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Though Ellen White is supportive of the traditional mentoring relationship of experience mentoring lesser-experience, in another example of untypical leadership counsel, she urged leaders to take time to develop a relationship with young persons.1 Kent and Nita Curry note that to have influence in a young person’s life, adults have to “care every day and every time you see them. You find out what they like, dislike, who they like, where they go after church, and what subjects they like/dislike in school. It takes more time than it should, but then, most of them have been hurt deeper than they should.”* 2 I found no well-known current author of religious thought who lists “time with youth” as an important function of leadership.

In speaking of peer mentoring, Ellen White collaborates Gladwell’s “stickiness factor”3 when she writes that youth can have twice the influence in the lives of their peers as do adults.4

“Very much has been lost to the cause o f truth by a lack o f attention to the spiritual needs o f the young, Ministers o f the gospel should form a happy acquaintance with the youth o f their congregations. Many are reluctant to do this, but their neglect is a sin in the sight o f heaven___ The youth are the objects o f Satan’s special attacks; but kindness, courtesy, and the sympathy which flows from a heart filled with love to Jesus, will gain their confidence, and save them from many a snare o f the enemv ” Gospel Workers

1915 ed., 207. y

2

Kent Curry and Nita Curry, “Seven Key Characteristics o f Teenagers Today,” 2003, from http:/www.ninetyandnine.com/Archives/20030217/ephemera.htm (24 March 2006).

3Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 2000).

4H istorical Sketches o f the Foreign M issions o f the Seventh-day Adventists (Basle: Imorimerie Polyglotte, 1886), 288.

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Though Ellen White repeatedly decries biographies that gloss over human frailty,1 she agrees with Stanley and Clinton1 2 who suggest that contemporary and historical

biographies can be valuable mentoring models.

Several well known authors of leadership literature mention the poor, marginalized, and those who have the least in society, but few consider activism for social justice to be a qualifier for leadership. Ellen White again fills in the gap and writes prolifically on issues of service to the poor and needy. Of authors I surveyed, Ellen White is the most unequivocal author on this point, indicting leaders who feel they are doing too great a work for Christ to take time to notice the wants of the needy and distressed. Adventist author Dwight Nelson concurs with Ellen White’s indictment, stating, “Christ’s anger is visibly ignited when the guardians of God’s truth spurn the economically disenfranchised, the socially alienated, and the nationally marginalized. The poor, the suffering, the handicapped, and the children—written off by the orthodox. It is the treatment of these by those in positions of leadership and authority that brings down the hot wrath of ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild. ”’3

Campolo, renowned for challenging ecclesiastical power structures, stated, “Of all the lessons the Latin American peasants were able to teach the official and ordained priests who had come to preach to them, none was more important than this: ‘God has sided with the poor and the oppressed against the rich and the powerful.’”4 Nouwen

1Conflict and Courage (Washington, DC : Review and Herald, 1970), 7.

Paul D. Stanley and J. Robert Clinton, Connecting: The M entoring Relationship You Need to Succeed in Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1992).

3Dwight Nelson, Pursuing the Passion o f Jesus (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2005), 23. 4Campolo, Is Jesus a Republican or a Democrat?, 151.

demonstrated his own solidarity with the marginalized when he left his position as a Harvard professor to become a priest to the mentally disabled community of L’Arche.

Foster writes that “the biblical injunctions against the exploitation of the poor and the accumulation of wealth are clear and straightforward. The Bible challenges nearly every economic value of contemporary society___Jesus speaks to the question of economics more than any other social issue.”1

In a commentary on John Wesley’s leadership in the area o f evangelical

economics, Theodore Jennings comments, “God is not the god of property and security but of justice and compassion.”* 2 Writing of the evangelical heritage of social concern, John Stott identifies John Wesley as the primary proponent of nineteenth century social activism tied with evangelical piety and evangelism. Stott then traces the twentieth century evangelical renunciation of social responsibility.3

Leadership Concepts from Chapter Seven

In this section I show differences and similarities between what Ellen White considered to be essential leadership qualifications and what a microcosm of current leadership authors shows to be important. I then compare and contrast Ellen White’s views with other authors in the key leadership issues of dealing with the erring, proactive visioning, and alacrity.

Foster, 82, 83.

Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., Good News to the Poor: John W esley’s Evangelical Economics

(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 184.

3John Stott, Involvement: Being a Responsible Christian in a Non-Christian Society vol 1 (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell Company, 1984, 1985).

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For Ellen White, the most essential qualifier for leadership was a living, transparent relationship with Jesus Christ.1 This idea is similar to Nouwen’s vital premise, that “leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus. . . [there is] the source for [leaders’] words, advice, and

guidance.”1 2

Ellen White sees team approach to leadership as another essential leadership qualification.3 Foster also sees the guidance of the Holy Spirit coming to God’s

collective people, not to isolated individuals who insist on their own way apart from the body of Christ.4 Patrick Lencioni5 concurs when he says most persons on a leadership team just need to be heard (not necessarily get their way in a discussion) and know that their input was considered and responded to.

Ellen White counseled leaders to set boundaries, guard their health, and take time for recreation and family.6 Similarly, Richard Swenson7 advocates that leaders put margins, or reserves, in the emotional, physical, relational, financial, and time categories of their overloaded lives.

1 Testimonies fo r the Church, vol. 1.