Distinctively Christian leadership: impacting the marketplace for the cause of Christ

Keith D Boyd

Etd

Distinctively Christian leadership: impacting the marketplace for the cause of Christ

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Keith D Boyd. Distinctively Christian Leadership: Impacting the Marketplace for the Cause of Christ. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f9d354c5-7853-4bbc-9409-27a91aa0b5c1?q=2005.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

K. D. Boyd. Distinctively Christian leadership: impacting the marketplace for the cause of Christ. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f9d354c5-7853-4bbc-9409-27a91aa0b5c1?q=2005

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Keith D Boyd. Distinctively Christian Leadership: Impacting the Marketplace for the Cause of Christ. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f9d354c5-7853-4bbc-9409-27a91aa0b5c1?q=2005.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Creator

Keith D Boyd

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Abstract

The overarching premise of this project is that most Christians do not make the connection between what they do/who they are on Sunday with what they do/who they are during the workweek. Thus there is need for a tool that will enable Christ-followers who are not occupational ministers to come to understand that they are, indeed, vocational ministers; that God has called each person to and gifted each person for a distinct ministry -- be it in the home or the local church or the marketplace or all the above. The secondary premise of this project is that leadership is, above all, influence. It is the ability to inspire and stimulate others to follow. With that in mind, it is incumbent upon all Christ-followers to 'lead' others to the Savior and to the truths of the Kingdom of God. Thus, the process-curriculum developed in this project will raise various issues of leadership that are essential for the Christ-follower to grapple with if he or she is going to make an impact for the cause of Christ in the marketplace. Of particular concern is the training of Christ-followers to think critically, both of the calling God has placed on their lives and how that must be fleshed out in the context of their day-to-day living. All too often, Christ-followers see their 'nine to five' either as a place simply to earn a paycheck or to achieve some degree of status and success, not a place wherein they experience the abundant life Jesus came to give us and lead others toward the same. The thesis begins with the assertion that the marketplace is primed for and, at least to some degree, receptive to spiritual things, and the Christ-follower must be prepared to 'make the most of every opportunity' (Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5). To lay a foundation for this preparation, the thesis then goes on to present an overview of a theology of work and the misconceptions that many Christ-followers have of work and the workplace. By establishing that by and large Christendom has missed the message of the scriptures with regard to work, the need for distinctively Christian leadership in the marketplace will be recognized. Distinctively Christian leadership includes much of the current wisdom in the arena of leadership development, which will be reviewed, but it raises the bar to show that competencies are not the most important things. More important are the elements of calling and character. Thus, this project will explore the elements of calling and character for the distinctively Christian leader, making the case that calling connects a person's work to God's agenda and that character makes a difference in his/her effectiveness on the job as well as his/her attractiveness to and impact on others. The end goal of the project is to develop a process-curriculum that effectively mobilizes Christ-followers to make an impact for his kingdom in the most influential arena of our world -- the marketplace.

Publisher