KEY NOTE ADDRESS - BISHOP COLIN CAMPBELL and CALL TO LEADERSHIP IS CALL TO HOLINESS

6TH NOVEMBER 2011


Bishop Colin Campbell

KEYNOTE ADDRESS   Luke 5:4


Effectiveness:  Today religion is considered a private matter.

Jesus' Strategy / Tactics  :

PATIENCE

Jesus uses Peter's boat as a pulpit.  He went to where the people were and uses where the people were as His starting point.  Jesus moves from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

It was the divine initiative to send His only Son to become as one of us.
Philippians 2

STEADFAST

Jesus is gentle  but firm in His desire to accomplish the Father's plan.  We cannot wait for the perfect time.  We are called to persevere in the face of difficulty and suffering.  Jesus is steadfast, resolute, single minded in the midst of changing ideas and attitudes and reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus needs us.  He chose us to collaborate and share in His salvific work.
The gaze of love – Jesus sees the person as he is and sees the possibilities of what we can become.  What we become depends on how each responds and cooperates with the help of His Holy Spirit.  God's plans for us is not to be good but to be great.


INVITATION


Uncompromising call.  Jesus is the master of the imperative.  He does not give advice or offer suggestions or make recommendations. 

QUALITIES

Jesus looks for faith, trust, belief.  Lack of attention, individualism takes the focus away from God and we forget His Presence.
John 14:8
Drives out fear and anxiety.
Liberates us from self and self deception.
God is always with .us through the power of His Holy Spirit


OBEDIENCE

Defeats fear and worry.   God  judges us by our efforts not by our successes.  Failure should never stop us it is an invitation to keep trying.  Christ loves us regardless of whether we succeed or fail.  All that we do has eternal significance.


LOVE

Faith, trust, hope, obedience are all necessary but the greatest of these is love.  Love must determine all our actions.  Sacrificial, self- emptying, agape love.

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8TH NOVEMBER 2011

CALL TO LEADERSHIP IS CALL TO HOLINESS

1 Peter 1:2

Holiness of life is an inescapable fact for all God's people.

After Jesus chooses the 12 Apostles we hear Him preach the Beatitudes.  These are the qualities a disciple must have.  This is the disposition and attitude of a disciple. To become more like Jesus is to  become more holy. The leader needs to be a living example of Jesus.  A lived reality of holiness.  The disciples modeled Jesus to the people of their day.  We are called to mold ourselves to the mystery of the Cross.  We must model, reflect and imitate Jesus to others. We have to have an intimacy and familiarity like Abraham, Moses and the saints had with God.  A leader is one who listens to God.  The final Word of the Father is Jesus and we are called to listen to this Word of God.  A disciple is one who hears, listens and practices.

Jesus is the Master of the imperative.

Colossians 1:14

Hebrews 1:3

Every Christian is a pattern, a model, and imitation of Christ.  All leaders are to mirror Christ.  2Corinthians 3:18.

When people sees in us a reflection of Christ, we will know we are growing in holiness.  A leader must have time for prayer and more importantly to listen when praying.  A leader is a man or woman of the Cross.  A leader has to enter into the Paschal Mystery in imitation of the Master.  There are no detours around Calvary, it is a part of the Paschal Mystery.

Jesus has said, "Pick up your cross daily and follow Me."  The Cross is the greatest point of rejection, defeat, failure culminating in death and yet paradoxically we have the glory and the triumph of the Resurrection through the reality of the Cross.  Death is the springboard to life.  Failure can build leaders.  If we are to have a share in His victory we have to share in His defeat.  Real faith praises God when we are surrounded by defeat, darkness, failure and sorrow. 

Leadership is a call to wisdom and discernment.  

The 4 characteristics required for one who is called to serve as a priest are:

Spirituality

Academic Ability

Psychological and Human Stability

Common sense

In the Jewish understanding of wisdom it is a double dose of common sense.

Grace must build on nature.

A CALL TO HUMILITY

Archbishop Timothy Dolan said that the pivotal virtue of the interior life is humility. The road to perfection is humility.  St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that it is the mother of salvation.  A leader must think, speak and act like Jesus.  Each encounter with Jesus was an occasion to experience His love, to grow and to be healed.  Jesus' mind was fixed on the glory of the Father and the Good News of the Kingdom.   Jesus is the Servant King and all leaders are called to imitate Him in servant leadership. Secular leaders exercise power and authority over people.  The followers of Christ who are called to be leaders exercise power and authority for people.  Leaders must be an icon of Jesus just as Jesus is the icon of the Father.  We must all be pieces of the master who makes of us a masterpiece.