Most Christian leaders today look primarily to secular entrepreneurs in order to learn how to lead– e.g. Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos. That is a good thing. My deep concern is proportion. We don’t spend nearly as much time sitting at the feet of Christian leaders who are prayerful, discerning, and biblical. The best models I know come out of early church history. Origen (182-251) was the head of a famous catechetical school (or seminary) in Alexandria Egypt. For Origen, all Scripture was the “music of God.” He was so ascetic in his lifestyle that, to avoid slander arising out of his wide ministry and to serve his quest for perfection in Christ, he castrated himself in accordance to Matthew 19:12. Regardless of our opinion of his actions, it demonstrates his all-out commitment to live what he was preaching. Athanasius (300-373) was a deacon in the church in Egypt and a great defender of Scripture. Repeatedly forced into hiding due to his biblical orthodoxy, he lived for over six years with monks in the Egyptian desert. He wrote the famous Life of Anthony, perhaps the most famous account of the desert fathers ever written. John Chrysostom (345-407), the “golden mouthed” preacher, lived first as a hermit for six years until health compelled him to return to Antioch where he was ordained a priest, and then later a bishop. What is most astounding is the most famous preacher in Eastern Church history was, at his core, a deeply prayerful leader. Is it any wonder his sermons were so powerful? Augustine (354-413) was a bishop in the African city of Carthage. He lived in a monastic community under what we know as the Augustine Rule of Life, led a “mega-church” under challenging historical conditions, and was a theologian integrating Scripture with the burning issues of his day (e.g. The Fall of Rome). Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, the three Capadoccians (c.330-389), were great theologians to whom we owe a great debt today for their leadership work on the Nicene Creed. What is not commonly highlighted, however, was their passion for Scripture and prayer. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, struggled intensely with serving in a highly visible ministry as a bishop over a major city. He repeatedly fled to the desert, when able, in order to be with God. Basil of Caesarea himself wrote one of most famous “rules of life” for monastic communities of his day to provide structure for people’s formation in Christ. Who are leaders with a deep walk with God that you admire today?
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