renowned leaders such as Moses, David, Paul, and Jesus. The author, McNeal, elucidates six formulaic key factors from the Biblical leaders that are key requirements in shaping the heart of every leader. The approach given by McNeal to leadership seamlessly integrate the outlined biblical source and the existing theories of leadership such as the contemporary psychology and organizational theory. Most Christian writings fail to explore three key factors that determine a good leader. The most ignored factors include culture, community, and commonplace. According to McNeal (2011), culture plays a key role in preparing leaders for their specific ministries. Community, on the other hand, is responsible for supporting and complementing the leaders towards their ministries while commonplace gives the leaders the needed experience that happens in the limelight of the leadership. The author contextualizes his biblical narratives to give a vivid description of the leadership from the perspective of Jesus Christ. Every leader reading this book will find it a valuable premier that will make them to reflect on their roles as leaders.

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The author has written the book to the heart of every leader. It explores key aspects of leadership such as self-actualization and understanding. It expounds on the importance of self-understanding as a key part of the leadership ministry. The author guides the reader through how God used to shape the leaders in their journey to self-understanding. The book focuses on how God shapes the heart of leaders by examining the four major biblical leaders whose lives are great drama, according to the author. The author separates the plots of these leaders to several storylines reflecting on various areas of God's actions. The author emphasizes the process, arguing that the shaping of the leaders' heart must include all the six key factors which include the call, culture, community, conflict, communion, and the commonplace.

According to McNeal (2011), every biblical leader operated on given principles. The author dissects the lives of the four biblical leaders to bring out the heart shaping principles on which every leader operated. From the book, the author brings out a sense of process from every leader. He starts with Moses, whom he describes his journey to leadership as a practice of learning to lead out of deficiency. When God chose Moses, there was nobody fit to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God required an individual through which He can manifest His might and power. For David, his leadership process is manifested from learning to live out of the call. David was chosen while grazing. His father never thought he could be a leader and therefore, did not parade him when Samuel asked for his sons.

Nonetheless, God saw much in him that his father could not see. After being anointed, David was steadfast in seeking the heart of God. As a result, God-shaped David's heart to that of a leader. Paul is also given as an example by the author. The author takes the reader through the process in which God grew Paul into a minister. His connectedness inspired the growth of Paul to Jesus Christ. The entire life of Paul was about Christ, and so was his ministry, which became focused and driven by Christ. In his last evaluation of the four biblical leaders, the author focused on Jesus Christ. The life and ministry of Jesus Christ revolved around the practice. His ministry grew by his deep understanding that exists between his divine calling and the existing human needs. Throughout his ministry, Jesus understood his leadership role and kept a clear boundary between his divine teachings and human needs. His understanding of his role enabled him to stay faithful to his calling and his father until his death.

The author proceeds to explain each of the six factors that make a leader. McNeal argues that where one comes from is a key component to his leadership skills (McNeal, 2011). The culture of an individual determines the personal strengths, vulnerabilities, as well as convictions. The culture often dictates when an individual stand and where the individual is headed. Leadership has also been described as a calling on various occasions. McNeal stresses on calling as a key factor in leadership. God uses the called leaders to share his heart with people. Thus, those who can understand the ways God has gifted them as well as the various ways in which God uses them to speak to his people is an important aspect of leadership. Leaders also need the community. Community plays a key role in the development of a leader. The leaders need the community to shape them. The ways these spiritual leaders interact with the community says a lot about their qualities as leaders.

For the spiritual leaders to remain worthy before God, McNeal claims that they need to have constant communion with God. Failure to commune with God leads to imploded leadership. The author goes ahead to address the issues that often arise due to the conflict that shapes the leaders in their various domains. According to the author, leaders must learn how to handle conflicts in their ministries. The author provides eight practical ways through which the leaders can handle these conflicts. The author claims that hearts destined for greatness often undergo hammering in preparation for the greater rewards. Thus, every individual in a leadership position must always strive to handle any type of conflict that comes their way. The author concludes the book by discussing the effects of the commonplace to the leaders. God always comes through for every person at their hours of need. Thus, true leaders must learn to acknowledge these critical times and endeavor to seek instances and places where God works. The author invokes the reader to reflect his or her own life and his or her leadership styles as well as their journey into leadership. The book also calls upon the readers to become aware of the works of the Lord in their lives and those around them and for that reason, McNeal states in his introduction of the book that his intention is not to provide a therapy to the reader but rather to prompt them to have a deep reflection on themselves.

Reference

McNeal, R. (2011). A work of heart: Understanding how God shapes spiritual leaders. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

When God interrupts: Finding new life through unwanted change

We live in a dynamic world. The lives we live constantly change, making it hard to keep the balance. Consequently, people find it hard to keep their trust in God. In cases where the changes undergone by people are unwanted like the death of the loved ones, illness, a child leaving home, and many more, people always tend to blame God instead of keeping believing in him. The author of When God Interrupts: Finding new life through unwanted change is aware of these changes and takes the reader through steps in which they can follow to find a new life. Craig is a pastor, has been through a series of challenges in his ministry. The challenges have helped him to grow into a whole new person. Through his interaction with the congregation, he has counseled a good number of Christians during their times of transition.

During these times, he faced the challenges from the unwanted changes such as interruptions both families related, and ministry related. He laments that it seemed as if God had moved far from him (Barnes, 1996). However, through his persistence, he discovered God never leaves us but instead stick by us during our tough times and those times when we feel he has abandoned us. He stays by our sides to lead us through the storm into new directions which offers us new life as a result. He explains this by demonstrating how a young widow can outlive her grief and live a whole new life. The book promises to hope to every individual who takes time to read and understand its content.

Craig begins his book with a discussion of how we lose our lives and how we eventually find it. The author laments that we can only leave behind tour old lives by turning to God. Through turning to God, we begin to have a clear vision of his creativity and the beauties that life has to offer. Often, we focus on our experiences, which makes things to look like they are their worst times. What people fail to note, according to the author, is that it is during these times that God works best. God always capitalizes on our worst times to show his might. If we use these periods to pray to God, he responds by growing closer to us, and sequentially we learn to depend on our heavenly father. When one depends on the heavenly father, they will always feel his presence in every situation, both good and bad. They will also learn to appreciate each and everything that takes place in their lives. The beginning of an appreciation of the Lord's work is a beginning at an ending.

The author acclaims that this is what takes place in the first century when Paul heads out to prosecute Christians in Damascus and meets the Lord. As others fled to their homes, Paul accepted his calling and headed to a mission as he was instructed by God instead. Every individual is battling his or her problems which are unknown to us. These struggles are not always by choice (Barnes, 1996). However, individuals are always sure to overcome these struggles because God is always fighting alongside them. From the beginning, God made a ruling over the chaos that existed over waters resulting in calmness and a whole new world. He also made a ruling over the lives of the believers which he majored on their displacement as well as the resulting witnesses to spread a message to the new generation. Thus, God makes use of various ways unknown to us that always bring him to Glory. The author tells us that we need to stay woke of the Lord's doing around us.

The book takes us through the lives of several great men in the Bible, such as Peter who was summoned before the council in Jerusalem to explain his hobnobbing with Gentiles. To the council, Peter's life was at the brim. However, to God, it was a whole new beginning of the Gentiles. The people of Jerusalem were skeptical about all that Peter was doing. With time, they developed an understanding of how God was using Peter to the betterment of the lives of Gentiles. The author applauds Jerusalem for understanding the workings of God, which made them give thanks and accept the grace that Jesus Christ had placed upon them (Barnes, 1996). The author also looks into the writings of Luke, who reminds us of the effects of persecutions that led to the scattering of people across the world. The testimony is relevant to every reader as it brings hope at the end. The scattering of people across the world brought about the conversions among the Jews in the diaspora. The first batch of the converts who were the Jews led to the conversion of more and more individuals into accepting Jesus as well as the gospel.

The book teaches about faith. Our Savior Jesus Christ expects us to know that faith is there to make us believe in God and not to insulate us from the storms of life. Faith is an element that we require to overcome the temptations that we go through each passing day in the life. Jesus himself was tempted and overcame his temptations because of his strong faith. Christia...