Leading Cross-Culturally: Covenant Relationships for Effective Christian Leadership

Leading Cross-Culturally by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter is a compilation of case studies done throughout the world of missions that focus on leadership, culture, and the glorification of God's Kingdom work. Lingenfelter is senior vice president at Fuller theological Seminary, respected teacher in cross-cultural work and Christian leadership, and an accomplished author. His goals or visions for this volume are outlined in four areas that Lingenfelter points out as the following. The first area "is to help leaders to understand their personal culture of leadership and how that culture pervades their thinking about vision, community, and teamwork." Second, "is to equip the reader to become an effective learner in another cultural context, with specific focus on learning to build communities of trust." Third, "is to reflect on how the human propensity to seek power and control pervades all persons and cultures and infects leaders of every kind." Fourth and finally, "is to define the pathways for biblically based, Christ-centered, power-given leadership in single culture and multicultural contexts" (8-9). Lingenfelter's first case studies draw from the areas of how ones home culture affects their leadership abilities, visions, work, and values when dealing with a new culture. Lingenfelter says, "All Christian leaders, regardless of their cultural background, carry their personal histories and cultural biases with them wherever they serve" (15). This affects ones leadership abilities in all facets when dealing with cultures outside the borders of one's home country, and without acknowledging and directly dealing with this from the outset of one's cross-cultural ministry; issues are sure to abound. The issues emerge when trying to inspire people from different cultural background "to achieve a compelling vision of faith" (30), but each party does not really understand the cultural barriers that separate them and sometimes are not willing try to understand them. Therefore, the results are division. Understanding a cultures values and adapting them to our own leadership styles in order to bring about change is of utmost importance, even if it goes against one's personal concepts of true leadership and how to achieve the results they want. However, missionaries must also be aware that they are prone to fall back into what Lingenfelter calls "default culture" (71). Default culture is "the culture people learn from their parents and peers from birth, with all the inherent strengths and weaknesses of their society" (71). This is common for people to do when they find themselves facing challenging times in another culture (which everyone missionary will) and shows the importance of understanding who one is and being aware of the culture that they find themselves working amongst. Lingenfelter also points out that our "vision flows from the mission of God as articulated in the scriptures" (33) and this mission is not ours to define. "It is not our task to define

Lingenfelter's book is one of the best I've read on mission leadership. It provides a framework that captures the best of leadership theory and matches it with solid cross-cultural dimensions of ministry. As the world becomes more globalized in nature yet nationalistic in perspective, this book provides a set of terrific case studies to help global leaders deal with the realities of global leadership today. In particular, Lingenfelter's reliance on scripture as a model for effective leading is most instructive and his personal examples give pragmatic handles for leaders to understand what he presents. Hopefully, the book will stir even more fruitful research and dialog on leadership today.