Nouwen on Christian leadership for the 21st century

[Solly]

Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time. Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for their words, advice, and guidance. Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen again and again to the voice of love and to find there the wisdom and courage to address whatever issue presents itself to them. Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, UK-DLT/US-Crossroad, 1989.

Nouwen, a Dutch Roman Catholic Priest and professor at Harvard for 20 years, gave up his teaching post to go and work and minister with Jean Vanier's L'Arche community, which looks after mentally handicapped people. The book is his reflection on leadership based on his experiences there. He died in 1996.

All I can say is, Thy will be done Lord :pray:

[John Reece]

Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, UK-DLT/US-Crossroad, 1989.

Nouwen, a Dutch Roman Catholic Priest and professor at Harvard for 20 years, gave up his teaching post to go and work and minister with Jean Vanier's L'Arche community, which looks after mentally handicapped people. The book is his reflection on leadership based on his experiences there. He died in 1996.

All I can say is, Thy will be done Lord :pray:

Thanks for that, Solly :thumb: .

[Solly]

Firstly, a small review. I bought two books by Nouwen on Christian ministry/leadership, Wounded Healer, and In the Name of Jesus. Since Church was cancelled due to the bad weather I got to read them last night as they are not big books. Wounded Healer is good, but obviously dated in some ways, being a product of the 70s. As I read it, it reminded me of Schaeffer, and when I checked the publication date I saw why - originally published in 1972, it was written during his time at Yale university as lecturer in pastoral theology, so reflecting the late 60s early 70s milieu. The best part is the section from which the book draws its title, and, in my reading of late, ties in with the Marva Dawn book I reviewed in the libarary forum.

In the Name of Jesus is a good little book, it would take about an hour to read i think. He wrote it after he had been at L'Arche for some years, and it reflects the influence of his experiences there. it is a much more personal book than Wounded Healer.
He looks at the challenges that face ministers under the guise of the three temptations of Christ; he looks at solutions under the three charges to Peter in John 21, and he offers direction.
1. From Relevance to Prayer: The temptation - to be relevant; the question - "Lovest thou me?"; the discipline - contemplative prayer [from which the above extract is taken].
2. From Popularity to Ministry: The temptation - to be spectacular; the task - "Feed my sheep."; the discipline - confession and forgiveness [not necessarily RCC confession].
3. From Leading to being Led: The temptation - to be powerful; the challenge - "Somebody else will take you."; the discipline - theological reflection.
The Introduction and Epilogue relate the time he went to give these lectures, and the friend he took from the L'Arche community he lived with and worked with. Bill van Buren is/was mentally handicapped, had been baptised into the RCC after meeting Nouwen, and became his "partner" in ministry, fulfilling, to Nouwen's mind, the charge to go in two's bearing witness.


[Jesus] wants Peter to feed his sheep and care for them, not as "professionals" who know their clients' problems and take care of them, but as vulnerable brothers and sisters who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are boineg forgiven, who love and are being loved.
We are not healers, we are not reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God. Therefore, true ministry must be mutual. When the members of a community of faith cannot truly know and love their shepherd, shepherding quickly becomes a subtle way of exercising power over others and begins to show authoritarian and dictatorial traits. The world in which we live - a world of efficiency and control - has no models to offer those who want to be the shepherds in the way Jesus was a shepherd...The leadership about which Jesus speaks is of a radically different kind from the leadership offered by the world. It is a servant leadership in which the leader is a vulnerable servant who needs the people as much as they need him or her.
From this it is clear that a whole new type of leadership is asked for in the Church of tomorrow, a leadership which is not modelled on the power games of the world, but on the servant-leader, Jesus, who came to give his life for the salvation of many.
From the second section.

Just found this on a Nouwen webiste:

First Lady Hillary Clinton's favourite book, "The Return of the Prodigal Son." There is a wonderful article in "O" magazine (The Oprah Magazine) about Henri's book "The Return of the Prodigal Son." The First Lady speaks about the book and why this book touched her in a profound way.


Choosing a favorite book was an impossible assignment. There's simply no way to take a lifetime of reading great books and single out a handful as the most influential in my life. So I've picked one, The Return of the Prodigal Son, that had a profound effect on me, and that I believe will be equally meaningful to others.

It was given to me by a friend in 1994 after I had experienced some tragic and painful losses—my father, my mother-in-law and our dear friend Vince Foster all died. I was reading a lot of Scripture and theology and other books of inspiration at the time. This book struck a responsive chord, because the story is such a moving and constructive parable about what matters in life.

The Reverend Henri J.M. Nouwen, a Catholic priest, analyzes the story of the prodigal son as told by Jesus in the New Testament. Nouwen offers the perspectives of the father and of his sons, the one who returns home after squandering his fortune and the dutiful older son who never left. One sentence hit me like a lightning bolt: "The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy."

I had never thought of gratitude as a habit or discipline before, and I discovered that it was immensely helpful to do so. When I found myself in a difficult situation, I began to make a mental list of all that I was grateful for: being alive and healthy for another day, loving and being loved by family and friends, and experiencing the awesome privilege of working on behalf of my country. By consciously reminding myself of my blessings, I could move from pessimism to optimism, from grief to hopefulness.

Nouwen's book contains universal, timeless lessons for people of all religions, backgrounds and cultures. It really is about how our heavenly Father, God, loves us despite our shortcomings and failings. For me it was a call to the discipline of gratitude and also to forgiveness. And I certainly have had plenty of occasions to use both. I would encourage everyone to read it, particularly if they are going through difficult times.

The First Lady on The Return of the Prodigal Son in “O” Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, 2000 July-August, pg. 217
http://www.oprah.com/obc/omag/obc_omag_200007_books_02.jhtml

[Solly]

Funny how things go around. I have also been reading Eberhard Arnold, you would think as far from a Roman Catholic priest/lecturer as you can get, Arnold being a modern day Anabaptist, yet here is an excerpt from Henri Nouwen's Foreword to Heinrich Arnold's [a descendant] book, Discipleship:

Discipleship is a tough book. As I began reading it, Heinrich Arnold's words touched me as a double-edged sword, calling me to choose between truth and lies, salvation and sin, selflessness and selfishness, light and darkness, God and demon. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to be confronted in such a direct way, and I discovered some resistance in myself. I want the good news of the Gospel to be gentle, consoling, comforting, and to offer inner peace and harmony.

But Arnold reminds me that the peace of the Gospel is not the same as the peace of the world, that the consolation of the Gospel is not the same as the consolation of the world, and that the gentleness of the Gospel has little to do with the "free for all" attitude of the world. The Gospel asks for a choice, a radical choice, a choice that is not always praised, supported, and celebrated.

Still, Arnold's writing is not harsh, unbending, fanatical, or self-righteous. To the contrary, it is full of love. Tough love, but real love. It is this love that flows from the broken heart of Jesus. What makes Arnold's words so healing is that they are not based on an idea, an ideology, or a theory, but on an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Christ, is in the center of all the suggestions, advice, and care expressed in these reflections. This is truly a Christ-centered book.

Heinrich Arnold does not speak in his own name. He speaks in the name of Jesus. He has heard clearly the words of Paul to Timothy: "Before God, and before Christ Jesus, who is to be the judge of the living and the dead, I charge you, in the name of his appearing and his kingdom: proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it. Refute falsehood, correct error, give encouragement - but do all with patience and with care to instruct" (2 Tim. 4:1-2).

It is Arnold's deep rootedness in Jesus Christ that makes him a very wise, a very safe, and a very challenging guide in our spiritual journey. But there is more: his rootedness is not simply a rootedness in the Christ who lived long ago it is a rootedness in the Christ who is present today in the life of the community of faith.

Arnold is not a pious, sentimental guide. Every word he speaks comes from his experience in community, where discipleship is lived. It is in community that we are tested and purified. It is in community that we learn what forgiveness and healing are all about. It is in community that we learn who our neighbor is. Community is the true school of love. Arnold lived community all of his life. He knew its demands and its rewards. Most of all, he knew that it is in community that we encounter the Christ of the Gospel.

I am very grateful for this book. It is a prophetic book in a time in which few people dare to speak unpopular but truly healing words.

I pray that those who read this book won't be afraid to be confronted, and I trust that the word of God that comes to them through it will bring true comfort, true consolation, true hope, and true courage.

[John Reece]

Funny how things go around. I have also been reading Eberhard Arnold, you would think as far from a Roman Catholic priest/lecturer as you can get, Arnold being a modern day Anabaptist, yet here is an excerpt from Henri Nouwen's Foreword to Heinrich Arnold's [a descendant] book, Discipleship:

Solly,

What you have posted in this thread is wise, true, and powerful.

Thanks for sharing such treasure.

Blessings,

John

[Solly]

I thought this journal [published as Genesee Diary would be helpful - in a way that Merton's work wasn't - because Henri's difficulties were the kind the average person has when they come here [to the Trappist Monastery at Genese, New York State]. His time here was one of struggle. He had peace uo to a point, but, as the diary shows, he had all kinds of emotional stuggles which almost everybody has. Merton had them too, but he didn't write about them. He wrote about his experience from the point of view of someone who had assimilated and re-interpreted it, then expressed it in a highly literary way, but he did it with such naturalness that an unsophisticated reader would be led to think that that was the way it worked, but it didn't.
It's like reading Isaiah, who was a great poet and a deeply religious, centemplative person. There aren't many people who are capable of that kind of experience - but many people can learn a lot from it. You can take what you are up to, but you won't function the way he did. That's the difference between the two people. What Henri experienced was a kind of large version of what the average intelligent, devoted and serious person will soon run into.

Abbott John Eudes Bamberger, being quoted; p 132-33

[Solly]

Let your lion lie down with your lamb.

There is within you a lamb and a lion. Spiritual maturity is the ability to let lamb and lion lie down together. Your lion is your adult, aggressive self. It is your initiative-taking and decision-making self. But there is also your fearful, vulnerable lamb, the part of you that needs affection, support, affirmation, and nurturing.
When you heed only your lion, you will find yourself over-extended and exhausted. When you notice only your lamb, you will easily become a victim of your need for other people's attention. The art of spiritual living is to fully claim both your lion and your lamb. Then you can act assertively without denying your own needs. And you can ask for affection and care without betraying your talent to offer leadership.
Developing your identity as a child of God in no way means giving up your responsibilities. Likewise, claiming your adult self in no way means that you cannot become increasingly a child of God. In fact, the opposite is true. The more you can feel safe as a child of God, the freer you will be to claim your mission in the world as a responsible human being. And the more you claim that you have a unique task to fulfill for God, the more open you will be to letting your deepest need be met.
The kingdom of peace that Jesus came to establish begins when your lion and your lamb can freely and fearlessly lie down together.