Fear and Trust

God-centred leadership

David Runcorn

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780281063895
• eBook ISBN:
  9780281066735
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

The ancient people of Israel and contemporary Western society share a preoccupation with the idea of leadership. In this perceptive and engaging book, David Runcorn reveals just how deeply one world can speak to the other. The story of 1 and 2 Samuel opens with a woman weeping. But grief is often the precursor of change, and the answering of Hannah's prayer is revealed in her song as a prophetic sign of God's ways in all the world. As the author then helps us reflect on various revealing episodes, time and again, he enables us to trace the true presence of God in the words, actions or faithful endurance of people on the edge of the 'main' script. And, he suggests, it is in the kind of honest, disciplined attentiveness they display, that the greatest hope for leadership will be found today.

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Imprint
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Surviving leaders: On a journey beyond certainty
• 2. ‘In the beginning you weep’: Hannah and the unexpected starting place
• 3. ‘Here I am’: Samuel, listening and the tinnitus of God
• 4. On the perils of conscripting God: Religion, theology and technology
• 5. On the desire to be led: Leaders as the people’s dream
• 6. ‘Selfhood begins in walking away’: Saul the undifferentiated leader
• 7. How are the mighty fallen! When leadership fails
• 8. ‘What if?’ Jonathan and what might have been
• 9. Nobody does it better: David, man and king
• 10. I AM: God, hidden and revealed
• 11. Waiting among the dead: Vigil, protest and subversion
• 12. Calling from the walls: From victim to witness
• Sources and further reading