1. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. This is paradoxically the way to joy and the peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world.
2. What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.
3. The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are the true saints.
4. Too often I looked at being relevant, popular and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however is that these are not vocations but temptations.
The leadership Jesus calls us to is a servant leadership—in which the leader is a vulnerable servant who needs the people as much as they need him.
The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all.
Major cause of all problems in Christianity: Power exercised by those who claim to be followers of the poor and powerless Jesus.
Jesus vision of maturity: the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go.
Wealth and riches prevent us from truly discerning the way of Jesus.
If there is any hope for the church of the future, it will be hope for a poor Church in which its leaders are willing to be led.
The Christian leader thinks, speaks and acts in the name of Jesus.