Spiritual Leadership

The issues of leadership are in the air this fall.  Faced with national elections in the U.S. and Canada along with an economic meltdown we have not seen for generations (and of course there is always the ongoing moral meltdown), the question of who will lead us is a defining question for our time.  For many, the call for strong leadership is met with a lack of consensus as to what that leadership should look like.  Leadership, as always, is shaped by ideology and worldview.

I have added Spiritual Leadership as Representative, with the hope that it would point out some of the unique issues involved in discerning a leadership appropriate to the church’s need in this hour of history.  My proposal is that spiritual leadership is more of a representative and symbolic nature, and less functional than other kinds of leadership.  Of course, church leaders do have responsibilities, and this is naturally part of what they provide their communities.  But I contend that spiritual leadership is of such a nature that the ultimate value of a spiritual leader is found more in what they stand for than what they do.  What are your thoughts?