Tribes

As a college student I got to spend a few weeks in Romford England. I was part of a group of young missionary students and our leader taught us how to do street evangelism. His point was simple: You’ve got four minutes to make your point. Why? Because those who are listening will move on and you will have a new audience. I think Seth Godin, in his new widely-read book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

, must have learned to write while watching a street preacher. Still, he’s got some good things to say about leadership and change and fear and the need to have courage. What do you folks think of Seth Godin? This one paragraph struck me:

People don’t believe what you tell them.

They rarely believe what you show them.

They often believe what their friends tell them.

They always believe what they tell themselves.

What leaders do: they give people stories they can tell themselves. Stories about the future and about change.

What do you think of this? Would you say Jesus or Paul were leaders according to this way of framing leadership?