The Very Rev Albert Bogle encourages readers to remember that the Church is global and not just local.

LEADERSHIP is one of the greatest challenges facing our world today. The current rise of the populist strategy among world leaders, promising what they think will get them elected for a season, means that we are missing the kind of leaders who are thinking long term.

Those commissioned by the General Assembly of 2019 to look into the effectiveness of Presbyterian Leadership and Governance for our church in today’s culture, will have to seriously take on board how such leadership follows the example of Jesus to serve rather than be served. And how leaders in our church can reach out and be the mediators in our society, and across the world offering models for others to use because they are effective, fair and just, creating empathy between those on opposite sides of an argument.

The Christian gospel is for all the world. It is for every time and every generation. In common with other faiths and ideologies, we believe that ‘we are our brother’s keeper.’ In other words we cannot walk by on the other side when we see injustice and need.

The more we have, the more obvious the inequality around the world becomes to us all. Technology has made the world a global village. The placing of mobile phones in our pockets and handbags means we no longer have an excuse that we didn’t know the needs. Church leaders and politicians of all persuasions have a duty to help to effect change for the better in an unfair world.

As a national church I think we have a responsibility not to seek to model ‘Christian Leadership’ on our own, but to seek to work with leaders in other Christian communities to of er a model of leadership to the world that reflects the two major characteristics of the life of Jesus: empathy and reconciliation. Christians are called to be the people who live out the leadership style of Jesus. I wonder if we have negated this role? Instead could it be said we have adopted and relied upon the management styles of the corporate world? By doing so have we allowed others to promote their theories of leadership within our churches?

The Church of Jesus Christ is called to model leadership in a broken world. The Church will always have a local focus but it needs to understand that it is also called to be a player on the world stage. The Gospel is a peace strategy for the world.At the heart of that strategy is a belief that people matter more than profit and that true leadership is centred around servanthood, reconciling differences and seeking unity rather than promoting the charisma of the leader. Self-adulation is the Achilles heel of charismatic leadership.

By the time you read this, a new Prime Minister should have taken over the reins of leadership of the United Kingdom. The task of this leadership is primarily to seek the unity and concord of the people who live on these islands. A somewhat dii cult task, especially while negotiating a treaty to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union knowing that two out of the four nations in the United Kingdom voted to remain part of the European Union.

By withdrawing from one Union, the result may well be that the Union of the United Kingdom will itself become unstable. The Scottish Government already has plans for a second independence referendum. And no one really knows how the European political realignment will af ect the peace that has been won through the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland. The danger is for the Church to say nothing, and in doing so we refuse to take up the prophetic voice of the Christian leader.

The task facing our politicians is much greater than a mantra. It is to become leaders who represent the whole nation and not simply the views of one political party over another. Our new Prime Minister, if he is to succeed, will require to become a reconciler understanding the importance of empathy. He would do well to look at models of leadership that call for unity and understanding.

We need to have a larger vision. The church is not simply local. We have a global mission and at the heart of that mission is peacemaking. It seems to me that more of our church leaders would benei t greatly from understanding a theology of empathy and reconciliation.

If we have a divided nation we surely also have many divisions within our churches that need to be healed. Regaining our calling as leaders modelling leadership to the world may seem to many a ridiculous aspiration, but surely it is no aspiration when the prophet tells us that ‘Swords will be beaten into ploughshares’. We need to get better prepared for the negotiations to make these things a reality

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuaryirst.org.uk