How to cultivate a thriving Christian community in a disconnected cultureWhat does it mean to be a Christian community? And what does it mean to lead one? How does a pastor address today’s chall
How to cultivate a thriving Christian community in a disconnected culture
What does it mean to be a Christian community? And what does it mean to lead one? How does a pastor address today’s challenges, from lack of faith in institutions, to conflict in the church, to the tension between tradition and innovation?
C. Kavin Rowe addresses these topics and a multitude of others in this collection of keen essays. Bite-size and conversational, yet deeply rooted in Scripture and recent pastoral theology, the essays in Leading Christian Communities reflect on the shaping of Christian leaders for the flourishing of their communities. Pastors and seminarians, as well as all those involved in church ministry, will find inspiration and insight in these pages.
The Christian Century
“For more than a decade, New Testament scholar Kavin Rowe has written thoughtful reflections on Christian ministry for Faith and Leadership. In this collection of those essays, Rowe frequently engages in winsome New Testament interpretation.”
“Kavin Rowe approaches leadership with the convictions that there’s nothing inherently different about today from the challenges faced by the early church, that the Holy Spirit through Scripture and tradition has given us everything we need to thrive amid today’s predicaments, and that being the body of Christ is the most exciting and rewarding adventure any of us could wish for. These assurances make for compelling reading and healthy renewal.”
—Samuel Wells
vicar, St Martin-in-the-Fields
visiting professor of Christian ethics, King’s College London
“This wonderful book brings Kavin Rowe’s brilliant exegesis to bear on crucial questions of Christian leadership. These concise, highly readable essays stir our imagination and inspire us to more faithful and noble engagement.”
—L. Gregory Jones
president, Belmont University
“Kavin Rowe, one of our finest theological interpreters of Scripture, now gives us our best theological justification for specifically Christian leadership. Beginning with the Acts of the Apostles as authorization for our leadership, Leading Christian Communities is a lively, practical, contemporary exploration of the theological rationale for church leadership. Rowe encourages Christian leaders to lead as if God matters. It makes all the difference to innovative, transformative leaders that Jesus Christ is God with us (Christmas) and has risen for us (Easter). Even amid the challenges of the present moment, Christian leaders can be hopeful and bold because, as Rowe repeatedly reminds us, we’re not working alone.”
—Will Willimon
retired United Methodist bishop
professor of the practice of Christian ministry, Duke University
author of Leading with the Sermon: Preaching as Leadership
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C. Kavin Rowe is the George Washington Ivey Distinguished Professor of New Testament and vice dean for faculty at Duke Divinity School. His previous books include Early Narrative Christology, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age, One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, and Christianity's Surprise: A Sure and Certain Hope.
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Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1: The Acts of the Apostles and Thriving Communities
The Pattern of Life in Thriving Communities
Networking—a Feature of Thriving Communities
Visibility—a Feature of Thriving Communities
Room for the Weak in a Thriving Community
Incorporating Disagreement in a Thriving Community
Why Does Your Community Exist?
Suffering Is Part of Thriving
Part 2: Christian Leadership
Humor as a Mark of Life-Giving Leadership
Becoming a Christ-Shaped Leader
The Formation of a Scriptural Imagination
Cultivating Resilience
Failure as Christ-Shaped Leadership
Making the Connections
Leadership and the Discipline of Silence
Christian Success
Listening Well
Orienting Hierarchies toward the Good
Our Most Significant Experiences Are in Institutions
“Power” in the Christian Sense Is the Concrete Shape of Hope
Leading in the Age of the Image
The Church and the Vanishing Neighbor
Part 3: Traditioned Innovation
Traditioned Innovation—a Biblical Way of Thinking
Pentecost as Traditioned Innovation
Navigating the Differences in the Gospels
The New Testament as an Innovation of the Old
King Jesus
Part 4: Christmas and Easter
Why Christmas Needs Easter
Why Easter Needs Christmas
Notes
Index
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