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Christianity Today, September, 2008 |

Richard Foster on Leadership

How do leaders — who must get subordinates to follow their lead — practice the discipline of submission?

By Richard Foster | posted 9/17/2008 10:33AM

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Leadership is an act of submission to God. To be a leader means listening to all kinds of people and situations. Out of that listening, we are hoping to discern the mind of God as best we can. This is the price of leadership—it's an act of sacrifice. So leadership is part and parcel of the work of submission to God.

I could be perfectly happy to go up into those mountains and disappear. But at least up to this point, that has not been my lot. There is a sense of call to take leadership roles. You're serving people and submitting to God as best you can.

We all learn submission because we all have "bosses," whether we're presidents of companies or not. The easiest place to learn it is in family. Paul's words were, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ"—there is subordination, husband and wife, parent and child. We're doing that all of the time, looking to the needs of our spouse or our children, even though we have to make certain kinds of decisions they may not like. It's an act of submission to help.

I think of Pope Gregory the Great. He wanted the cloister. He wanted to pray and study, and yet he was thrust into this administrative job, and he submitted to that. And in that submission, he became a great leader. You could say that the only person who is safe to lead is the person who is free to submit.

Related Elsewhere:

This article accompanies an interview with Foster.

Foster is head of Renovaré, an interdenominational renewal movement.

Christianity Today interviewed Richard Foster and Dallas Willard on the Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible and on the difference between discipleship and spiritual formation.

Celebration of Discipline and Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Formation are available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

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September 2008, Vol. 52, No. 9

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jay	Posted: September 18, 2008 6:56 AM


Many little churches have been started because someone was angry with someone else. We need to re-learn the joy of true submission, rooted in humility. The issue needs this sort of study, because in our love for "democracy" , submission is often seen as a problem rather than a virtue.

wesh	Posted: September 17, 2008 5:31 PM


Interesting, the highest rank in AA is "servant". Before the Big Book, we used the Bible.

Bo in NC

Posted: September 18, 2008 9:16 AM

How many pastors, and I am speaking confessionally, resist saying really challenging things to their church because it is easier to follow the path of least resistance? So it becomes a tug of war between submitting to God's marching orders (Go, make of all disciples), and "I want to keep this position until I retire, and that won't happen if I push the dear brothers and sisters in directions they obviously don't want to go." Has anyone else noticed that you have to click on "SUBMIT" just to enter a comment?