Leadership is easy to describe as an ideal, but the leader who can say with Saint Paul, “Follow my example” is rare. Easy enough to list the failures, but better to be thankful for those who, like Paul, are an example of virtuous leadership that pointed me to Jesus. In another place, I list seven women leaders. Here are the men:
George B. Osborne: Boldness
Pastor George was a successful business man who decided to give it up and start a Christian school. He was brilliant, but nobody in the project had ever started a school.
He took a school in a church basement and produced excellence from day one. He would shake up the schedule with a series of services if he thought our hearts were cold. Pastor George also demanded we learn by challenging us with the best secular idea and eschewing cheesy Christian text books.
When that got too easy, he headed off to do a church plant that is still going strong.
Phillip E. Johnson; Community
If you graduate Harvard, go to University of Chicago and graduate first in your class, earn an endowed chair Berkeley, then you might think you have the right to become a guru. He was willing to take on bad legal ideas, judges, and finally philosophical naturalism, but he wasn’t willing to build Phillip E. Johnson incorporated.
Phillip Johnson is not an empire builder. Instead, he connects people to resources and let’s them flourish. He knew that people will do for love what they will never do for money. Behind the scenes, he and his wonderful wife were fairy godparents to our children.
He introduced us to lifelong friends and never drew attention to himself . . .not even at dinner where he presided over the best table talk ever where the food was good, but the pleasure of the company was better. Building a genuine community of diverse personalities is hard. A guru ends up with followers, Phillip E. Johnson with friends.
Dr. Clyde Cook: Humility
Dr. Cook was a man of accomplishment who was also a humble man. Right after 9/11, I recall him standing before the Biola University community and sharing his memories of huddling with his mother as his Far Eastern community was bombed at the start of World War II. He read the devotional that his mother read to him in this worse days and our day became better.
Some leaders think the organization is about their genius, but the longest serving president in the history of Biola. loved the school. I would see him walk around campus, one that he had helped build as a student, faculty member, and administrator, and simply marvel at what God had done.
Humility did not mean weakness: he was a student athlete who served as leader with serious health issues. Humility meant being a risk taker: he started many cutting edge programs in his quarter of a century. Humility for Clyde Cook meant being a leader happy to put other people on the stage, the cover, and at the front of the line.
Father Michael Trigg: Sacrifice
Father Michael cared more for his spiritual children than his own health. He was a gentleman, a child of culture and a graduate of Oxford University, but he left his high social status, pension, and power in the Epicopal Church USA when they moved away from orthodoxy.
I watched him stand strong against persecution, but never worry for himself. Instead, he worried about us. This stress made his Parkinson’s disease far worse and reduced the quality of the end of his life.
When my family went to visit him the night before he died, we were not sure he was aware that we were there. His hands were curled tightly and his body wasted with illness. The last cavalier was done fighting and we sang hymns for him and told him our good-byes. As I left, I do not know why, I turned and said: “Pray Father a blessing.”
His eyes cleared, he lifted his hand and formed the sign of the cross and said: “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . . ” To the very end, God’s gentleman would sacrifice to bless his flock.
Dr. JP Moreland: Discipleship
Dr. Moreland has always been willing to work with younger scholars and give them a chance. When I came to Biola, Moreland was willing to meet me at Disneyland and teach me how to be a Christian philosopher. He pushed me to get my dissertation published and asked me to co-edit a book. None of that was necessary. He was a star and I will never be his equal, but Moreland loves mentoring younger scholars.
When we would meet, he would listen at least as much as he would talk. He would ask about my family, my spiritual life, and then chat about WV Quine . . . all in the line for Space Mountain.
Dr. Robert Stacey: Loyalty
Coming to Houston gave me a chance to meet Dr. Stacey. I had met former students and so I knew he was a great teacher and scholar. What I did not know was his absolute loyalty to the Cause of Christ. I talked to a former boss and was told: “Dr. Stacey is the most loyal member of the team.”
He was right. Stacey isn’t loyal to personalities, but to a cause. I can count on him to tell me I am crazy, but also to get done what needs to be done for classic, conservative, Christian education. He is calm in a crisis and a prudent in victory, because he knows what he believes.
Lewis Dayton Reynolds: Integrity
He is my father, but he is great leader. He never lies and has worked sacrificially his entire career rather than fleece the flock. When you see your pastor refuse to compromise his ideals, even at the cost of a job, then you know he has integrity. That he is your dad matters less at that moment, than that he is a leader. Dad could work with great men like Pastor George, because part of integrity is refusing to hog all the credit.
If these seven qualities (boldness, community, humility, sacrifice, discipleship, loyalty, and integrity) are missing, no amount of talent can compensate. If they are all there, then by God’s grace, nothing possible is out of reach.
God can take good men and do great things if they are leaders.
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Don’t worry Mom. You appear in the list of seven women leaders I have known and what I have learned from these great women.
A pastor’s kid is raised by a leader and gets to meet many leaders, good and bad. At Torrey Honors Institute I had a chance to work with an excellent leadership team that included Paul Spears, Fred Sanders, Melissa Schubert, and Greg Peters. President Barry Corey is a model of integrity. At Houston Baptist University, I found a group of deans and department chairs such as Chris Hammons, Holly Ordway, Doris Warren who worked hard to educate one of the most diverse student bodies in the United States of America.
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