Between reading Level Three Leadership by Clawson for school and The Jesus Style by Erwin for my own sanity I have been coming to some realizations about the concept of leadership. I can't flesh it all out in one post, but I need to purge this stuff and get some feedback for my own sanity....Here it goes...

I was not looking forward to reading a book about leadership for my college class. I’ve read them before and they all wind up being very worldly, John Maxwell kind of crap. I was pleasantly surprised as I started reading Level Three Leadership though. To my surprise, the principles were also congruent with the biblical principles that I was reading about in The Jesus Style. These principles have more to do with finding your purpose, gifts and passions then they do with typical business principles. Here are six steps that Clawson believes make up an effective leader and the biblical principles that I found in them:

1. Clarifying Your Center
According to Clawson, clarifying your center is about determining what you believe and value. Centering, therefore, is often an ongoing, reflective, meditative exercise. Are you clear on what your life’s mission is? Are you clear about what’s at your center? Do you know what your stand for?

Additionally, you need to identify what engages you. What captures your imagination, your leisure thinking, and your dreams? What is it that causes you to smile spontaneously, to increase your pulse, and to speak animatedly with others? What is it that motivates you and prepares you to expend tremendous amounts of energy, mental and physical, as you anticipate participating?

Here are some other questions that seem to connect for me while reading The Jesus Style:

Do I know Jesus? Does Jesus capture my imagination? Does he engage you?
Do I have a grasp on Jesus’ passionate, relentless love for me?
Is Jesus my center?
Do I believe that all knowledge and wisdom dwell in and come from Jesus?
Do I have a vision of what Jesus wants me to become?
Do I understand what it means to be the kind of servant that Jesus was?
As a direct result of Jesus’ love for me, and those around me, do I have a feeling, vision, dream of what God is doing through me to serve others?

I believe that as a direct result of having a personal, deep, intimate, friendship with Jesus he will express himself through us. Those visions and dreams of the person that we long to be are a glimpse of what he wants for us. Jesus' love is creative. Servanthood explodes from the love he gives to us.

Eph 2:4 Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,
Eph 2:5 he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!
Eph 2:6 Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Eph 2:7 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish!
Eph 2:9 We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing!
Eph 2:10 No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Rom 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy, shrinking from evil, cleaving to good;
Rom 12:10 in brotherly love to one another, loving fervently, having led one another in honor.
Rom 12:11 As to diligence, not slothful, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;