Jump directly to the Content

The Root of Leadership

How to gain, and maintain, your people's trust.

Recently, my wife, Gail, and I had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California. We brought home pictures of us standing at the foot of some of those 3,000-year-old trees that rise a zillion feet into the air.

Think of it: 3,000 years to grow a tree. And think again: given modern machinery, the same tree can be (perish the thought!) cut down in just a few minutes.

Those trees prompted a thought about pastoral leadership and the issue of Trust—the kind of trust pastoral leaders desperately need from their people but sometimes do not possess.

No biblical leader that I can think of struggled with trust issues more than Moses. Leading a generation of people out of 400 years of slavery must have been like herding cats. Every time the man turned around, someone was questioning his judgment, his veracity, his sense of direction. You could argue that they finally broke him with their patterns of suspicion and defiance.

The apostle Paul cashed in on trust when he asked people to give ...

March
Support Our Work

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

Homepage Subscription Panel

Read These Next

Related
Leader's Insight: Hero Boycott
Leader's Insight: Hero Boycott
Why the big-name celebrity leaders are turning me off.
From the Magazine
Should the Bible Sound Like the Language in the Streets?
Should the Bible Sound Like the Language in the Streets?
Controversy over Bibles in Jamaica, the Philippines, and Germany reveal the divide between the sacred and the relatable.
Editor's Pick
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
Understanding God and our world needs more than bare reason and experience.
close