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Triperspectival Leadership | Church Matters

There is a good compilation of resources on Triperspectival Leadership at the 9 Marks blog.  Here’s an intro to the idea from the post:

To over-simplify, the insight is that church leaders tend to be prophets, priests, or kings. Prophets love to proclaim the word of God and dream about where God is leading the church. Kings love to put systems in place to make it happen. Priests make sure that everyone is cared for and feels God’s love along the way.

Understanding your church leadership in light of those strengths (and attending weaknesses) can help you identify blind-spots and make good decisions about staffing and new leaders. I have found this really helpful as our church incorporates new elders and thinks through how we can do things better.

This concept, although not limited to simply to leadership, has been a great tool to help people understand what they naturally gravitate toward in leadership.  I’d also recommend that you take a look at Drew Goodmanson’s material here.

via Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog

By Todd Engstrom

Although I was raised in the church and had a knowledge of God, I didn’t embrace Jesus until I heard gospel preached and lived out by some Young Life leaders. God has proven faithful and good to me since that day, even in great suffering and loss. I have learned to treasure Romans 8:28 as a wellspring of hope and truth.

God has blessed me with an amazing wife (Olivia), three sons (Micah, Hudson and Owen) and a daughter (Emmaline). Growing up in the northwest, the thought never crossed my mind that I would have four children who are native Texans. Despite landing in the south, I still watch Notre Dame games with my children every Saturday in hopes they will land at my alma mater.

3 replies on “Triperspectival Leadership | Church Matters”

In my admittedly limited experience it seems that there are an abundance of Priests and a lack of Prophets and Kings in most churches. I am not sure exactly why this is so, but I have a feeling it has much to do with the way we “call” people to the ministry today, especially in the Baptist world (which I am most familiar with).

Jeff,
Thanks for the comments, and by and large I would agree with your statement. If you are curious to read more about it, I’d recommend reading Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways ( or his blog http://www.shapevine.com/pg/blog/alanhirsch) and his insights into the leadership structures of institutional churches.

His basic lens comes from Ephesians 4:11-12, that God has gifted the church with apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, and with the rise of Christendom only pastors and teachers were needed/valued. I’ve really enjoyed his thoughts on leadership, and they are an excellent compliment to these ideas.

That is not the first time I have been turned towards Alan Hirsch and The Forgotten Ways. I will have to add it to my ever-growing book list. I seriously need to join a local book-sharing club or something because I don’t make enough to afford all of these books :).

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