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Oswald Sanders, in Spiritual Leadership, writes for the future of the church. In order to secure the faithfulness of the work of the church, he aims directly for the members of the church, universal’s leaders. He writes for pastors, missionaries, teachers and other administrators to challenge them towards greater faithfulness and effectiveness in their God-ordained leadership roles.
According to Sanders, the Christian leader, unlike other positions of authority, should never campaigns for himself. Only God can make someone a spiritual leader, and the duty and call of others is to recognize God’s call of leadership towards them. Not only are the responsibilities of leadership on those who are called to be leaders, but at times more importantly, the ones who recognize the faithfulness of God and his leaders have the great responsibility. Christian leadership involves a dual connection, with God vertically and with the church as a whole horizontally. Only when these dual connections are firm to the leader, can the church move forward in its call of faithfulness and communion with the Lord who saved her.
The spiritual leader makes a disciplined habit of learning from others, his weaknesses, and makes plans to strengthen himself for spiritual leadership. The great resource for spiritual leaders is from the example of those who have gone before, especially those described in the Bible. From the Apostle Paul, the spiritual leader learns to be gentle, understood by the outside world and practices avoiding unnecessary arguments. From Peter, the leader learns to shepherd the flock and to learn from mistakes. Above all else, the spiritual leader should use the gifts of the Spirit raised in him from the time of conversion.
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Colonial South Carolina played an undervalued role in early American history. New England and Philadelphia had a corner on European shipping routes, but South Carolina played just as a significant role in the very lucrative Caribbean trade. University of South Carolina history professor, Robert Weir, has admirably filled in a lot of gaps in the public’s mind regarding early American with his excellent Colonial South Carolina: A History. Considering South Carolina’s preeminent role in British America south of Williamsburg, VA, the role that the colony played extended far beyond its natural borders, which were set by the mid 1700’s.
Books like this, covering a large time period from before recorded history to roughly 1775 in a few hundred pages are by nature very selective. Weir does an admirable job of describing South Carolina’s history before European colonization. His main goal is to describe the land and the native people’s in relationship to how they affected and altered the English attempt to establish a colony south of Virginia.
What made Carolina different, for it was just one colony at the time, was that it was settled by business leadership from the island of Barbados. So total was the Barbados influence, that Carolina could be said to be the only mainland location that was settled from the Caribean, rather than the other way around. The story that Weir tells of South Carolina is that of a trading colony that remained a transitional land between the raw commercialism of the Caribean islands and the settled little British communities of the rest of British North America.
Carolina’s growth, and by extenstion, eventually the deep South’s growth and culture had its origin’s at the very start in the late 17th century. Relationships with native tribes were seen as potential trading partners, and due to clan warfare, as the first slaves on some of the early populations. Weir’s presentation of Carolina as an extension of the British aristorcracy, even to the famed eight Lord Proprieters led by Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, fits into the cultural model of Carolinians being aristocratic, yet demanding fairness and equity.
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