Spiritual Leadership: Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues

Tom Bandy John.chandler@vbmb.org

Spiritual Leadership

• Helping congregations and individuals realistically assess where they are – Accountability • Helping them start to grow in concrete ways – Coaching

The Traveler’s Confessional

• Used by medieval pilgrims as conversational accountability tool • “How much am I enslaved by sins?” • “How open am I to the virtues?”

Deadly Sins & Saving Virtues • Pride • Envy • Greed • Lust • Gluttony • Anger • Sloth

– Faith – Hope – Love – Prudence – Temperance – Justice – Fortitude

•

Elevating the institution to ultimacy

•

“The world should accommodate to our forms, habits, and mental models”

•

Egotism that mission field can be addressed at church’s convenience

Pride

Faith

• Surrender of the church to the ultimacy of Christ • Constant adaptation to the micro-culture of real people • Urgency to walk with Jesus into mission, wherever & however • Selfless conviction that all that matters is the Gospel, and everything else is just tactics

Envy

• Desire to be other than what God created you to be • Jealous imitation of another’s lifestyle • Blaming others for your failures • Habitual complaining

Hope

• Desire to become whatever God wills • Conviction that God’s power will bear fruit • Owning failure and learning from mistakes • Celebrating “getting out of the boat” as a prerequisite for “walking on water”

Greed

• Institutional or personal desire to possess what isn’t ours • Obsession with material security and elevation of “things” to a core value • Preoccupation with debt freedom, savings, security, property use, and balanced budgets

Love

• Institutional or personal audacity to give away life – Risk property, modify plans, and change agendas to bless others • Acquiring wealth only for the purpose of maximizing mission • Readiness to adore enemies

Lust

• Abuse of others for personal or corporate satisfaction • Desire to control others or make them dependent on us • Readiness to use individuals for institutional agendas

Prudence

• Respect for another’s intrinsic autonomy and worth • Readiness to give permission for self-fulfillment beyond institutional commitments • Wise balance of self-sacrifice and self-affirmation

Gluttony

• Consumption, excess, self-puffing • Desire to bring people in rather than sending them out • Valuing: – Size over quality – Accountability over productivity – Rules over results

Temperance

• Self-control, moderation, and boundary thinking • Desire to shape Christian lifestyle rather than bringing people to church • Valuing excellence over (mediocre) excess – trust rather than control • Dogged slimming in pursuit of what really matters

Anger

• Desire to harm or hurt physically, spiritually, or relationally • Habitual negativity • Twisted, smug joy in retribution, delight in humiliating or splitting adversaries

Justice

• Desire to redeem toward holistic healing • Tough love with a goal of reconciliation • Unbearable restlessness in the face of inequality, bigotry, or cultural insensitivity • Visionary delight in “both/and” situations and solutions

Sloth

• Lazy “I don’t care” • Lack of discipline • Expectation that others (staff? volunteers?) will do your mission for you • Unwillingness to grow personally, spiritually, professionally • Easy readiness to give up

Fortitude

• Energy, discipline, & courage to discern, address, and accomplish the mission • Passion to grow in every way • Risk-taking experimentation to tap hidden resources and accomplish the impossible

On a scale of 1 to 10 …

Where is our church?

Where am

I?

• • • • • • • Pride ……….. Faith Greed …….... Love Lust ………… Prudence Envy ……….. Hope Gluttony …… Temperance Anger ……… Justice Sloth ……….. Fortitude

Then, two questions:

1. Where is there the greatest need?

• Ask various groups in/out of the church and compare notes • • Or ask people who know you Accountability: where are we now?

2. Where do we start first? • Coaching: where do we need to go next?

Spiritual Leadership: Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues

Dr. John P. Chandler www.rasnet.org

John.chandler@vbmb.org

Copy right John P. Chandler 2003