So, what is biblical leadership? First, it is clear that leaders must value truth. When leaders paint a picture that is inaccurate or purposefully misleads people, they destroy trust between people and hope for a better future. Lying leaders are rejecting their God-given responsibility to act wisely and effectively for the good of their community. Lying leaders almost never take responsibility for their own actions but often blame others. This further divides and establishes negative control over the community. Biblical leaders always communicate truthfully in order to demonstrate responsibility and call others to be accountable and responsible as well.
We also see that real leaders place a high value on forgiveness and reconciliation. In fact, this was the purpose of Jesus' incarnation and death, bringing us back into relationship with God and providing a means of reconciling our earthy relationships as well. When leaders provide an environment for reconciliation, real community is possible and the distinctive perspectives of groups within that society can contribute to the flourishing of the whole community.
There is much more to biblical leadership but the point here is that real leaders are desperately lacking in our world. The only means of developing good leaders is to know what biblical leadership is and to live it out in our own lives. This is an integral role of the Christian family, the church and, of course, the Christian school.
In 1999, ACSI Europe began a program for our member schools called the Student Leadership Conference. Originally this brought together small groups of secondary students from many of our local schools in Hungary, Romania and Germany with some of the international English speaking schools in our region. The purpose was to provide a setting for these youth to learn about biblical leadership and develop a simple plan for serving their schools and their peers in their own communities. It also challenged the chaperones and teachers coming with each group to consider how they could further train and develop some type of leadership development program in their own school settings. All of this took place in an English speaking environment with times set aside for worship and learning, games, workshops on biblical topics and small group discussions.
Over the years, we learned that schools really depended on this program to help them think through the challenges they were facing in their own communities. They saw that many students who left home after graduation were also leaving behind their faith because they had not made the essential connections between their faith and their own life purpose. This meant they did not remain faithful to God. Some schools began to realize that they needed to give their students more voice in the culture of the school and provide meaningful ways for their students to contribute to that culture. Students must learn to lead themselves and challenge each other spiritually and not always be led by adults. This involves an intentional commitment on the part of school leadership.
There are many stories of success over the years of SLC. In one case a crazy fundraising idea from students who attended SLC led to the purchase of a new school that was desperately needed. Students designed posters for their hallways that helped their classmates focus on the values their school promoted. Students who attended SLC realized they needed to design a way to support students who were struggling socially or academically in order to help them succeed. Other students started a prayer group that prayed for the needs and spiritual growth of their teachers. These action plans were designed by students attending SLC to meet the needs that God was revealing to them because of their willingness to follow Him. In one sense, the adults were just along for the ride but they provided the support and accountability needed for those plans to be carried out. God was working in the students to live out biblical leadership now, not just to prepare to lead at some point in the future.
This is the purpose of the Student Leadership Conference. Our calling is to create a space where students can understand what biblical leadership looks like and respond to God's call to lead now where He has placed them. If they are willing to step out in faith, God will continue to use them in each new setting to meet the real needs of their communities. Sometimes those needs are spiritual in nature. Sometimes we are unable to meet spiritual needs until we address other basic needs. But we are God's hands and feet and we are the ones who live out God's love and care for those around us in our communities.
In what ways do you encourage and enable student leadership in your context? Do you ask your youth to identify the needs they see in your community? Do you give them a clear vision of what biblical leadership should be? Do you provide the space and the tools for them to meet the needs of others? These are important questions to ask if we are serious about growing Christian leaders within our communities.
