Dare Great Things

How does the approach a Catholic takes towards leadership differ from the approach anyone else takes?  Does our faith in Christ make us better leaders?  In this third part on our series “The Christian Leader’s Advantage”, I examine the fact that Christians believe in eternal life, and I examine the practical ramifications that this belief has on our ability to lead others well.  Afterall, if Jesus Christ called us to lead and he called us to be Christians it’s because our Christianity has something wonderful to do with our leadership.  And I’d like to show you how.

When it comes to leading others, Christians out to have a distinct advantage.  After all Christians who lead believe that they are leading in the hand of God and following his lead.  But what does this advantage actually look like?  One spot where we can see it particularly is in our belief that our sins can be forgiven.  How does our claim about the forgiveness of sins impact the world of work?  In this second on our series on the Christian advantage I want to explore the power of mercy to transform our vision of leadership.

Christians have long professed that we are at the same time like everyone else and different.  We’re the same because we are human just like anyone else but we’re different because we have received the grace of Christ.  Well if this is true then our leadership will also be the same and different.  Our leadership will have to follow the same laws as everyone else and the same structure but we should also be leading with the grace of Christ.  I wanted to find out what this meant and share a short course with you.  A series of talks on this subject to help you appreciate the Christian advantage.

So far in this series on the four anchors we’ve looked at how God is the secret to human success.  How this is expressed firstly by the family being anchored by God and how it’s extended by our work being anchored in our family.  In this next conference I take a look at how our culture stands to benefit by being firmly anchored in our work and the key role that Catholic business leaders play in transforming the culture by bringing the values of the Gospel through their families and through their workplace into the heart of society.

Whether we like it or not all of us have to work every day.  So what’s the secret to working with satisfaction and fulfillment?  In this third segment in our series on the Four Anchors I explore what work could look like when it is anchored soundly in our identity as who we are.  And in particular I take a look at how that identity of who we are is given to us in a profound way by our family.  Just as our family can be anchored in God our work can be anchored in our family and the values that they give us. 

Faith and family values just seem to go together but why is this so and what happens to our family values if we separate them from faith?  Many young families today are doing just that trying to see if we can maintain a family without necessarily linking it back to God.  On the other hand the Catholic church consistently teaches us that God is the key to family unity and to family greatness.  But what does this mean?  In this second part of our series on The Four Anchors we explore the real blessings that faith represents for our families.

As we try to navigate our way as Catholics in a modern world many of us wonder what the recipe is for true success.  Everyone wants a happy world and a healthy country but many people aren’t very clear about what role the Church or God has to play in giving us those.  In fact, however, there is a very clear recipe.  And I like to call it the four anchors.  In this five part series I am going to walk you through those four anchors and give you practical tips on how to implement them yourself. 

Most people want to see some positive change in our culture.  But many people struggle to know exactly what this should look like.  Are we struggling just for struggle’s sake or is there an end goal that we are supposed to be striving towards?  In this last part in my series on cultural leadership I wanted to give you the big picture.  Looking at Matthew 25 where we can understand why Jesus wants us to impact culture.  Namely, as an act of love for him.

All of us want to make a difference for Christ in our culture today.  But most of us don’t know where to begin.  A wide variety of issues competes for our attention.  One thing the Catholic church has consistently argued is that the family is the root of society.  As the family goes so the world will go.  Maybe this is why for the Catholic church so much attention is spent on developing family ties.  Why is this so, however?  And what importance should we give the family in our own efforts to transform the culture for Christ today?

Most Christians today recognize the importance of engaging our culture with the Gospel.  Changes are afoot that would radically alter the way that we raise our families and understand our fundamental freedoms.  This sense of urgency has led many to find the most effective ways to impact the culture.  How do we transform a culture before it transforms us?  One of the most overlooked methods, however, is the simplest: the direct encounter we can have with the people around us.  If cultural leadership were football, this would be the ground game, and this is the method our Lord, Himself, showed us. 

By now any Christian who follows events in the world knows how important it is for us to act.  The news headlines are filled with reports of things that are happening and calls for us to get involved.  On the other hand Christians are equally convinced that we need to pray.  Prayer is a part of our spiritual tradition and something our Savior commanded us to do. Is there a connection between the two?  Is there really a value to prayer when so much of our brain space is taken up by issues, and confrontations, and worry about the future.  I think there is and I want to make a case for it.

So much of what makes a leader successful comes from their ability to take people where they need to go.  If we don’t have vision then we really are the blind leading the blind.  But oddly enough when it comes to shaping our culture it seems that many people don’t know what we should be aiming at.  The world will indicate many different values as its’ arbiter of success, but what does Jesus ask for from us?  What does our Lord ask for from a follower of His in the culture in which we live?  How do we aim at the right things?

Today it’s fashionable to separate the Church from society.  We claim that the legitimate separation of Church from state means that the state should proceed without any influence from the Church.  The Church, however, has a different opinion.  How are we to evaluate of the Catholic Church’s contribution to our society?  What impact can the world really expect from the Christian message?  What’s the value of the culture that we’re proposing?  All these question are central to the discussion about how Jesus raises us up to lead our culture today. 

There are many people who speak about the need for cultural leadership.  The issues and values of our society today are constantly under discussion.  But most of this discussion seems to be from the outside.  A competition of competing visions and views that clash and sometimes divide.  Is there another way to have this discussion?  How would Jesus Christ have his followers lead the battle to shape a culture in His image?  In this first of our series we look at what culture is and try to understand the Christians role in shaping it.

We’ve journeyed together through the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas about making decisions.  We’ve learned about discernment, about counsel, about timing and about so much else.  And now is the time to act.  In this final segment on our series on making winning decisions with St. Thomas Aquinas, I want to look with you on the theology of the imperium or the command that our mind tells our will to make - getting over the hurdle of constantly wondering whether or not we should something and crossing the threshold of success.

Anyone who wants to be successful in leadership needs to be really good at working with people.  The more a leader understands human behavior the more effectively they’ll deal with it and reach the goals of their organization and their mission.  This is where St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a distinct advantage.  He represents a wealth of knowledge coming from the Catholic tradition about how we work, how our hearts work, how we make decisions.  And in this fifth part of our series we look at how he solves the problems of when people just don’t want to work.  

Some do it more from a personal charisma than from a studied approach, but all leaders have to bring people with them towards the vision that they’re casting.  And so that begs the question: “How can we who have to make decisions everyday make them in a way that other people will find attractive?”  Well, reaching back into our Catholic theology we find this subject matter already treated by St. Thomas Aquinas.  And in this fourth part of our series we explore it today.

All great leaders are capable of casting a vision.  But casting a vision is not easy to do.  To have a vision towards a goal means you want to have that goal.  And sometimes are hearts are just afraid to stretch out into the unknown and into the unforeseen.  The grace of God can help us to heal and to have the daring we need to want the things we don’t yet have.  And when we do we become leaders of the heart.  St. Thomas Aquinas helps us understand this process and how we can actualize it in our own lives as leaders today.

 For many people, making decisions is one of the hardest things about leadership.  And yet it is something that every leader has to do all the time.  Loving and serving our God doesn’t take away our responsibility to make good choices and to engage them with all the energy that we have.  But if it’s so important then why do we have such a hard time doing it?  St. Thomas Aquinas offers keen insight into how decisions are made and how love can turn a decision into a choice.

Amongst the great minds of western civilization, St. Thomas Aquinas holds a very special place.  As a Catholic priest he united the depths of our faith with the real practical situations that people face every day.  He does this in an amazing way when it comes to making decisions.  And for all of us in the working world, we know how important this skill set is.  In this first of a series, I try to open the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas to help us learn an essential skill for our leadership. How to ask for advice?