Leadership theories over time

Leadership as a term and concept has only been around since the 1900's so we start our timeline there.

Leadership ideas

• 1900's great men were born with specific traits
• Late 40's Rise of unions took power away from the one great leader idea and gave it to the people
• 50's - 60's Depression saw the reversal of the earlier trend as contingency leaders rose, one strong leader to pull people out of the pit
• 90's were all about vision, so if people didn't feel fulfilled in their job or in the vision they just switched work, no loyalty.
• 1995+ The fall of Enron and other companies bring the concept of morality into leadership.

Leaders we look to also seem to have switched from political leaders like Winston Churchill to business leaders like Donald Trump.

Servant Leadership thoughts

When the bible talks about leadership, it offers metaphors and relationships, like shepherd to sheep and father to child rather than models.
The metaphors the bible uses changes according to the society it's speaking to. So in the NT the metaphors change from rural ones (like sheep), to urban ones (like Greek gyms).
So what are the post-modern equivalents metaphors for servant leadership?

The truth is that leaders and followers share power. You are not a leader if no one is following. Now, the questions is does this work in our relationship with God? I think that God chooses to share power with his followers.

How to analyze supernatural phenomena anthropologically

1. What is the nature of the power? Internal/external/transitional
2. What is the source of power?
3. How is it channeled?
4. How is it used? What area is it effective in?
5. Note how the power is activated/requested e.g invocations
6. What is its magical nature? E.g. Imitative/contagious/infectious

Magic

3 ways to categorize it

• Transitional - power only there for a while - possession, mediums, trances, altered states etc. 
• Internal - power coming from within the person that is always there - psychic, evil eye, prophecy, visions, witchcraft. 
• External - power through manipulating objects - spells, formulas, invocations, sorcery.

Types of magic

• Sympathetic - imitative ritual e.g. Rain dances, hunting rituals
• Contagious - power transferred through physical contact with objects in ritual e.g voodoo
• Infectious- power transferred through rituals that send results over distances e.g. Sending curses, Pointing the bone

The problem with magic

1. It's delusional

2. It's illusional

3. It's demonic based - promotes Satans' lies, inspires faith in false gods, represents levels of power in Satans' hierarchy. Example in scripture - divination being lies (1 kings 22)

Life cycle rituals

Life cycle rituals in all cultures 

• Birth ceremonies - acknowledge new member of society
• Initiation ceremonies - prepare people for new role and responsibilities in society e.g quests to prepare young warriors to see if they can endure pain, (Jesus visiting Jerusalem was probably part of his Bar Mitzvah)
• Marriage ceremony- defines sexual access and the transfer of reproductive potential, as well as the responsibility for care of that woman. There is no natural culture in the world where promiscuous sex is allowed with no rules, though there are some that allow polyandry (multiple brothers marrying one woman) etc. In PNG, you make a little payment to get to sleep with your bride, but you are only officially married once the first child has been born and they make the final payment. 
• Funerals - most complicated because the ceremony tries to give a fuller understanding about death - causes, attitudes towards death, beliefs of afterlife, relationship between living and dead, grieving, treatment of corpse, adjusting to living with the absence of the dead.

Be careful what you study

This semester I am taking a class called the "dynamics of religion". It covers all the experiences of the supernatural in different cultures and world views, including folk religions, witchcraft, ghosts etc.

Since starting it I have been woken twice by hearing a female voice in my room, a strange one in the morning , and in the afternoon a young friend calling my name, but both times no one was there. That same young friend was also staying with me, and she twice heard someone call her name but no one was there. 

My young friend did not know what I was studying till after she heard these voices. I don't know what it is, but talking to Thai people, it seems this is a common experience and they advise to not answer and to not turn your head. In fact at least every second person here in Thailand believes that they've seen a ghost and the amount of stories and evidence here is wild, huge especially compared to my western experience. 

So I was a little unnerved and I was home alone. I got into bed and opened my bible, finishing off my reading on the end of Jeremiah and the beginning of Lamentations. As I was reading, it struck me that I served a God who raised and destroyed empires, like the fall of Jerusalem. A God who could crush a pesky ghost like a gnat. And on that note, I fell soundly asleep.

Understanding world view

Charles Kraft's fundamental world view orientations
1. Everyone needs order and logic, classification and categorization of their world. That's why we name and see pictures in stars and name animals and plants into species etc. Western science focuses a lot on organizing the world. A tribal people might classify into domestic versus wild.
2. Everyone needs an identity and a way to relate to other people's identity. Like babies when they start to figure out that they are a separate person from mum. You need to work out what identity you fit into with the people you minister to, otherwise when you constantly break the mold you confuse them, for example, in Thailand I am an older sister to some and a younger sister to others but I still have a place in the family hierarchy.
3. Need to have a sense of cause and effect. Ty to find explanations for random or unknown phenomena. Like getting sick- some cultures may blame germs or mosquitoes, some cultures may blame spirits or an internal imbalance or energy etc. Or blame karma. So when people are convinced that they are sick from spiritual causes, if you deny it you have shut the door to minister to them further. Instead heal both the spirit and the body.
4. Everyone needs a time orientation. We need to work it where we are at in a sequence of events or time continuum. It's the year 2555 here in Thailand by the way.
5. Everyone needs to have a sense of where they are in space. Geographical and physical location.
6. Everyone needs relationships