Barnabas File

I travel to Atlanta this week to join thousands of other Baptists for the New Baptist Covenant meeting. The trip reminds me of an earlier meeting I attended in downtown Atlanta in December 1969. The meeting was Mission 70, a gathering of several thousand Baptist young adults, one that called that generation to missions and ministry for Christ. The meeting was unique in many ways. Under the leadership of Ed Seabough, Mission 70 featured not only missionaries and those involved in social ministries, but upbeat music, creative worship, NBC news anchor John Chancellor, and opportunities for hands-on ministry in the Atlanta area. For many of the students, it was the first time to attend a racially integrated meeting of Baptists. Mission 70 was a testimony to the strength of the progressive movement within Southern Baptist life. For me, as a student in his last year of seminary, it was also the opportunity to network with potential employers (including Glenn Yarbrough, who did offer me ...

The twentieth century produced a number of “great groups”—the Disney animation studio, the Manhattan Project, the 2000 Clinton election team—to name a few. These groups did not depend on a “great man” to make things happen, but this doesn’t mean that they were leaderless. Quite to the contrary, they were led by unique, gifted leaders who knew how to bring together creative people and facilitate their collaboration with one another. This is the theme of Organizing Genius, an older book (1997) by leadership guru Warren Bennis and his associate Patricia Ward Biederman. The writing style is a bit hard to follow and some chapters seem to be “cut and paste” work. At least the authors do bring together the key principles in a chapter entitled “Take-Home Lessons.” If you want to get the gist of the book, read this portion. In this summary chapter, the authors provide fifteen key characteristics of great groups: 1. Greatness starts with superb people. 2. Great groups and great leaders create ea...