President John F. Kennedy laid forth a challenge on May 25, 1961 when he declared that the United States would land a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade. It was a challenge that may have seemed insurmountable by many, but that day the moon program began and those that were involved accepted the challenge to send a manned spacecraft on a journey to the moon and back. Numerous steps were taken and obstacles overcome throughout the decade of the 1960s to meet the challenge. It was on July 20, 1969, that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the Apollo 11 spacecraft touched down in the Sea of Tranquility on the moon, and after a short time of exploration they safely returned to earth. This marked the 40th anniversary of that monumental event in the history of the United States and mankind. NASA is setting its sights on the moon once again, for it has plans to send a manned spacecraft to the moon by the end of the decade (Dick, 2006). The old challenge took leadership from many different people to accomplish the vision, and the new challenge will likewise. For many, this type of challenge is beyond their comprehension when it comes to leadership, but leaders are needed in all kinds of circumstances.

Leaders are not just needed to lead nations or moon missions, but leaders are needed in the family, the school classroom, and the local town government. Leaders are needed everywhere and everyone is capable of being a leader in some situation or at a certain level. Leadership is “Everyone’s Business,” according to James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2002). Kouzes and Posner (2002) say their book, The Leadership Challenge, “Is about how leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done in organizations”  (p. xvii). They say further, “It’s about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about leadership that creates the climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes” (p. xvii).

James Kouzes and Barry Posner are well qualified to write on the subject of leadership, Kouzes became interested in leadership when he was selected as one of the dozens of Eagle Scouts selected to serve in Honor Guard for President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. He went on to receive a BA degree with honors from Michigan State University in political science and a certificate from San Jose State University’s School of Business for the completion of the internship in organization development. He has been an educator, author, conference speaker, and is chairman emeritus of the Tom Peters Company, a leadership and consulting company. Also, he is an Executive Fellow at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University (Kouzes and Posner, 2002).

Barry Posner became interested in leadership during his college years at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his BA degree in political science. He also received the MA degree from the Ohio State University, and the PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in organizational behavior and administrative theory.Posner is an internationally known scholar educator, author, conference speaker, and served as a consultant in numerous public and private sector organizations around the world. Posner sits on the Board of Directors for the American Institute of Architects, and has served on the boards of Public Allies, Big Brother/Sisters of Santa Clara County, the Center for Excellence in Non-Profits, Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, and numerous other start-up companies. He has in the served as the associate dean for the graduate program and managing partner for the Executive Development Center (Kouzes and Posner, 2002).

The principles and practices that Kouzes and Posner bring to the reader in The Leadership Challenge are based on several decades of research which was started in 1983. The authors wanted to know what people did when they were at their “personal best” in leading others. They started with the assumption that they did to have to interview and star performers, but ordinary people who were doing extraordinary things to find patterns of success. They found what they were looking for in their search. The data of the research can be accessed via the web: http//www.leadershipchallenge.com/research. They also pepper their research-based principles with numerous anecdotes that support their findings from a variety of  people and organizations. They do this because they are interested in relating to all kinds of leaders (Kouzes and Posner, 2002). This is stated very clearly in their purpose for writing the book.

Kouzes and Posner have strong belief that ordinary people who exercise leadership become leaders, because good leadership is an understandable and a universal process. It is not meant for the chosen few in particular positions. So, their purpose in writing The Leadership Challenge is to assist people like managers and individual contributors alike, in furthering their abilities to lead others to get extraordinary things done in all walks of life. Kouzes and Posner (2002) say, “They have written the book to develop your capacity to guide to guide others to places they have never been before” (p. xviv). They accomplish this task in the thirteen chapters of the book are summarized below.

Kouzes and Posner look at leadership as a journey or adventure, and so they consider their book a field guide full of  principles and practices for the leader to take along with them to assist on the journey of leadership. The book is divided into seven parts and thirteen chapters. The parts are as follows: what leaders do and what constituents expect, model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, encourage the heart, and leadership for everyone. Chapters one and two introduce the reader to their view of leadership which is a transformational style of leadership as quoted earlier. Chapter one describes the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership that they have synthesized from their research which include: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart.

This chapter also includes what they call the Ten Commandments of Leadership-fundamentals for applying these leadership practices in your setting. The Ten Commandments of Leadership include: finding your voice by clarifying your personal values, set the example by aligning actions with shared values, envision the future by imaging exciting and ennobling possibilities, enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations, search for opportunities by seeking innovative ways to change, grow and improve, experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from mistakes, foster collaborative goals and building trust, strengthen others by sharing power and discretion, recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence, celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

Chapter two shows the other side of the leadership coin: the constituents. They reveal from their research the characteristics that people most admire in their leaders. The research found that the tope four characteristics are: honest, forward-looking, competent, and inspiring. there area number of other characteristics that follow in descending order of importance according to the reasearch, but will not be listed at this point.

The five Practices are then dealt with in pairs of chapters from Chapters three through twelve. Specifically, the content of those chapters are as follows: Chapter 3-Find Your Voice; Chapter 4-Set the Example; Chapter 5-Envision the Future; Chapter 6-Enlist Others; Chapter 7-Search for Opportunities; Chapter 8-Experiment and Take Risks; Chapter 9-Foster Collaboration; Chapter 10-Strengthen Others; Chapter 11-Recognize Contributions; and Chapter 12-Celebrate Values and Victories. The authors use chapter thirteen to challenge the reader about how leadership is a learned set of practices, and accessible to anyone. This is  a principle I agree with wholeheartedly (Kouzes and Posner, 2002). This summarizes the content of the text, but one needs to consider whether the authors have accomplished their thesis goal.

Kouzes and Posner equate leadership to a journey or adventure of life, and truly it is for they do emphasize the process aspect of leadership to help the leader develop his or her skills throughout the journey. They also present a transformational style of leadership although they do not specifically state it in those terms. They use the word “transform” throughout the text, and make statements that leadership is like the following, “it’s about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards” (p. xvii). The research section of their website make it very clear that transformational leadership style is what they are advocating.

Transformational leadership is a broad and encompassing style of leadership that includes a variety of excellent leadership components and one that meets the Christian leader’s Biblical worldview. One of the main reasons for this and it is a strength of the leadership style itself, but also a strength of The Leadership Challenge which is its emphasis on integrity, morality, and ethics. Kouzes and Posner weigh heavy on this aspect of leadership because it is what they discovered in their research, and they believe that credibility is the foundation of leadership. From this they have coined what they call, “The First Law of Leadership: If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message” (p. 33). This call is not only refreshing to see this in leadership theory, but necessary amidst the numerous corporate and Christian leadership scandals in recent years.

Another strength of the book was its section on vision or as they call it, “forward looking.” The authors declare that the forward-looking leader is what differentiates him or her from others. Kouzes and Posner (2002) say, “Envisioning the future is a process that begins with passion, feelings, concern, or an inspiration that something is worth doing” (p. 124). They further state, “Vision . . . means an ideal and unique image of the future for the common good” (p. 125). this challenge is goof for all leaders, and the Christian leader needs to be reminded that he or she must have is the will of God and Great Commission which is both for the common good and worth doing.

Another strength of the book and credit to the authors is the way that they write and present their material. What this reviewer means is that they accomplish the goal of their thesis of presenting principles and then practice for the leader to follow. Also, it is by choice that the book is riddle with stories from all kinds of individuals and levels of leadership. Their presentation is crafted in such an inspiring way, that it challenges the reader to believe that leadership is accessible to everyone and  want to go out and lead.

If there is a weakness to the book, it is the opposite side of one of its strengths which has to do with the moral and ethical section. The authors seem to exchange the use of the terms moral and ethical without really explaining the difference. One can pursue a standard of moral behavior, but ethics involves the belief behind the moral behavior. Kouzes and Posner do speak about belief and how important it is to developing this aspect, but they could have done better in explaining the distinction. Also, with regard to this area, by not taking a particular belief stance, it tells the reader to develop their ethical and moral standards based on their belief system. There is a danger here. They do address the dangers of illegitimate use of leadership that arises from wrong beliefs, but there is another more subtle danger of developing moral and ethical standards based on non-Christian beliefs. For example, one’s definition and meaning of integrity may vary based on the belief system that one derives their morality from, especially in a relativistic culture. This of course, is not a Christian leadership text and the authors are appealing to a wide range of individuals in leadership roles, but it must be noted that this approach can produce some problems. The positives of emphasizing morals and ethics though far outweigh any possible negatives with regard to this issue. In summary of this section, Kouzes and Posner write a text on leadership that is consistent with their thesis goal, and have written one that not only informs the reader of the principles, but shows how to practice them. The Leadership Challenge challenges not only secular leaders, but Christian leaders too.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner have written The Leadership Challenge to help leaders develop their ability as they move through the process of their leadership adventure. They have written an excellent volume on the subject of transformational leadership that will build within anyone who is willing to step forward and become a leader. This book truly emboldens what leadership is all about-Everyone’s Business.

Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton are the authors of  Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Christian Smith is the William R. Keenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He received his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1990 and his BA from Gordon College in 1983. Smith was formerly the professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 12 years before his move to Notre Dame. Smith’s research interest and focus is in the areas of religion and modernity, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture (Notre Dame, 2008). Melinda Lundquist Denton is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clemson University. She received her MA and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her BA from Seattle Pacific University (Clemson, 2008).

Many published reports on the subject of adolescence leaves one with the distinct impression that American youth do not have religious and spiritual lives. Thus, the thesis of the authors of Soul Searching is a response to that notion by developing a better scholarly and public understanding of the religious and spiritual lives of American adolescence. The book attempts to describe and evaluate the shape and texture of American religion broadly by viewing it through the lens of the religious and spiritual practices and nonreligious American youth (Smith & Denton, 2005).

The book’s data is based on the findings from research that was conducted from July 2002 to March 2003 by the National Study of Youth and Religion. It was a mixed method research project that involved a national, random digit-dial telephone survey of U.S. households containing at least one teenager age 13-17, surveying one household parent for about 30 minutes and one randomly selected household teen for about 50 minutes. These results were then combined with the results of 17 trained project researchers that conducted 267 in-depth face-to-face interviews from 45 states (Smith & Denton, 2005).

Smith and Denton develop their thesis over seven chapters beginning in chapter one with some key themes as they are played out in the lives of two teenagers that were interviewed in the study. The second chapter delivers the extensive findings of the national research survey on the religious and spiritual identities, affiliations, beliefs, experiences and practices of American adolescents. Chapter three highlights the “spiritual seekers” who as the authors identify as “spiritual but not religious,” those that are diagnosed from religion, and the seriously religious in order to better understand who these teens are. In chapter four the authors develop more thoroughly the thoughts, beliefs and feelings about and experiences about religion and spiritual things while developing central themes of the youth. Chapter five looks at forces and factors that form the lives of American teenagers, and chapter six focuses on American Catholic teens and why they seem to score lower on the religiosity of the survey. The final chapter, seven examines questions of how religious practices associate with different outcomes in the lives of adolescents (Smith & Denton, 2005).

Smith and Denton produce a very thorough, substantial, scholarly and reliable work because of the extensive research that the book is based upon Yet, Smith is modest in admitting that it is not a perfect book, but its good generalities come from the statistics of teens that have been gathered. Smith has also produced a film with teens from the original survey and interviews which is equally compelling.

There are a number of positive elements that are gained from Soul Searching. One point which seems to have been a major motivator in doing the research and writing the book is that there is a lot of material written today that suggests that the spiritual lives of teenagers is either non-existent or relegated to being “spiritual seekers.” Smith notes that there is not much research evidence to back this up, but it all is based on popular stereotyping, anecdotal and impressionistic material. This is a great observation, and Smith later writes in an article that the issue of integrity comes into the picture for which both non-believing scholars and evangelicals are to be called into question.

Smith and Denton debunk the myths and stereotypical picture of American teenagers as they draw out from the research that teens are accessible, receptive to adults, it is possible to develop relationships with them, and they are not “aliens.” What teens need according to the authors are acceptance, good role models, support and the opportunity to develop good and well meaning relationships.

The authors do a wonderful job of identifying a cultural drift into what they call Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This view embraced by some teens believes that God or a god exists and orders the moral world, but they believe that the main purpose of life is to be happy, and God is not necessarily involved in people’s lives unless they get into trouble. They further observe that religious traditions are being colonized and eroded by this Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, and many social forces are fueling it and working against the religious traditions.

Another positive that the authors observe is that many of the teens surveyed are confident in their faith, especially conservative protestant and Mormon teens. A problem that was recognized though from the study is that many teens, primarily of the evangelical ranks have a difficult time articulating their faith.

One of the conclusions that was determined by the study which is very positive in developing a strong religious teenager is the impact that parents make upon their children. Though there are so many things pulling at teenagers today from the culture, parents get what they are in all respects, but particularly in the area of faith. The more the parents are committed to their faith, the more the teens will be committed to the faith of their parents. This is power and responsibility that parents must recognize they possess.

Another conclusion that is discovered from the study is that faith practice and community are shaping young people and their moral reasoning. The culture is arguing for vacating religious influence in exchange for relativism, but the study has shown that for the most part, the moral fiber of teens is being shaped by their faith practice and not this nonsensical relativism.

There are a few negatives in the book that are identified, but they are minor in comparison to the overwhelming positives. First, Smith and Denton could have given more sources and illustrations when they referred to the scholars’ and media’s pseudo-promotion of the majority of teens being drawn into the “spiritual seeker” mentality. This is also true in the section Therapeutic Individualism. Also, in the section Mass-Consumer Capitalism, it sounds like the authors may be arguing against capitalism, although they state that they are not. It may just have been their struggle in how strongly they should express the contribution of this over indulgent form of economics contribution to unhealthy teen lifestyles. Then, in the section on Moral Order, it seems to lack the historical perspective on the foundation Christian principles that were used and sought after by the forefathers of this nation. American culture was settled by those seeking religious freedom and they established this nation on Judeo-Christian principles. So, there is a long standing historic precedent in the establishment and order of this nation’s moral order that the authors did not argue well. In summary of this section, the extensive scholarly study that yielded this book has voluminously impacted the teen generation, American culture, and the church today, and the negatives stated here pale in comparison.

This book is very encouraging and valuable for it has shown that the American teenager is in a much better state than what many have purported, and that is good news for the evangelical church, parents, and the family. It shows that there are areas that need work such as the percentage of teens that still need to know Jesus Christ as their Savior, and the Christian teens that need to learn how to articulate what they believe with confidence. It also shows that the youth and education ministries of the local church need to stop and reevaluate the programs and approaches they have, and in many cases retool in order to do a better job in these areas. Also, since parental influence is such a major contributor to the lives and faith of teenagers, the church needs to put an emphasis on developing more faithful parents, and helping parents in the area of parenting skills. Family ministry should become an important part of the church’s educational ministry and budget.

In conclusion, Soul Searching is a well written and developed book based on sound and thorough research which is conducted by two qualified scholars who provide accurate and weighty insight into the faith lives of the teenage population in America. It is the opinion of this reviewer to highly recommend this volume to pastors, youth workers, parents, teachers, and all who work with teenagers.

We do not know the exact date of the celebration we now call the First Thankdsgivng, but it was probably in late September or early October, so after their crop of corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas had been harvested. It was also a time during which Plymouth Harbor played host to a tremendous number of migrating birds, particularly ducks, geese, and Bradford ordered four men to go out “fowling” . . . The term Thanksgiving, first applied in the nineteenth century, was not used by the Pilgrims themselves. For the Pilgrims a thanksgiving was a time of spiritual devotion. Since just about everything the Pilgrims did had religious overtones, there was certainly much about the gathering in the fall of 1621 that would have made it a proper Puritan thanksgiving. But as Winslow’s description makes clear, there was also much about the gathering that was similar to a traditional English harvest festival-a secular celebration that dated back to the Middle Ages in which villagers ate, drank, and played games. . . Neither Bradford nor Winslow mentioned it, but the First Thanksgiving coincided with what was, for the Pilgrims, a new and startling phenomenon: the turning of the leaves of summer to the incandescent yellows, reds, and purples of a New England autumn. . . The First Thanksgiving marked the conclusion of a remarkable year. Eleven months earlier the Pilgrims arrived at the tip of Cape Cod, fearful and uninformed. They had spent the next month alienating and angering every Native American they happened to come across. By all rights, none of the Pilgrims should have emerged from the first winter alive. . . During the winter of 1621, the survival of the English settlement had been in the balance, Massasoit’s decision to offer them assistance had saved the Pilgrims’ lives in the short term, but there had already been several instances in which the sachem’s generosity could have gone for naught. Placing their faith in God, the Pilgrims might have insisted on a policy of arrogant isolationism. But by becoming an active part of the diplomatic process in southern New England-by sending Winslow and Hopkins to Sowams; by compensating the Nausets for the corn; and most important, by making clear their loyalty to Massasoit at the “hurly-burly” in Nemasket-they had taken charge of their own destiny in the region.

The quotes above are from Nathaniel Philbrick’s bestseller, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Nathaniel Philbrick does a great job of telling the story of the Pilgrims’ voyage and settling in the new world. This work is not written from a Christian worldview, nor is it an attempt at revisionist history, for Philbrick well documents what he writes with most of his information coming from the writings of the Pilgrims themselves. The book is quite an eye opening read though, one that will both inform and hold your attention.

Overall, Mayflower, is an interesting and worthwhile read, especially during this season of the year.

Jesus said in Matthew 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first of the two great commandments, that Jesus declared fulfilled all the law, but there is an element of this commandment that believers and the church have seemingly lost sight of, and let slip away through their hands so to speak in the obeying of that command. The missing element is, loving God with all your mind. The missing element of loving God with all your mind is the focus of J.P. Moreland’s book, Loving God With All Your Mind: The role of reason in the life of the soul. Moreland’s (1997) thesis is stated as follows: I will demonstrate that a major cause of our current cultural crisis consists of a worldview shift from a Judeo-Christian understanding of reality to a post-Christian one. Moveover, this shift itself expresses a growing anti-intellectualism in the church resulting in the marginalization of Christianity in society-its lack of saltiness, if you will-and the emergence of the most secular culture the world has ever seen. That secular culture is now simply playing out the implications of ideas that have come to be widely accepted in a social context in which the church is no longer a major participant in the war of ideas. In the rest of the book, then, I’ll try to demonstrate how the church must overcome the neglect of this critical area of the development of the Christian mind, perhaps the most integral component of the believer’s sanctification (p. 21-22).

Moreland builds his argument by laying a foundation from history by presenting the influences that have eroded the intellectual emphasis that believers and the church use to maintain in the practice of the Christian faith. He then moves to the fact that Christianity is faith of reason, and that mankind has been created with a capacity of reason and how that fits into his being and the transformation process. Then, he progresses into the things that are robbing the Christian of his reasoning power, and how reason works. Once Moreland establishes that man has been created with the ability to reason, and should be using this capacity, he then applies it to various areas of the Christian’s life such as evangelism and apologetics, worship and fellowship, and then integrating it in our specific vocations and worldview. Finally, he offers suggestions as to how believers and the church can recapture the use of the mind and reason in their faith.

In the analysis of the book, there are both negative and positive aspects. Negatively, one might disagree with the section on Philosophy of Ministry: No Senior Pastors (p. 190). Moreland is not a Baptist and calls for a plurality of elders with no senior pastor to govern the church of which many Baptists would disagree. Another area where Moreland seems to miss the mark, he fails to offer any balancing suggestions in his over emphasis on intellectualism. His presentation is borderline elitism, even though he mentions in passing the fact that this book could be taken that way. Most of what he says is true as will be discussed in a moment, but the spirit in which most of what he writes seems not to take into consideration that many within the church do not have the academic backgrounds nor intellectual ability to achieve what he purports in the book. Yes, he is raising the standard high, but many will only be able to achieve a fraction of what he suggests. The church today, is faced with many illiterate people due to a failing education system that has not taught its students the essentials of reading and writing, but has just passed them along to graduation. Moreland does not address this issue, and the fact that the church may have to provide help to the illiterate by teaching them to read. Then there are others, because of various factors who will not have the intellectual ability to read and comprehend at the level that Moreland seemingly wishes for all to attain.

On the positive side, Moreland’s analysis of the state of the culture and the church is correct, and many have exchanged a once vibrant and balanced intellectual approach that could match the secular intellectuals for a total empirical and sensate approach to the interpretation of the Scriptures and the Christian life as a whole. Moreland raises the standard high for all Christians, but especially for Christian leaders, and this is good. He also has a section in the book on intellectual reading that is valuable and practical.

In conclusion, Love Your God With All Your Mind: The role of reason in the life of the soul, by J.P. Moreland is a very worthwhile read and helpful to the spiritual development and discipleship efforts of any devoted Christian and church.