Convictional Leadership

Among the greatest challenges of our day is the lack of leaders who possess the courage to stand for their convictions. This is becoming especially obvious among believers today. There is a cost to pay for anyone who possesses convictions that are not in line with the power brokers today. The tendency for most people is to go with the flow or keep your head down and hope to fly under the radar.

The leadership crisis is actually two-fold. There is a need for courageous and effective leaders and there is also a need for leaders with Biblically informed convictions. “If our leaders are not passionately driven by the right beliefs, we are headed for disaster. At the same time, if believers cannot lead, we are headed nowhere” (Mohler, The Convictional Leader, 20). How can we raise up, encourage, and equip convictional leaders in our families, church, and community?

The promise and marketing of technology are "constantly telling the masses that the future will be better because the conditions of life are going to be softened” (Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences,108). Richard Weaver says this has resulted in a softening of concepts of heroism, hard work, and perseverance. Those who are driven by conviction and purpose are not concerned with the easiest and most comfortable path. “Since he who longs to achieve does not ask whether the seat is soft or the weather at a pleasant temperature, it is obvious that hardness is a condition of heroism. Exertion, self-denial, endurance, these make the hero, but to the spoiled child, they can note the evil of nature in the malice of man”(Weaver, 109).

“Without work do, especially without work that is related to our dearest aims, the mental sinews atrophy, as do the physical. There is evidence that the masses, spoiled by like conditions, encourage similar flabbiness and in crisis will prove unable to think straight enough to save themselves”(Weaver,116).

In Deuteronomy 25:1-4, Moses is preparing a nation of former slaves and current nomads for war and conquest. He tells them, “let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic…” How can we be, and equip, leaders with the courage of their convictions for the battles that lie ahead?