Starting Well Building a Strong Foundation for a Lifetime of Ministry Reviews

Introduction

Robert Clinton was a long time professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. Each of the following volumes explains a characteristic of his Leadership Emergence Theory (run across Ministry Resources Guide on the subject area).

Six works either explain Clinton's theory or present tools for helping leaders assess themselves in light of the theory.

• The Making of a Leader
• Strategic Concepts that Clarify a Focused Life
• Leadership Emergence Theory
• Unlocking Your Giftedness
• Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You lot Need
• Starting Well: Building a Stiff Foundation for a Lifetime of Ministry
• Conclusions on Leadership Styles

Clinton likewise self-published a companion series of Leadership Commentaries on biblical characters, demonstrating leadership principles from their life stories. Click here to discover a complete list.

The Main Volumes:

Foundation - J. Robert Clinton, The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development. NavPress, 1988.

This is one of the most fascinating studies on leadership by Bob Clinton, long time professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. If any leader wants to appraise how God is at work in his or her life, become more circumspect to God's leading, and give attending to of import developmental tasks, this is an first-class tool. Clinton's model grows out of his research of hundreds of Christian leaders, well-nigh notably men similar A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, and Dawson Trottman. He extracts from their lives five, or in some cases vi, developmental phases that leaders undergo as their lives unfold. Leaders may not experience all 5 or six phases, and in that location may exist overlap, but the overall concept of the stages holds. The generalized time-line of the stages is summarized in chapter two:

Sovereign foundations – God providentially works to lay the foundations of the leader's life through family, environment, and historical events.

Inner-Life Growth – The leader comes to know God in a more intimate, personal mode. He is tested. If he learns from these experiences what God wants to teach, it results in expanded ministry building and greater responsibility. If he does not learn, he will commonly exist tested again in the same areas.

Ministry Maturing– The leader reaches out to others, experimenting with spiritual gifts, and may go training. He becomes a rise leader, learning lessons in his relationships with others or from the inadequacies of his personal life.

"In these beginning three phases, God'south piece of work is primarily in the leader, not through him or her. Many emerging leaders do non recognize this, and become frustrated. They are constantly evaluating productivity and activities, while God is quietly evaluating their leadership potential. He wants to teach the states that nosotros minister out of what we are." (45-46)

Life Maturing – The leader identifies and uses his or her spiritual gifts in a satisfying ministry building. Priorities are clearer for identifying the best employ of gifts, what to do and non to practice, resulting in mature fruitfulness. The leader's character mellows and matures. Communion with God becomes more important than success in ministry, and the leader's character mellows and matures. The cardinal to development in this stage is a positive response to the experiences God ordains.

Convergence – God maximizes the leader's ministry building by moving him or her into a role that matches one'south souvenir-mix and experience and that is comparatively freed from less suited activities. Convergence may not come up either for lack of personal development, or an organization keeps him or her in a limiting part, or providence hinders in a way difficult to empathise without the full motion-picture show that only God sees. Reaching this stage requires trust in God's guidance and watching as God moves one toward a ministry that embodies all the evolution of preceding phases. Convergence manifests itself equally one responds consistently to God's work in his life.

Afterglow or Celebration (for only a few) - A lifetime of ministry building and growth culminates in an era of recognition and indirect, broad influence. Leaders continue to exert influence in these relationships through a large network of contacts built over a lifetime. Their consequent rail tape in post-obit God causes others to seek out their storehouse of wisdom.

Clinton says:

"As a leader, you should recognize that God is continually developing you over a lifetime. His meridian priority is to arrange yous to the paradigm of Christ for ministry building with spiritual authority. Enduring fruitfulness flows out of being. In addition to transforming your character, God will increase your capacity to influence through developing your spiritual gifts. " (54)

In chapters 3-7, Clinton discusses each developmental phase in depth. Chapters 8-ix hash out how leaders integrate and accept the lessons of life. The appendix lays out summary observations on leadership emergence and selection. The volume is full of biblical and historical illustrations, summary charts, exercises, and a glossary.

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Companion volume - J. Robert Clinton, Strategic Concepts that Clarify a Focused Life: A Cocky-Report Manual Defining and Applying Focused Life Concepts to Leaders Today. Barnabas Publishers, 2005. - This was originally published in 1995 and and so updated and revised in 2005. It is an excellent companion to The Making of a Leader. Here Clinton concentrates on the role of life focus in 8 highly effective Christian leaders who finished well: Charles Simeon, A. J. Gordon, Samuel Brengle, G. Campbell Morgan, Robert Jaffray, R. C. McQuilkin, Henrietta Mears, and L. E. Maxwell. From his written report, Clinton arrived at this definition of a focused life:

a life dedicated to exclusively carrying out God'due south unique purpose through it, past identifying the focal bug, that is the life purpose, unique methodology, major role, or ultimate contribution which allows and increasing prioritization of life's activities around the focal issues, and results in a satisfying life of being and doing.

He discusses how each of these develops over four periods of adult life: ages 30-40, ages twoscore-50, ages 50-lx, and historic period 60+. During each of these age spans, a leader will feel a tentative Personal Life Mandate that becomes increasingly more firm over fourth dimension, and that may exist revised several times. This book functions as a manual for leaders to ascertain the focused life, assess the focused life, and proactively move toward the focused life. Typical of Clinton, the reading can be a scrap thick and technical, but it is a very worthy read. Most outstanding Christian leadership coaches today are quite aware of this volume, and make good use of it. The bibliography and research methodology backside Strategic Concepts may be constitute in the companion volume, Focused Lives: Inspirational, Life Changing Lessons From 8 Effective Christian Leaders Who Finished Well. Barnabas Publishers, 1995.

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Supportive Works:

J. Robert Clinton, Leadership Emergence Theory: A Cocky-Written report Manual for Analyzing the Development of a Christian Leader. Barnabas Publishers, 1989. This is a dense, 460-folio manual explaining the theory and enquiry backside Clinton's The Making of a Leader. It is simply for those who actually want to know more than about the theory. It focuses on the three major factors that God uses to shape Christian leaders: processing, time, and leader response patterns.

J. Robert Clinton and Richard W. Clinton, Unlocking Your Giftedness: What Leaders Need to Know to Develop Themselves and Others. Barnabas Publishers, 1993.  This resource helps leaders recognize the need to develop themselves and others. This self study transmission gives the most consummate treatment of giftedness on the marketplace. It treats the whole giftedness set-natural abilities, caused skills, and spiritual gifts. Information technology views giftedness from the standpoint of a leader responsible for developing self and others. Notice particularly the sub-title. This book clarifies and suggests developmental ways. Concepts flow from accumulated research on leaders since 1983.

J. Robert Clinton and Paul D. Stanley, Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Demand. NavPress, 1992. Hither Clinton and Stanley discuss the crucial role that mentors play in leadership evolution, particularly in helping one overcome the five almost mutual reasons for failure. They discuss 9 unlike types of mentors inside three categories: 1) Intensive mentoring – discipler, spiritual guide, and jitney; two) Occasional mentoring – counselor, teacher, and sponsor; and 3) Passive Mentoring – gimmicky modeling, historical modeling, and divine contacts. They also encompass peer mentoring. This is a very helpful guide to assessing the network of mentors i needs, how to find them, and how to reply to them so every bit to reap the greatest benefit. A self-written report transmission on the same subject, appropriate for small groups or individual study is The Mentor Handbook (Barnabas Publishers, 1991). One may also be interested in The Mentor Reader, a the free serial of informative articles on mentoring written by Clinton from 1999-2005.

Richard Clinton and Paul Leavenworth, Starting Well: Building a Strong Foundation for a Lifetime of Ministry. Since Clinton'south theory considers how God works over i'due south entire lifespan, and offers a adequately predictive rubric for long-term effectivness, how one starts certainly matters. This resources suggests how to begin in a manner that is more than probable to unfold a promising, providential trajectory in one'south ministry.

J. Robert Clinton, Conclusions on Leadership Styles. Barnabas Publishers, 1986. Clinton examines dissimilar leadership fashion theories and considers how various styles tin can bear upon the life of an organization. He presents the major theorists upwardly to the engagement of publication (1986) such as Blake and Mouton, Fiedler, Hersey and Blanchard. He explains their views, and so synthesizes the basic tenets into a set of concepts which can inform a Christian leader today. Includes insights from the Scriptures regarding Pauline leadership styles.

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See Other Resources on Leadership:

• Leadership, Index to Resources Guides

See Other Resources on Leadership Development:

• Leadership Development in Congregations, Theory and Practice
• Leadership Evolution Through Spiritual Formation
• Leadership Development Through Grapheme Germination
• Leadership Development Through Life Experience
• Leadership Evolution Through Cocky-Assessment
• Leadership Development Through Life Effectiveness
• Leadership Development Through Communication Competence (divide folio)
• Leadership Development Through Failure and Setback
• Leadership Development Over Life Bridge – J. Robert Clinton Leadership Emergence Theory (separate page)

See Resources on Over 100 Ministry Topics:

• Ministry building Resource Guide Alphabetize

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Source: http://www.lifeandleadership.com/book-summaries/robert-clinton-leadership-emergence-theory.html

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