Interview with a Leader - Coursework Example

Assignment, psychology: Report on Interview with a Leader Insert Insert A pastor is a religious leader who leads the congregation and the entire church towards Christian norms and values. His primary is resulting in the services, those services might be church proceedings, community events such a burials and other church related functions. The pastor is also responsible for character change, community development and community awareness in any social society. He is responsible for governing a number of churches within the specified denomination such as a parish or a union. Presiding over Seminars, annual conferences, baptism and among other obligation in his field pertaining that religion. In addition, during national celebrations and public events, pastors are considered and put in the forefront in the programs. The description of a leadership style by the pastor is done in a Godly manner. From his introduction to the end of his sermon, the dominating statement talks about people being saved. The language used in most cases in his presentations is threatening language. For instance, a pastor saying if a person will not turn against the evil deeds, there is an everlasting furnace in that will destroy the sinners. Another character that is demonstrated by the pastor is the ability understanding the listeners. In very rare occasions, pastors are emotional. From this illustration, you will find that they have that strong ability to endure very severe circumstances (Chagnon, 2012). That description of pastor’s style also by most Christians is by the preaching content. Some pastors’ contents do not motivate the congregation. “Humbling before God” is their echoing statement. Being humble in God’s presence and following His commands is also among the leadership description. Serving voluntarily to the community and wholeheartedly describes his leadership style. Most pastors are not paid in their service delivery, but their diligence and gospel thirsty force helps in ministering the word of God. Church developments and other community-based progress led by pastors in diligent and wise mode (Islam, 2014). The unifying factor exhibited by Christians is something to be advocated across the entire community. Most Christians perform many activities together through the teaching and sermon presented by the pastors. Both young and old are all guided and responsible in pastor’s leadership and teachings. The above highlights the appreciated leadership style shown by the religious leaders. The social identities are influencing that influence his leadership style are the performance of marriages and other public functions among others. The performance of these events gives an illustration that someone is behind for its success because the groom has to be advised accordingly. The groom has to be spiritually competent enough to face the occasion. In the other hand, the pride will be directed by the female church elders on how to prepare psychologically, mentally and physically in order to meeting the groom. Conducting in marriage to a newly married couple needs more counseling and encouragement (Leadership at the crossroads: v.1: Leadership and psychology; v.2: Leadership and politics; v.3: Leadership and the humanities, 2009). The church elders prepare the groom how to stay with his new wife, to handle life challenges and how to cope with them. Without wise counseling and guidance from the leadership of the pastor, the above will not be successful. Another social identity is the organization of the church leadership. The church has to be spearheaded wisely by the pastor and other church elders The other social identity that mostly influences pastor’s leadership is the positioning of these church leaders at the forefront and given high respect. The aspect created by this placement has in the other perspective has influenced their leadership skills in the way that they are exposed to the bigger crowd. In these functions, they are responsible for the proceedings also presiding and to give a prayer for the entire program. In the social event like funerals, these church elders play a vital role in leading the events. More so, pastors perform spiritual enforcement through crusades, conferences. Morally, they are the people to implement ant make sure that societal norms are upheld to the later (Linley, Govindji & West, 2007). Administering of oaths the national swearing of leaders into their elected offices is performed using spiritual words that are written by religious leaders. In a law court, the Bible is used to swear if you are guilty or not. These social identities have affected significantly in upgrading of the spiritual lifestyle leadership. From the past, many religious leaders existed who perfected the exercise and shaped the whole leadership process. They embraced the biblical rules, and they lived according to them. From the Bible, we may find that there existed apostles who ministered the gospel despite the circumstances they were facing. Jesus Christ Himself was a practical example. The manner in which Jesus conducted from the point of conception to the time he begun the ministry showed revealed that present leaders have to emulate. In the past years, there were other leaders whose leadership must be followed so that the future and the present leadership have to be shaped. Christianity in a social perspective is a sacrifice (The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation, 2007). It is a denial of one’s ordinary living and following what Christ need. A pastor has a bigger role in leading the “flock” towards the true eternity. Bible is the guide to any religious leader. From the historical records of the Bible, we find that there are prophets who suffered during their reign. For example, Prophet Elisha, He is among the prophets who suffered and passed through many temptations when King Ahab was in power. Despite challenging the 400 Baal prophets, Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife wanted to kill him just because of his faith in God. The lived example experiences were the three men with strong faith, Meshack, Shadrack, and Abednego. Due to their strong faith in the living God, their faith was put test the ruling ring. They were forced to bow down and worship the idol that was made by the king. However, because of their strong faith in Jehovah, the king ordered this to be thrown into the fire (The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation, 2007). As per the stated statement, we find that our current and the future pastors have nothing than to lead according to experiences. There are many obstacles to religious leaders. Within and without the church premises, a pastor has challenges. Among the “flock”, there are who speak against the leaders. For the church development proposal, they will always be on the opposition side. They may also claim that the leaders are not leading the congregation in the right direction. They are the type of Christian, who purport that the pastor and his team need to be replaced. On most occasions, they suggest they are the best if given an opportunity. The other common obstacle to the pastor is the management of church funds. In many churches, this is the sole cause the division of the congregation. Some members may think that the religious leader and his committee and are squandering church funds and channeling them to their pockets (Linley, Govindji & West, 2007). Without proper funds management and communication by the elected committee, it may lead to raising of the eyebrows the contributed money is making some rich. In case of any fundraiser, very interested parties are involved who will scrutinize how and when the said developments will take effect. Even after the planned projects are done, they will deeply analyze how much fund were spent, how much left and where did put the money. There are the funds offered during every service, the offerings. These offerings also are a primary point of concern for the followers. They will want to know who keeps the money and how beneficial if the money to the church or the nearby community. The questioning arises when there might be church events to be held, and the leaders request the congregation to contribute towards facilitation of the stated day. The possible question is, “where do they take the offering?” The best way avoid these by a pastor, or any other church elder is through proper planning and by transparency methods in planning running church based activities (Islam, 2014). Another barrier is to bring more people to know the true gospel of God. In some circumstances, the pastor may encounter a drunkard. The drunkard fellow can abuse him even do something worse than you may imagine. The family dispute is also another obstacle to our pastors. The family matter is a cut across factor. For instance, a pastor is a family man, before the service day he has quarrels with his wife, this will automatically affect the service to be held on the next day. Disputes among followers in the perspective, family works against pastor’s objective of preaching. You may find that a woman comes to the pastor’s office for counseling leaving not accompanied by her husband creates suspicion to the nearby community. The counseling session sometimes has some temptations to these pastors. For instance, a woman comes for advice but back in her mind, she wants to put the pastor into temptation. Very few will resist, and once they fall in the “act”, it will become a routine eventually leading to the leader’s downfall. Not only married women put these heads into temptation, but also the female youth. They may act as if they want to be guided and counseled, but their real intention is to seduce the pastor. Once the community knows this, the pastor is provoked and even removed from the position (Chagnon, 2012). In some African communities, a religious leader is not valued. “A prophet has no respect in his locality,” this was an example of Jesus when his people rejected Him. The rejection by the community creates a barrier between the religious leader and the community making the spread of the word of God difficult. From the leadership models discussed above, we have seen that a pastor fits in any position in the society when given an opportunity. Apart from working objective of leading Christians, the pastor also has an obligation of equipping the community with relevant advice on how to stay together. Through social identities, these leaders practice service to the community with an ambition of winning many to Christ. Humbling and prioritizing every member’s opinion describes their leadership style. From this, a religious leader is welcomed to any function be it political or religious service. The high level of faithfulness also makes them trustworthy in their undertaking they are given sensitive departments to manage such as accounts. Through the exemplary life lived by the apostles and other past religious leaders, the shaping of present leadership was effected. Any successful leader must have a successful role model. From the role model, he can lead and achieve according to the desires of his people. From the challenges discussed, any leader most especially church leader must overcome challenges. A Christian role model is Jesus, and Jesus conquered all the obstacles that came across Him including death. These challenges come to strengthen Christian’s faith, and if overpowered by them they not supposed to be leaders and they will never fit in any position illustrated above. Religious Leadership is a calling, and it need you work using spirit not flesh (Chagnon, 2012). Most of those who fail never got a calling and the reason for their disgrace is that they used flesh not spirit. For any leadership to be emulative, the leader has to know what roles is he responsible for, where he is accountable for and possess excellent leadership skills. Ability to overcome all the barriers on his mission and having role models that will be emulated even by the coming future generation. References Chagnon, R. (2012). Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership by Peter Hawkins. Personnel Psychology, 65(4), 938-941. doi:10.1111/peps.12006_5 Islam, G. (2014). Leadership as a Dominant Cultural Myth: A Strain-Based Perspective on Leadership Approaches. Social And Personality Psychology Compass, 8(3), 91-103. doi:10.1111/spc3.12093 Leadership at the crossroads: v.1: Leadership and psychology; v.2: Leadership and politics; v.3: Leadership and the humanities. (2009). Choice Reviews Online, 46(08), 46-4207-46-4207. doi:10.5860/choice.46-4207 Linley, P., Govindji, R., & West, M. (2007). Positive Psychology Approaches to Public Services Leadership: An Introduction to Strengths‐based Leadership. Int Jnl Leadership In Pub Serv, 3(4), 44-55. doi:10.1108/17479886200700029 The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation. (2007). Personnel Psychology, 60(3), 775-778. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2007.00091_4.x Read More