Christian Leadership for Today’s World

By Dr. Jean Marc Désiré

No Available information at this time. Author will provide once available.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669828938

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Jean Marc Désiré.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version.

Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 06/09/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

843896

THANKS

I dedicate this book to my late father Pastor Loulou Désiré who helped me answer God’s call, to my mother Anne Marie Soiyeuse Désiré, who faithfully supported me during my ministry, to my brothers and sisters Emmanuel, Edith, Voegeli, Joël, Louis Desire Jr and Rebecca who all supported me in one way or another in my pastoral career.

I dedicate this book to my wife Junie and our two adult children Marc Brian and Sarah who are all precious to me and useful to the work of the Lord.

Dr. Jean Marc Désiré

CONTENTS

Preface

The Fall Of Christian Leadership

PART ONE

Contemporary Leadership Development

Introduction

The Meaning of Leadership

The Models of Leadership

The Measure of Leadership

The Methods of Leadership

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART TWO

Exemplary Leadership

Introduction

Model the way

Inspire a shared vision

Challenge the process

Enable others to act

Encourage the heart

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART THREE

Leadership In The Local Churhch

Introduction

Description of a local church conflict

Development of a local church conflict

Prescription for a local church conflict

Resolution of a local church conflict

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART FOUR

Christian Leadership And Relationship

Introduction

Peter’s relationship with the Lord

Conflicts resolution between Christ and Peter

Lessons learned from Peter’s relationship with the Lord

Conclusion

PART FIVE

Christian Leadership And Family Failure

Introduction

David’s failure to teach his children

David’s failure to discipline his children

Conclusion

PART SIX

Christian Leadership And Forgiveness

Introduction

Stewing about reasons not to forgive

Seeking revenge and demanding justice

Withholding trust and avoiding the whole incident

Complaining that forgiveness is too much work

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART SEVEN

Competent Leadership In Ministry

Introduction

Competency in Ministry

Practical competency in ministry

Spiritual competency in ministry

Scholastic competency in ministry

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART EIGHT

Christian Leadership And Ministry Issues

Introduction

Evil in the world

Sacredness of human life: Abortion, euthanasia, suicide, racism

Abortion

Suicide and Euthanasia

Racism

Divorce and remarriage

Same-sex marriage

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART NINE

Christian Leadership And Poverty

Introduction

The Call to minister to the poor

The Cost to minister to the poor

Conclusion

Sources Cited

PART TEN

Christian Leadership And Counseling

Introduction

Assignment and Nature of Lay Counseling

Exposition of the Plan

Execution of the Plan

Assessment and Structure of Lay Counseling

Expectation of the Work

Evaluation of the Work

Accomplishment and Stature of Lay Counseling

Explanation of the Results

Estimation of the Results

Advancement and Future of Lay Counseling

Exception and objective

Evolution And Perspective

Conclusion

Bibliography

PART ELEVEN

Christian Leadership Coaching

External Adaptation and internal integration

Reality and Truth

The Nature of Time and Space

PART TWELVE

Strategic Leader And Follower Development

Introduction

The Importance of organizational culture

The current and preferred organizational culture change

The Meaning of Changes to the Culture

The Implication of Organizational Culture Change

The Illustration of the Desired Culture

The Strategy toward the desired Culture

The Implantation of a Leader-follower Culture Change

The Identification of Immediate Wins

The Leadership toward Immediate and Long -Term Wins

The Impact of Organizational Culture Change

The Identification of Metrics, Measures and Milestones

The Identification of Strategic Communication

Conclusion

Conclusion

PREFACE

In 1989, I went back to Haiti after Ministry Training in the USA, I started pastoring a small church of 150 members with preaching assignments including Bible study four times a week.In 1991, the church attendance doubled, and since the sanctuary was small we ended up having two services on Sunday morning and my preaching assignments got heavier .In 1993, I started the very first church plant out of that one church three miles away in a community of five thousand people with no church and found myself under the obligation to train workers since I did not have able men . The Bible Institute for Christian workers was born and I had the responsibility among many other things to teach Old and New Testament Bible Survey and Personal Evangelism to the core group of that new work while doing additional Bible studies for new believers over there as well. In 1996, I received a call to fix a church that was in deep waters of divisions and strife .Many of the brethren had already left and the rest of them that stayed wanted to go for another round of fighting and disputes. When I realized that their main problem was in a lack of Christian education, I started teaching them about what the church is all about. A healthy new Testament doctrinal diet mixed with prayer healed the church that came to be a part of our missionary enterprise after a replant work was done and a sister church was planted one hundred miles away in the north country side, with the help of the brethren from that church that almost perished . More training was needed to have faithful workers to surround me in obedience to the biblical model of leadership and help me carry the load of regular teaching and evangelism.In 1999, with four churches on our account and close to four thousand people to minister to, there was a need to organize our Christian education for the Baptist Association that we have created as an umbrella to those churches. I created at the same time the Haitian Institute of Christian Communication, which served as a writing ministry that prepares bible studies and Sunday school lessons for all the churches in the ministry . I wrote and edited in French an Adult Sunday school book for a whole year,that mostly covered topics and books from the New Testament. I wrote and edited a yearly Bible study Book to be used in all the churches of our Association with the objective of preparing a harvest of able servants.

In the year 2001, we made the second church plant the main church of the ministry and built a sanctuary for seven hundred and a Christian school for seven hundred . I developed a curriculum based on the New Testament to teach all our students about Jesus Christ.From 2002 to 2007, in an effort to improve our ministry Christian education, I published a six-hour teaching video tape on what the New Testament teaches about Baptism, about the church and church membership . I also created an innovative evangelism activity called Bible School of Salvation built on New Testament Teaching. Unbelievers, sensitive and curious seekers, were invited to study parts of the New Testament with us. In so doing, most of them came to know the Lord through studying the Word. The numeric growth was certain, the attendance in every church doubled through good Christian education. The sanctuary of the main church was rebuilt to sit fifteen hundred people, and with the growth came the need to upgrade our Bible Institute and to start training more leaders for the work of ministry in obedience to the biblical model of leadership.

From 2008 to today, the ministry Bible School started focusing on training pastors and I became the founder and dean of our Bible School in Haiti, with the responsibility to teach, and improve the curriculum on a regular basis so as to prepare faithful workers to meet the spiritual needs of our community .

Moses was counseled to teach the statutes of God to the leaders who will teach the people in return; the author of this book has constructed his ministry around teaching and training; the practice of more than 30 years of pastoral ministry,and the faithful involvement on my part in discipling new believers, edifying the saints and training Christian workers have enabled me to implement to a great extent the biblical model of Christian leadership as found in this book .May it be a blessing to everyone.

Dr Jean Marc Desire

THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN

LEADERSHIP

The 18th century came to be known as the enlightenment period during which was birthed a radical orientation in European politics, philosophy, science and communications. The enlightenment gave birth to liberal modernity with its skeptical rationalism and empiricism, shucking of Christian beliefs and church authority¹.Everything was affected all through this period as new thinkers inaugurate what they called the Age of Reason, which started questioning everything toward the objective of improving humanity. The new mentality that emerged during the enlightenment resulted into new thinkers, new books writing, new scientific discoveries, new laws, and the making of wars and revolutions impacting for better or for worse the biblical view of the sacredness of life in the centuries that followed.

Numerous anti-religious innovations embarked on questioning God’s intervention in the universe and human affairs during the Enlightenment. Evidently, it marked a laudable expression or a lamentable rejection of Christian thought and values . The reasoning was if the Christian God does not exist, Christian thoughts and values cannot stand; consequently, the universe has no lawgiver entitled to dictate his laws and everyone’s rights, which leaves human free, according to some, to develop their own laws and create their own moral. Men of good influence (like John Locke) came on the scene during the enlightenment period to plead and prove that humans belong absolutely to God their maker, not to their fellow humans, and not even to themselves in any absolute sense and that every human being made in God’s image is equal and have the same rights and special dignity derived from God ². Locke’s contribution and writings on Godly morality and human rights have impacted many generations. But, on the other end,later on, the emergence of Immanuel Kant on the scene refuted the tradition of God in the moral decisions of humanity as Kant himself declared the notion of a Supreme being is in many respects a highly useful idea …incapable of enlarging our cognition with regard to the existence of things. Such dismissing of God by Kant advocated that there cannot be an objective moral order and a Godly foundation of morality; therefore, Kant pleaded for everyone to act as if the maxim of your actions were to become through your will a universal law of nature ³. The centrality of moral autonomy proposed by Kant, rejects any normative role either for religion or for God In morality, while gradually de-Christianizing what was left in Christian tradition and leadership, which set up the stage for Friedrich Nietzsche’s Godless philosophy.

Many have noted in Nietzsche’s writings an anti-God mentality with a fierce critic of the morality inherited from Judaism and Christianity through centuries of influence in European cultures. For Nietzsche, since we are the products of a Godless universe, human’s religions and moral are just a created redemptive illusion, a prevailing myth, leaving humanity at a dead end since there is no deity who cares about the value of each and every individual human life ⁴. Such Nietzschean philosophy creating a society with no justice, no rights, no equality, no pity, no hope, can explain the cruelty, the Nazi assaults on human life, the wars and bloodshed of the 20th centuries, when injury, violence, and exploitation; appropriation, overpowering, and suppression; and hardness rather than sentimental weakness were the order of the day⁵. In such a Godless, moral disaster and bloody atmosphere, Christian leadership grew dimmed as Nietzsche became the first to make the staggering declaration God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him… What after all are all these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?⁶. Such is the mentality