Tag Archives: Leadership

Podcasts

J. Warner Wallace: Leading people to Christ requires good leadership

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The latest episode of the Cold Case Christianity podcast is a must-listen, especially from about 9:20 to 30:33. I listened to it twice, and shared it with a friend who I am mentoring. She liked it as well, and it caused both of us to think deeply.

You can grab the MP3 file here. (39 MB)

Here is is his summary:

In this podcast, J. Warner talks about the importance of leadership for those of us who hope to share the truth about Jesus. When most of us think about evangelism, we think of the importance of apologetics or understanding how to articulate the Gospel. We often overlook the role of good leadership. But if you hope to lead someone to Christ, you’ll need to become a good leader.

Topics:

  • Excellence at what you do is the minimum requirement for being a good leader, but it’s not enough
  • First thing: you need to have the respect of the people you are trying to lead (e.g. – good character, courage, concern for others, etc.)
  • Second thing: you need to gain the trust of the people you are trying to lead, and that means performing consistently over time
  • Third thing: you need to gain a hearing from the people you are trying to lead, but that means being willing to speak to them, too
  • An example of good leadership: Jim’s father leading everyone to a cabin in the woods

The key insight I pulled out of this is that in order to lead someone, you have to gain their respect, gain their trust, and gain their ear. The podcast features a very practical application of the principles he describes.

News

Neil Simpson on gay NBA player Jason Collins and his 8-year fiance Carolyn Moos

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Read Neil’s post here first.

And here’s my comment to his post:

Neil, the story of this woman investing eight years with this man has been on my mind all week. I am not saying she is innocent. She is a fool. And she is responsible for choosing him. But my point would be this: why is everyone CELEBRATING this man? All he did is steal 8 years of her life and then abandoned her for the gay lifestyle, with all that that entails. Why is this good? I am not minimizing her responsibility. She is 100% responsible because she chose him over better marriage-minded men. But why celebrate this guy? What is there to celebrate? I would rather celebrate Neil Simpson and his marriage and family and Christian children if we are going to have to celebrate anything.

So, I wanted to make a comment about women who choose cads like Jason Collins.

What is it that causes these women to think that just because a man is athletic that he has what it takes to protect, provide and lead on moral and spiritual issues? Why pick someone who has fame from shooting a basketball or playing a guitar? What does that have to do with making commitments, being faithful, and teaching children? It’s completely irrational. Remember Tiger Woods? He could whack a golf ball really well, but commitment and fidelity were just not his things. Why celebrate him? Why marry him? What does swinging a club in front of a crowd have to do with life-long married love?

Don’t be that gal

If you are a woman and want to avoid making poor choices like Carolyn Moos, you can reverse engineer my dating questions and use them to detect fakes.

Here’s question 8 from the list that I ask women:

8. Marriage

Explain the public purposes of marriage, and then outline three threats to marriage and explain what legislation you would propose to neutralize these threats. What choices should people make before marriage to make sure they will have a stable, loving marriage?

SAMPLE ANSWER: Some public purposes of marriage are i) to force moral constraints on sexual activity, ii) to produce the next generation of humans, iii) to provide children with a stable, loving environment in which to grow up. Three threats to marriage are i) cohabitation, ii) no-fault divorce – which leads to fatherlessness, and iii) same-sex marriage. There are others, too. For legislation, there are things like tax incentives, shared parenting laws, school choice to de-monopolize politicized public schools, etc. Pre-marriage behaviors are things like chastity, experience with children, having lots of savings, being physically fit, etc. Having a degree in experimental science, math or economics is excellent for a woman. Avoid artsy degrees, especially English.

BONUS POINTS: Name more threats to marriage, explain the effects of fatherlessness on children, explain how divorce courts work, explain how socialism impacts the family through taxation and wealth redistribution, explain what happens to women and children after a divorce.

WHY IT MATTERS: It’s important for people who want to get married that they understand that marriage takes time and effort, and it requires both spouses to prepare for marriage, to be diligent at choosing a good spouse, and to understand what spouses and children need in order to stay engaged.

I can assure you that Jason Collins wouldn’t survive 5 seconds with a woman who was using my checklist, and it would save her a lot of time. Guess what? There is more to marriage-mindedness than broad shoulders and basketball skillz. Marriage requires a worldview that grounds self-sacrificial love and objective moral obligations RATIONALLY. The man should be able to present a plan for marriage that shows that some thought has been put into what he is trying to achieve with the marriage and the children, and why he needs you in particular to help.

Good behaviors have to be reasonable to a man, based on his prior efforts to study areas of knowledge that make them reasonable. He has to have a worldview that makes the duties of a husband and father – providing, parenting, teaching, fidelity, commitment, etc. – REASONABLE TO HIM. His goodness cannot be just talk. His goodness cannot be rooted in just preferences. It has to be rooted in knowledge derived from reasoning and a careful study of evidence. It takes study to ground the worldview that makes a good marriage. When will women learn?

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Commentary

Christian men, be selective when giving attention to women

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Here is a thought-provoking post from agnostic libertarian economist Captain Capitalism.

Excerpt:

Of the many lies men will be told from the ages of 12 to…umm….death, one of the more misleading ones (that can trip you up for years unless you learn the deceit behind it) is,

“I don’t do X for you!  I do it for myself!”

“X” being

dressing up
make up
working out
lingerie
etc. etc.

[…][T]he reason this lie is so tricky is because when a woman says this, it is a half-truth.

While she is NOT dressing up for you, she IS dressing up for somebody else.  And that somebody else certainly is NOT her (at least in a direct sense).

Again, we revisit the realm where economics and sexuality meet.  Women are (primarily) driven by attention.  Attention from who?  Attention from anybody.

Oh, go ahead and threaten me with your Adria Richard’s hallow threats, I’m sorry dearies, I have nothing left to lose.  Besides, this is a fact and is truth.  And if you don’t like that…well, then maybe you really don’t like being treated as an equal and perhaps like every other guy I could continue lying to your face to spare your precious little feelings.  But I’m sorry, I’m not a sexist.  I believe in the equality of the sexes so you’ll APPRECIATE me treating you as a GENUINE equal and never daring to lie to you as that would be degrading.

Anyway, women crave attention.  And the primary way (before social media) they can get that is by simply dressing the part.  This is why in large part you can be at a bar/club, see a group of girls LITERALLY dressed as ladies of the evening, approach them and get your butt shot down.  They REALLY weren’t dressing that way for you, just as they technically weren’t dressing that way for themselves.  They were merely dressing that way to get your attention and the attention of others.  And should a supreme specimen of man (professional athlete, celebrity, obvious rich man) approach them, that is also why they dressed that way or went to the gym.

In other words, don’t be a fool on either end of this half-lie, half truth.  She really isn’t doing it for you.  And, yes, in a roundabout way she is doing it for herself.  But she is ultimately doing it to garner the attention of other people, both men and women.

So this caused me to think a little, because it echoes what Dina explained to me just a few months back, and Mariangela verified it as well. (My knowledge of women is mostly theoretical, so some of these obvious things have escaped me). Anyway, they basically agreed with the Captain’s assessment, that many of the things that women do are to get attention. This is fine. The point of this post is not to pick on women, but to warn men. And so here’s the warning for Christian men.

Christian Men: Like everything in life, God asserts sovereignty over your choices with women. One of those choices is who you pay attention to, and why. Whenever you pay attention to a woman, you are in some way validating her choices, beliefs and lifestyle. Therefore, you need to be careful to choose women who deserve attention for the right reasons. You need to pass on women who show a lot of skin to people they hardly know. You need to pass on women who are known to use sex to get attention from men easily, without having to listen to his values. You need to pass on women who won’t read things that men care about, like apologetics, economics, etc.

Whenever I get distracted by a woman who is trying to get attention from me without wanting to listen or be led by me, I ask myself questions about her and her motives.

I ask:

  • Has this women ever borrowed a lecture or a debate form me?
  • Has this woman ever read a book that I asked her to read?
  • Does this woman let me talk if I bring up religion or politics?
  • Is this woman pro-life, and pro-marriage?
  • Is this woman grieved by big government socialism?
  • Is this woman pro-child, and anti-feminism?

And so on. Now if you are a woman reading this, you might think “why do you have to do that? Obviously they haven’t, so why pay attention to them? I’ve done all that good stuff, so pay attention to me!”. But it’s not that simple for a man, not even a virgin like me. About 99% of the time, I don’t have to go through this process. But there are some days…. you could call it my time of the month… where suddenly blubbering out how great this woman looks to her seems *rational*. And I don’t want to do that. I would rather get on my e-mail or Facebook and encourage a Christian woman who is actually doing the right things. I don’t want to be encouraging other women who are trying to cheat their way to attention without letting me express my faith, talk about politics, and so on. If I can’t lead you to learn about God so that you can serve God, then you shouldn’t get attention from me. One of the most helpful things I ever learned was from a young lady who had a sexual past, who flat out told me that she used sex in order to pacify and control men so that they would continue to give her attention no matter how much of a witch she was to them. That helped me to understand why I have to be selective with who I am going to endorse with my attention.

I think that men need to recognize that just as women who embrace feminism are responsible for wrecking men with all of this hooking-up, high tax rates, gun control, no-fault divorce, etc., that men are wrecking women by rewarding them with attention for the wrong reasons. If you want to fix women, the easiest thing to start with is to favor the good ones – the ones who listen to you, the ones who study hard things, the ones who want to serve God. Avert your eyes from the flirty ones. Don’t talk to them. Consciously prefer the best, most moral, most hard-working, women. That’s going to communicate the right message to women, and give them an incentive to value the right feminine qualities.

Christian men, if you are single, why not just take a minute now to go to the book store and buy a good apologetics or economics book and some white flowers for the Christian woman you know who does the most good for God? That would be a start. I recommend “Is God Just a Human Invention?” and three white carnations, some baby’s breath and some greenery. They are not too expensive and they last a long time. If you get her that book, tell her about Brian Auten’s read-along, which just started again. We all have to do the best we can to fix male-female relations. Women, and men. The solution to the problem of women being bad is not for men to be bad, too. It’s for men to be selective.

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